Did These Things Really Happen?

I feel like much of what I write about here involves changes related to growing up and gaining independence. So instead of today's regularly scheduled change-related topic, I went with a wild card choice for today's Diabetes Blog Week Post.  The prompt asks me to share the top 3 craziest stories I have about living with diabetes.  It goes on to say, "If you can't think of three, don't worry. We're just as happy with one or two..." That was not my problem.  Dozens of stories came to mind. So I created 3 categories and picked one from each:

Craziest Medical Experience:

This category has some solid runners-up.  There was the time the pharmacist suggested I have my daughter's humalog diluted by my veterinarian, and the time the lab tech slowly and cheerfully explained every detail of the blood draw.  But the winner goes to diagnosis day.  We'd been at our local hospital for a few hours.  We knew my daughter's blood sugar was 'very high,' but while several doctors and countless nurses had assessed her, there was (alarmingly, in retrospect) no diagnosis or treatment yet.  We were about to be loaded into a helicopter for transport to the children's hospital.  As I stood next to the transport EMT she turned to the doctor in charge and told him she would not put my child in the helicopter until he ordered an insulin drip.  I'm convinced to this day that after hours in the emergency room it was an EMT who first recognized that my child needed to be treated for diabetes.

Craziest Era:

The NPH days were awful.  They lasted for almost 2 years, while my daughter was between the ages of 1 and 3 at which point she started with  a pump.  They coincided with her short but ill-timed picky eating phase.  Here's a snippet of a piece I wrote about those picky months and having to eat when the NPH peaked:  I spent the first two months of 2003 trying, religiously, to stick to the “meal plan” sent home with us by our medical team.  Starch, protein, fruit, milk.  Every day at 1 p.m.  There was screaming and crying.  Yelling and throwing of stuff.   Sometimes she would throw stuff and I would cry.  Sometimes we’d trade.   It was reminiscent of Green Eggs and Ham, without the happy ending.  Would she eat it in her chair?  Would she eat it over there?  Would she eat it if I sing?  No…she won’t eat ANYthing.  We’d inevitably end up sitting on the kitchen floor, covered in yogurt or peanut butter, in an exhausted stalemate. And then there was a low blood sugar at 2 p.m., for which I’d have to squirt cake decorating gel into her mouth because she’d refuse to drink juice.  I eventually sought and received help from our excellent diabetes team.  But if I had to pick a time when diabetes sent me closest to the brink of insanity, this is it.

Craziest Encounter with a Muggle:

When my daughter was 4 years old, we were in line to enter a museum.  The woman behind us in line got my daughter's attention and asked, "Is that a t.v. you have there?"  I can still see my child's blank stare, and how it was mirrored on my husband's face.  "There...on your back?" she persisted.  Aha.  Lacking pockets, my daughter was wearing her pump in a waist pack with a clear window.  I took a deep breath and silently exhaled all of the snarky and sarcastic replies which came to mind.  Instead, as politely as I could, I replied, "No!  It's actually an insulin pump; to treat diabetes."  That stopped the conversation dead in its tracks. "Oh," replied the inquisitive lady.  She clearly thought this a much less logical possibility than that of a 4 year old wearing a television on her back.

Want to read some more crazy stories?  I know I'm looking forward to it.  We'll find the links HERE!

Playgroup

During my daughter's baby and toddler years, we attended a great playgroup in the community center gym. The local 'mothers club' had collected a plethora of toys and secured a closet in which to store them.  Every Friday, the toys were dragged out into the gym and children from birth to four were invited in to play.  A weekly donation of $2 got you two hours of playtime, a snack and juice, and even a cup of coffee for mom. 

My daughter and I, for the most part, enjoyed it.  She liked the 3 different play kitchens, the giant bouncy balls and the dress up clothes.  I liked meeting other mothers and having somewhere to go, particularly on frigid winter mornings.

This was one of the first places we brought diabetes out in public.  One or two other moms knew my daughter had diabetes, but I imagine many wondered about us; especially at snack time.

The kids would all sit on a couple of blankets laid out on the gym floor to eat their snacks.  Most mothers would then head for the coffee or sit on the bleachers and chat.  We'd head over to the side to check her blood sugar.  I'd then vet the snacks for carbs and determine whether she would eat the playgroup snack of the day or an alternative from my bag.  She was on NPH at the time, so very restricted at snack time. I would then awkwardly hover over the eating children.  I needed to be sure she ate her snack, and didn't eat anybody else's. What if she got her hands on somebody's juice? When snack time was over the children would be instructed to throw away their trash and go back to play.  More often than not, I'd have to drag my child over to the bleachers and make her finish her goldfish before she could go back out there. 

At home, diabetes was becoming part of our routine and its intervals were becoming second nature. The contrast of being somewhere diabetes wasn't part of the routine was challenging for both of us.  It was isolating to be the mom obsessively observing toddler snack time instead of sharing potty training tips over coffee.  My daughter desperately wanted to get back and play whether she'd finished her snack or not.  She wanted the playgroup snack whether it was goldfish (o.k.) or donuts(not o.k.).  She was really little, and any parent can therefore imagine her reaction to not being allowed to have her way.

In retrospect this was the beginning of a long series of moments when we brought diabetes along with us despite its challenges.  Yes, there were 2 or 3 days when I had to give up and bring her home because she melted down at snack time.  Most weeks, though, the fun far outweighed the challenge.  I wasn't going to let the possibility diabetes might throw us a curve ball stop us from enjoying a happy morning out.   A few years have passed, but that last bit remains just as true today.

Memories of a Wedding

Today we’re going to share our most memorable diabetes day. You can take this anywhere.... your or your loved one's diagnosis, a bad low, a bad high, a big success, any day that you’d like to share.

'Most' memorable day would still be diagnosis, but that's already been covered here, so I've chosen another of many memorable diabetes moments:

My sister-in-law's wedding day was memorable for many reasons.  It was a gorgeous fall day.  The cememony was held outdoors in the gazebo on a quaint New England town green.  My husband and I were both in the bridal party.  My daughter was about to turn three, and looked adorable wearing a wrist corsage especially chosen by the bride.

What makes this a memorable diabetes day is that my daughter started pumping insulin just days before the wedding. 

Until she started pumping, we were giving my daughter shots of NPH insulin twice a day and covering her biggest meals with shots of humalog. There was therefore no wiggle room in a very tight schedule.  If she didn't eat snacks when the NPH peaked, she'd experience  low blood sugars.  If she ate more carbs than 'prescribed,' her blood sugar would be high.  This highly regulated eating routine made every day difficult, but made special occasions a nightmare.

Imagine, if you will, bringing a 2 year old to a party where snacks are out on a table.  People are eating crackers, grapes, cookies and mini hot dogs.  Your child may have 8 grams of carbohydrates at exactly 3 p.m., and nothing else to eat until 'dinner time' at 6.  We had lived this scenario for nearly two years.  This wedding day brought into focus how significantly our lives had just changed with a new pump tucked neatly under that little party dress.

Allowing my daughter to eat a couple of ritz crackers while we waited for our turn with the photographer was life-changing and no, I'm not using that term loosely. 

The main meal was served at 1:30 p.m., which just a week before would have required us to pack a separate lunch for noon.  We then would have spent our mealitme distracting her from the fact that everyone else was eating and all she got was a glass of crystal-light and some celery sticks. 

When her aunt and new uncle cut their cake at 4 p.m., she was first in line for a slice and I calculated my first SWAG bolus.

That October day  represented new beginnings.  It was the start of a new and happy life for my sister-in-law and her husband.   It was also the start of a slightly simpler life for our family; one in which we could participate in social events without the anxiety and discomfort our previous diabetes routine entailed.