Destination Me: wait....who am I again? I've forgotten!

I just want to touch base quickly and update on the Destination me project that Hallie started a few weeks ago. I had great intentions of continuing with weekly goals but then life happened. We bought a new house and sold ours. The most stressful part in all of this has been the fact that we had 2 weeks from removal of all the conditions to taking possession of the new house!!  OIE!!  And on top of that we take possession the day after tomorrow and we STILL haven't been able to sign the papers at the lawyers office due to a computer problem which delayed our documents being delivered from the bank!!!!  But I have faith that all this will work out and we will be able to get the keys on time.

Through all of this I have continued to make my goal of breakfast everyday and I feel much better because of it. I am no longer wanting to stuff my face with whatever is in the staff room at recess!!  My earlier bedtime goal has been challenged for sure the last couple of weeks just due to the shear volume of packing that has had to happen along with working full time at the school and doing bookkeeping part time. Not to mention still feeding my family and of course dealing with D (which chose now to not play nice!!)

Anyways.....the only goal I have for the next week or so is to NOT cause anyone bodily harm and to perhaps enjoy a couple glasses (read bottles) of wine when we are finished moving!

But for right now.....off to check a BG and then to bed I go!  (Before midnight even!!)

Destination ME: Week 2

WOW!!  I can't believe how such a simple concept as this "Destination ME" project that Hallie started would benefit me!  Last week I wanted to be in bed and asleep by 10:30 each night.  I did ok most of the nights but there were a couple nights that bed & sleep didn't happen until after the midnight check :(  However I did make up for it one night when I was asleep by just after 8:00.  Exhaustion caught up with me.  The one thing that I did notice this week is that by allowing myself to be in bed that much earlier I was much better equipped to deal with the curve balls that were thrown at me.  I didn't feel nearly as stressed and overwhelmed as I have previously when thrown these nasty stressers.  Some of the curve balls were D related but most of them weren't.  We are in the middle of trying to sell our house and purchase something slightly bigger.  All summer the real estate market out here has been incredibly slow.  As a result we hardly had any showing on our house all summer.  (3 in July and nothing in August).  Since the beginning of September we have had 8 showings of our house.  Now I'm giddy that we are getting showings but I could use a day or two (or three!) in between them to catch up on stuff.  I am tired of my house having to be "Show Ready" and I would really like to be able to do laundry without being rushed.  I hang most of the laundry to dry and when we have people coming so often I can't leave the clothes hanging to dry as I would like too.  My dryer is getting WAY too much usage the last couple weeks!

Since I noticed such great success with last weeks goal I am going to continue with my early bedtime as much as I can.  This weeks goal is to eat breakfast EVERYDAY!!  I know that this may sound simple to some people but for me it is really hard.  And it's not because I'm not hungry.  I just don't take the time for myself to actually sit for 5 or 10 minutes in the morning and eat before we leave for school.  Most mornings I will grab a banana or something as we go out the door and I will eat this as soon as I get to school.  I know this is not good for me, (even though I'm eating fruit).  I need to sit and eat a proper breakfast and I need to take the time to eat it slowly and enjoy it.  I am hoping that if I do this I won't be starving by the time recess comes and thus will be able to resist the sweet treats that inevitably end up in the staff room.  Even on the days where I pack a snack I am always so hungry I am end up eating my snack AND some of whatever has been brought to share :(

Hopefully this week will be as successful as last week!!

Brandy

First Week Success!!

Monkey's first week of grade 5 is done!  I can't believe it.  Where did the time go?  I must say she had an AMAZING first week!!  She loves her teachers this year (all 3 of them!) which makes me very heart happy indeed.  As far as D goes last week wasn't too bad.  She had a few lows but nothing drastic and with a couple tweaks I thought we were good to go.  I was expecting the lows just from the change in routine.  What I didn't expect was the 2.5 that snuck up on her today and knocked her for a loop.  A nasty no-good 2.5 that showed up right at the beginning of recess and that came AFTER a breakfast of Honey Nut Chex.  This cereal normally sends her sky high and the only reason she got to eat it on a school day was because the healthy fruit shake that I made her last night before bed decided to curdle in the fridge overnight rendering it un-consumable and left her in tears.  Sweet cereal to the rescue!!  Needless to say the fact that she didn't feel the 2.5 left me rather disconcerted.  This was followed up by a 3.3 after lunch this afternoon :(  Needless to say there were more changes made this evening.  Hopefully the rest of the week will bring up more success.  The other thing that has me crossing my fingers is dance.  Ballet started tonight and is just the first of her 4 weekly dance classes.  She is quite serious this year and has even decided that she will sit the Ballet exams at the end of the year!  Her new ballet teacher has never taught a T1D but was super receptive when I stopped in at the studio to give her a quick rundown of what to watch for.  I'm hoping she is as understanding the first time a low disrupts her class!  We have 2 more new dance teachers this year so hopefully they too will be understanding and receptive of information.

Hope everyone else's weeks were equally/more cooperative!!

Brandy

Destination ME

Okay so I totally stole my title from Hallie but it works so I'm going with it!!  I have decided to join Hallie in her journey to take better care of herself.  I need to do this too for me, for my physical self as well as for my sanity!  In the last 12 years I have yo-yo'd up and down with both my weight and my fitness. I used to go to step classes twice a week. I used to dance ALOT!  I even took up running at one time and liked it so much that I completed a sprint triathlon.  I'm not entirely sure where I lost myself but I did. I miss the me that was more active. I miss the mental clarity that came with being more active & healthy.  It is hard working full time, running a house and all the things that mom's do. As soon as you throw D in there then things get messy and all of a sudden there is no more time to even contemplate taking care of one's self. Well no more!!!  From here on in I need to take some small steps to find a healthier me.  So starting this week I am going to do things for me. Just little things. This week I am going to follow with Hallie's suggestion for sleep!  Ah precious, beautiful, long forgotten sleep!  My goal for this week is to be in bed and asleep by 10:30 each night. We'll see how it goes but 10:30 should give me enough sleep even when I factor in night time checks.  I'll keep you posted.
Hallie, thank you so much for the inspiration!  You ROCK and we CAN do this :-)

Summer is done already!?

It has been ages since I posted last time and I feel guilty for that.  But hey!  Life happens!  And it has been happening in full force around here.  For the most part Diabetes has just been around for the ride which is nice.  We had a couple nasty colds take up residence but that's about it for trouble causing viruses.  Since the end of June though life has been CRAZY!!!  We decided to put our house up for sale and look for something just a little bit bigger.  Our house is only 950 sq feet so not a lot of extra space.  This house has served us well and one would think now that our oldest has moved out we would have extra room but that doesn't seem to be the case.  Now we just have a spare room which we didn't have before.  We have found that Monkey is wanting some more space too.  Her room just isn't very big, especially with her desk in there.  She doesn't have the space that she wants to be able to keep a Lego build out when it is complete.  And for her that's a VERY big deal :)  So the hunt began.  We have found a couple very nice houses that we like and are interested in buying but of course ours must sell first since I am not particularly fond of the idea of 2 mortgages.  No idea why!

As far as diabetes goes it has been a good summer.  Monkey went to camp for the first time and LOVED it!  The only diabetes camp in Alberta is Camp Jean Nelson and it is a 7 hour drive from our house so I chose to stay in Calgary while she was at camp.  I stayed with family and this put me about 45 minutes from the camp.  Plus I had no desire to drive all the way on Monday after dropping her off only to drive back down on Friday to pick her up Saturday morning.  Entirely too much driving for my liking!!  Monkey has already decided that she will be returning to camp next summer no questions about it!  We are so pleased that she enjoyed herself.  The best part she said was that everyone was the same.  There was even another girl her age who was Celiac as well.

We had our quarterly appointment at the diabetes clinic last week and I must say that I was SHOCKED at her lab results.  In May her A1C was 7.7 and last week her A1C was 6.9!!!  I couldn't believe that much of a drop was possible without a ton of lows.  The nurse was concerned that perhaps we were missing some nighttime lows but could see that we were testing on a regular basis at midnight at 3 am.  She asked us to test at 11, 1, 3 & 5 for a few nights just to make sure.  Dan does the 5am test since he is getting up for work than anyways and I do the rest.  I'm tired but I'd rather do this now before I go back to work.  (One of the advantages to working in the school, summer's off!)  We have been doing this since Wednesday and so far haven't seen any lows.  If anything we are seeing lots of stubborn highs but she does have a bit of a cold right now so I can't really be sure if that is causing the highs or if I need to do some basal changes.  Probably a bit of both since she has grown another 1/2 inch.

School starts back for me on Wednesday and then for the students on Sept 3.  I am now in the process of getting all of her school documents ready to meet with her new teacher this week.  Our school system does not have nurses of any kind and the teachers/staff are not allowed to do any sort of D-care with the exception of supervision of testing.  No Glucagon administration or anything!  Another reason I am super happy that I work in her school!  I have been reading blogs like crazy trying to catch everyone's back to school readiness and get some good ideas!  There's lots of them out there :)

Maybe now that school and routine are starting again I will be able to blog on a more regular basis.  And maybe even with some less jumbled blogs lol.  But for now.......supper prep is calling!

Brandy

Spring?? Are you sure??

I know in my last post I had commented that I was looking forward to spring break and maybe even seeing some green popping up soon but I am still waiting!!!!  ARGH!!  We have had snow since Oct 27th and just when we think that it is going away it snows AGAIN!  It snowed here all weekend and on Monday (April 15) we had the biggest most beautiful (except that it was April 15th!!) snowflakes I have seen in a long time. It was even fairly mild out.  It was only about -2C.  I would have taken that for a snowstorm anytime throughout the winter but come on already!!  I know I'm not the only one that is tired of snow.  Monkey has been itching to go and play but in between the snowing and melting our yard is either an ice rink or a mud bog.  YUCK!  Neither of which is conducive to fun for my 9 yr old girl.  And to top it all off even though it doesn't LOOK like spring out there our allergies are quick to assure us that, Yes, it is indeed spring.

I'm not sure if allergies can cause a spike in blood sugars but wholly man have we seen a ton of stubborn spikes here lately.  Between allergies, a growth spurt that has wreaked havoc on her basal rates, a stomach flu and a couple failed sites my poor girl has been through the wringer the last couple weeks.

We went back to school after spring break on the Tuesday after Easter.  She was fine all that day and evening, then halfway through eating her bedtime snack she looked at me and said she didn't feel well and couldn't finish eating.  Of course she'd already bolused for all of it.  Well I must say our first real experience with a stomach flu and the pump was a whole heck of a lot nicer than injections was!  After the initial vomit & I called the endo to ensure I didn't have to do anything extra, we suspended for a couple hours and then just did a temp basal for the rest of the night.  It was great.  There was tons of testing and some minor ketones but only 1 bout of lows and that was right after she starting being sick.  It took a couple days for her to get her energy back but that sealed the deal for me!  I love the pump!  She was happy too that she didn't end up in emerg with an IV.

We have had 3 failed sites in the last 2 weeks as well.  One that lasted less than 8 hours and two more that barely made the 36 hour mark :( Very frustrating.  Not sure what we did differently with those sites as I can't seem to pinpoint any pattern except that diabetes sucks!

Oh well.  Now we are in the middle of doing a major overhaul to her basal rates.  Unfortunately it is a slow process.  I am just hoping that I can get everything sorted by the end of this week as she goes to see her Endo & the whole team at the beginning of May and I would like for her to be feeling better as well as have some nicer numbers to show them.  I did have a handle on her breakfast spike by doing a combo bolus. It was working beautifully before spring break so hopefully once I can get her basals reset I will see it working again.

Sorry for my disjointed ramblings lol.  I need to post more often so my thoughts so fly all over the place (or at least I hope that would help!)  I am going to try and put some pictures up with my next post too if I can figure out how to do it!

As always.....if anyone has any suggestions send 'em my way!  I'll take all the help I can get.  For now though......my bed is calling.....at least for a couple hours!

Brandy

New sites, spikes & dance classes

It has been almost 5 weeks since Monkey started on her pump and things have been going well.  We have had some ups and downs but for the most part very well.  When Monkey starting pumping we were using tummy sites only.  Last week we ventured into leg territory and so far so good.  The only thing that I have noticed is that we can't seem to be able to get 3 days out of a leg site.  We seem to be stuck on 2 days for leg sites but I will take 2 days if it gives us more site options.

We got the ok to start flexing Monkey's carbs a week and a half ago and are loving it.  Monkey loves not having to eat a set amount and not having to eat at set times.  We were also allowed to reintroduce snacks so that made for a happy girl as well.  Now if only we could beat that damn breakfast spike!!!  Oh well.  We are currently experimenting with a combination of changes to her breakfast carb ratio as well as her post breakfast basal rate.  We just made more changes on Friday afternoon so hopefully by mid next week we will see some positive results.  If anyone has any suggestions I'd LOVE to hear them!

Monkey started back to her dance classes last week after a month away.  (Combination of pump training, stat holiday & stomach flu).  We set a 50% temp basal to start an hour before her classes and kept it going for 2 1/2 hours after words.  This was the first time she didn't need between 30 & 40g of carbs to keep her going (along with reduced bolus at supper) and her teacher commented that this was the most focused that she has ever been during dance class!  Her numbers stayed pretty steady through the night but she did wake up low the next morning.  Next week I think I will try keeping the temp basal for a couple hours longer afterwards and see how that goes.

JDRF Edmonton has a Walk to Cure Diabetes in June and we are going to enter a team.  I haven't figured out all the details yet but since this will be our first walk I just want to make it a positive experience for Monkey.  We have also decided to try and make it work so we can go to FFL in Orlando in 2014!  Hopefully FFL Canada as well next year.  Hopefully FFL Canada will be on the west coast in 2014 which will make it much easier to attend since plane tickets to Vancouver from Edmonton are usually fairly inexpensive.  Hoping that we will be able to meet some other D-families!

Nothing else really happening here.  Looking for to spring break in a week and hoping that the snow will disappear soon.  I am really getting tired of shoveling.  I can't wait to see some green grass and start playing in the veggie garden!!



Brandy

Help from Friends

It has been just over a week since Monkey started on her Animas Ping insulin pump and she is absolutely LOVING it (as are hubby and I)!!  We have already experienced one site fall out (on our first day none the less), one bent cannula that led to vomiting with ketones, blood in the cannula and a couple lows during times that she has never before experienced a low.  But for the most part things are going very smoothly.  I know that I'm going to regret saying that but I'm gonna say it anyways.  We have had AMAZING support and I am very thankful for all of it.

The other day Monkey came to me and told me there was blood in her cannula.  I looked and sure enough there was.  I was hesitant to do a site change as the evening before had been her scheduled change.  This site change was the one that resulted in the bent cannula so I didn't want to have to change another one unless it was absolutely necessary.  I went onto Facebook and was lucky enough that Wendy was online.  I know that Sugar uses the same pump so I figured if anyone would know the answer to my queries it would be her. Sure enough she was very happy to answer my question and we were able spare Monkey another site change.  I figured 3 sites in less than 24 hours would have made for an unhappy girl so I was thankful it wasn't needed.

I have gotten plenty of encouragement in our pumping journey from Wendy, Meri & Reyna that it makes me not be quite as hesitant as I was at first.  I know that we CAN do this.  Even if it's with a little help from our friends!

Thanks Friends!!

Brandy

Diaversary and Pinging!

It's hard to believe that it has been just over a year already!!  Monkey girl's diaversary was on Friday.  I booked a pedicure for her to celebrate but had been planning on keeping things pretty low key.  Turns out that was pure foresight!!  She started to get a chest cold on Wednesday last week.  By Friday we were full on with nasty high BG's and ketones that I couldn't seem to get rid of no matter how much insulin we used.  She enjoyed her pedicure but was happy to get home again and lay down and rest.  Thursday and Friday were non school days for us due to teachers convention so timing wise her getting sick worked out well.  She didn't have to miss school.  On Saturday I took her to the walk in clinic to get checked.  After listening to her breathing the doc sent us up to the ER for chest xrays and IV fluids.  Turns out the chest cold is actually pneumonia :-( The fluids helped to bring her sugar down and helped to flush out some of those nasty little ketones.  The antibiotics they put her on are definitely starting to work too.  She has had pretty good BG's for most of the day, despite travelling.  We go to Children's first thing tomorrow morning to start our pump training!!  We have a saline start tomorrow and then go live on Tuesday with insulin.  I am very looking forward to learning all of the new stuff that goes with her pump but certainly nervous as well!!

Wish us luck!!

IT'S HERE!!!

In case it wasn't obvious from the title of this post......the long awaited Animas Ping Insulin pump has arrived!!  Purolator delivered the giant box to my school yesterday and holy man was my girlie super excited when she seen it after school!!  When we came home she had that box open before she had even unpacked her backpack for the weekend. LOL! But really, who can blame her for being excited!  I wasn't far behind her in pulling things out of the box!  That green pump and those cute little pink infusion sets had us both giddy!  When Hubby came home from work he wasn't even all the way in the house before Little Miss was exclaiming loudly "Guess what came today Daddy??!!"

Now I have 2 weeks to read the rather larger manual several times, watch the video and do the workbook.  Can't wait!!!

16 MORE SLEEPS!!!!!!

Brandy

Vacation, Viruses & Pump News!

So much has happened in the last month that I'm not sure where to start.  I was able to sneak away for a week in sunny, warm Miami after Christmas with a wonderful friend.  We had to go for a work conference and it was wonderfully relaxing.  I left my sweet little monkey in the more than capable hands of my hubby who was happy to let me get away for a few days.  It was a VERY long travel day on either side of the trip but it was well worth it to be able to catch up on some MUCH needed sleep and to just be able to relax and not think about blood sugar levels.  Now don't get me wrong I did think about home and what was happening but I didn't stress about it because I knew that she was being well taken care of.  They were multiple high blood sugar readings but the corrections were calculated and administered beautifully.  Nary a ketone was seen and they had some wonderful Daddy/Daughter time!!!

Being back to school has proved interesting.  We were very lucky and managed to avoid all of the nasty little viruses that were floating around school.  However we've not been so lucky now that school is back in session.  The first week went by without any issues.  But last week my sweet girl came home from school on Friday and promptly put herself to bed!!!  OH NO!  I knew there would be little to no sleep had that night.  She napped for an hour and a half that afternoon and didn't want much in the way of dinner or a bedtime snack.  Saturday we just laid low and didn't do much so that she could just rest.  Her sugar's were slightly elevated but nothing outrageous.  Sunday morning she felt good but her sugar was higher than I liked.  She had a birthday party to go to after lunch that I really didn't want to cancel.  They were going swimming for an hour and I thought that might help to equalize her blood sugar a little.  I stayed at the party while they were swimming and things were all good.  After the hour she checked her sugar and she was 3.1 (she started out at 13.8).  A couple dex tabs and she was all good.  They were having ice cream cake for the party and her friend's mom had graciously asked what Monkey could have instead since the ice cream cake has cookie crumble in it.  I checked Dairy Queen's info and we decided on a mini skor blizzard, 56g of carbs.  Her afternoon snack is usually 25-30 grams so I figured the extra carbs would work to cover what was burned while swimming and the excitement from the party.  I either mis-calculated BIG TIME or she was still fighting whatever nasty little virus was plaguing her.  At supper that night she was 27.2 with blood ketones of 0.3.  My money was on the virus.  The next 2 days were a blur of blood sugar/ketone checks, little sleep for me and very restless sleep for her.  Her ketones got as high as 0.5 but never seemed to go away completely.  It didn't seem to matter how much insulin I gave or how much she drank.  She didn't want to eat anything which made things a tad difficult since she is still on a Humalog/Humulin N combination.  But we managed and both went back to school yesterday.  We did have to do a correction shot at lunch time both yesterday and today but I'm hoping that trend doesn't continue.

In other news....we are now T minus 18 days until we head to Edmonton to start our pump training!!  Her insulin pump has shipped from Animas and should be here tomorrow or Monday!  Very excited!!  I have also ordered her new medic alert bracelet and a TummieTote for her.  They should both be here just before we head to the city for pump start!  I will be very glad to be able to better deal with sick days as we seem to have our fair share of them.  I'd love to hear any tips for pump start up to if anyone wishes to share!  This D-Mama can use all the help she can get!!!

In the mean time I am continuing to keep up with all the blogs that I read and I continue to add others to my list.  Whenever I find a blog I enjoy I read ALL of the posts from beginning to end.  If any of you have any to suggest to me please do!  I'll add them to my list :-)

Wishing beautiful blood sugars to all!!
Brandy