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

Merry Christmas!

Wow!  I can't believe that Christmas is over already!!  I know it has been just over a month since my last post. I have started posts in my head  many times but just haven't been able to get them from my head onto here.  The last month has definitely been a crazy one for us.  Between work, school & many many Christmas concerts the time has just flown by. For the most part we've had some mostly decent numbers. A couple nasty, come from out of nowhere lows - one of them was a 2.3 that she didn't even feel :-(  We have managed to this far avoid the rather nasty virus that has been making its way around.  All of the festivities were fairly well managed D wise. There was a bit of SWAGing going on & a fair bit of grazing but up until today her numbers have stayed pretty even. This morning she woke up at 16.4 and stayed in the teens/low 20's all day. I'm not sure if it is everything catching up to her or the beginning of something unpleasant but either way I'm hoping it doesn't stick around for long!!

We have had the joy of having our oldest daughter and her baby here for Christmas so there have been LOTS of Nana snuggles happening which is great. They will be here until after the New Year but I am leaving on the 29th so I need to get as many in now as I can. I have a conference in Miami next week that I am really looking forward to attending. 6 days of being warm!!!!  I can't wait!!!  I am certainly nervous about leaving my dear hubby to deal with D but I know he can do it :-)

I hope & pray that everyone had a blessed Christmas and will continue to enjoy the holiday season!!

Brandy

Possible answers....& a date!!!

Well Friday was definitely an interesting day!! I'll start with the GI appointment that we had since it was the one that I was really worried about.  Now let me start my saying that Monkey's GI is wonderful!!  She is very friendly and is so loving towards our girl that is just puts her right at ease. Se was able to give us some answers to the ongoing tummy ache & frequent bouts of vomiting.  She thinks that we are dealing with cyclical migraines!!  She has given us a prescription to try for 6 weeks. If we see no more vomiting & decreased tummy ache then we should have our answer.  & if that's it then we should be able to wean her off the meds & just use them for her high stress times & when travelling since she really does not travel well at all. BUT....if we don't see an improvement she is going to schedule an endoscopy to rule out IBS and to make sure that her celiac is not causing the problems regardless of the blood work. Seeing as how I get migraines and have for a really long time I'm guessing this is a likely diagnosis.

Now onto to exciting part of our Stollery visit......the Endo was super happy with everything we have been doing. Monkey's A1C was 7.9!!!!  Down from 8.5 last visit!!!!!  So very excited!!!!  Can you tell?! LOL. I asked about a sliding scale for her carbs and was given one for supper.  We can use 1:15 & just watch to make sure it doesn't bottom her out. He gave me full permission to play with it as needed to get those numbers right but let her have to freedom to eat what she wants. I can only use this scale though for supper since she is in Humulin N to cover her lunch time at school. I am also allowed to play with it a bit for breakfast but only on the weekends for now.  If anyone has any suggestions I love to hear 'em!

And the other big news is if course Insulin pump training!!  We were given a date of Feb 11-13 for our pump class!!  I'm not sure I've seen Monkey that excited in a really long time!  I know it is a ways off yet but it is something to look forward to & I'm sure the time will fly by especially with Christmas right around the corner!!

So that's all my news for now!!

Brandy

2 for the price of 1?

Things seemed to have settled down a bit here D wise. I know I probably just jinxed myself but oh well!!  Monkey has had some pretty decent numbers this past week. A couple lows & nothing super high (lots of 6's & 7's!!) which I'm glad about because tomorrow is parent report card day!  That's right, we're off to see the Endo!!   I'm actually really looking forward to this appointment. It has been 9 1/2 months since she was dx with T1 and we are tired of the strict regime that injections brings with it. Hopefully tomorrow we will get a date for our pump class!!  We have already chosen a pump, spoken with the pump company & have started the process to get her pump covered under insurance. Alberta Health doesn't cover any portion of an insulin pump right now. I think we've one of the few provinces left that won't cover a pump, at least partially so I'm praying between the 2 insurance companies we are good to go!!

Now for the 2nd part of my 2 for 1 title.......For the last few months Monkey has had a constant tummy ache. She wakes up with it. She falls asleep with it and it seems to be with her all the time. She doesn't seem to have an appetite anymore most days. She has started vomiting quite a bit again and she just generally feels unwell. Now her family doctor is AMAZING!!!!  If we go in with a problem he listens to us. He will take the time to try & figure things out. The tummy thing really started towards the end of June. She had a very nasty bout of gastro that landed her in emerg because we were worried about appendicitis. That turned out ok but she never really got over the tummy ache thing. Since then she has had gastro at least 7 or 8 times. She has lost a bit of weight (not a lot because she HAS to eat x number of carbs......I really wish we had a sliding scale for her carbs......but I digress). She has started getting circles under her eye again as she is not sleeping well at all.  Her family doc has ran all sorts of tests. She has had tons of bloodwork done & she also had an abdominal ultrasound done at the beginning of November. (Not so much fun for her since she couldn't eat/drink anything prior). Everything has come back clean. We've checked her celiac panels to see if she is getting cross contamination somewhere but the tests don't support that. So her doc sent things up the ladder to her GI doc. The Stollery phoned me today to say that the GI wanted to see us next Wednesday. When I told them that we were going to be at the Endo clinic tomorrow after they did everything they could to make it so we didn't have to go back next week. It's a 3 hour drive one way for us & that's if the roads are good. No guarantee of that this time of year!!  The booking receptionist called me back about 1/2 hour later & informed me that she personally went over to the GI's office to see if something could be done. Apparently the doc is not in clinic tomorrow but agreed to come in to see us after our Endo appt so we don't have to come back in!!!!  So happy!!!!  Especially since hubby is just finishing up holidays this week & wouldn't have been able to come with us next Wednesday.  Definitely God's hand at play in that one!!

So that's our 2 for 1!  Endo at 1 & GI at 3. Hopefully good news from the Endo & maybe some answers from the GI :-)

Hope all my DOC family/friends are well & Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate it in November!!

The life of Crazy with D

Things have been a little (well maybe alot!) crazy around here this week.  I started a new Teacher Assistant position as my girl's school and D has been kicking our butt!!  Prior to this position I was at the elementary school across town.  Definitely more stressful when dealing with crazy a$$ numbers like we have been for the last couple of weeks.  Now keep in mind that we are in Canada so our BG's are measured in mmol/L so just multiply by 18 to get mg/dL.  Over the last 3 weeks we have had 4 sick days, 1 of which landed us in the ER on an IV drip.  Persistent high sugars over a couple of days that I was repeatedly correcting.....at least as much as possible on injections.  Monkey is currently on Humalog and Humilin N injections.  At supper that night she was 23.2 (417)  so I corrected.....again....and 3 bites into dinner I was hit with "Mama, my belly doesn't feel very good" and sure enough shortly there after I heard the unwanted "Bleagh!".  Now my girl has 3 extra units of insulin on board and NO carbs to cover it.  As the evening went on we tried juice, freezies & glucose tabs but nothing we could do would bring her sugar up.  I called the peds endo on call and he told me to take her in to the hospital. When we got there her sugar was 2.6 (46) :-(  We live in a small town so there usually isn't a huge wait at Emerg and they are REALLY good about getting peds patients seen quickly.  They had her in a room within 5 minutes and had an IV started about 10 minutes after that.  she was on a Dex drip for a few hours and the nausea seemed to have settled.  They let us go home about midnight and she seemed ok.  Of course I was up every 45 minutes checking her sugar levels but the nap I had the next afternoon really helped!  It took 2 days for her to finally start feeling 100% again.  What a long 2 days they were!

We actually had a few really good days as far as numbers go & I know that I should NEVER say that out loud.....it's like an automatic jinx!!  Apparently D hates it when we get comfortable.  Yesterday she woke up high again, 15.5 so I gave a small correction.  Her BG's hung out in the low 4's & 5's all day and now today we have been chasing lows ALL DAMN DAY!!!  She was 3.3 when she woke up, 3.8 at morning snack, 3.5 at lunch and it goes on.  I'm not sure what to expect when we have dinner tonight.  I am definitely looking forward to being on a pump.  The way her insulin is set right now is very hard to regulate.  She is on fixed doses and a fixed # of carbs at certain times.  & if she isn't hungry that's too bad she still needs to eat.  It's a good thing she has a good appetite most of the time!!

This week coming up is going to be an interesting one.  We have to head into Edmonton to see the Endo & her entire team at the Stollery.  It looks like it's going to be about a 3 1/2 hour appointment!!  Hoping for a good A1C and a happy Doc!!

Monkey's Diagnosis Stories

Yes you read the title right!  Stories is not a typo.  She has 2 of them.  

Our daughter was sick from about 9 months on. She suffered from horrible GI symptoms and vomited so frequently over the years that she damaged her esophageal sphincter and now takes medication for reflux. (A good week was only 3-4 times). I had her tested multiple times for Celiac over the years but the blood work always came back negative.  My husband is Celiac so I was sure this is what it was but when the bloodwork kept coming back fine I started to second guess my instincts. We went to our local ER countless times only to be told I was being an over excited mom & that my monkey only had the stomach flu.  Finally in kindergarten her symptoms couldn't be ignored anymore.  I could time how long it would be after she ate before she would be running to the bathroom with diarrhea & screaming for a bucket so she could vomit at the same time. They repeated the celiac panel again & finally we got a positive test result. In Canada you need a protein count of 7 to be diagnosed, hers was well over 21,000. I was devasted but knew we could do it. It took over 2 months before they were able to do her endoscopy & biopsy. When her Peds GI came into see us in recovery after the procedure she informed us that she had never seen so much damage in such a little person. Gluten free started & what a difference it made!!!!  All of a sudden my little girl was growing & thriving. She went from the 15th percentile on the growth charts to the 50th in 3 months!!  It was fantastic!  She finally was able to sleep through the night without having nightmares.

Then grade 3 happened.  We had noticed that Monkey was having trouble focusing in school & just didn't seem herself. At the beginning of December my husband slipped & broke his ankle & ended up having emergency surgery to have a plate & pins put in. He was taken by ambulance to the nearest major centre 3 hours away. We followed & stayed with his parents while he was in the hospital. Monkey wet the bed 2ce in 4 days but we all figured it was just stress. After we came home things didn't get much better. She was hard to get out of bed for school, she started sleeping in on the weekends (totally out of character). In January her & I flew to San Diego with friends for a work conference. While we were there she was really out of sorts. Her tummy hurt ALL the time. She vomitted a couple times and kept complaining that her legs were sore & she was too tired to walk. I figured she had been glutenized and left it at that. When we came home I noticed she was drinking quite a bit but figured it was just the difference in climate. (It's quite dry in the mountains where we live.) her skin was really dry & she was constipated. I thought that was odd since she had always fell on the other end of the spectrum. I encouraged her to drink more water at school.  I noticed her jeans were all getting too big in the waist but thought she was just getting taller again.  3 weeks after we came home from San Diego she went X-country skiing with her class.  She came home from school & wet her pants walking up the driveway from the bus. She laid herself down for a nap & turned down dinner. The next morning she got up, ate 1/2 piece of toast & went back to bed. She slept on & off all day & was running a fever. I just figured she had another bout of gastro. Sunday she was ok & she went to school Monday. I had to drive hubby into the city to see his orthopedic surgeon that day so monkey was staying at my mom's house. Gramma had to pick her up from school because she almost fainted on the playground during lunch recess. She napped & then seemed ok. That night while we were in the city I was talking with hubby's mom telling her all this & thinking to myself I needed to get her blood sugar checked just in case.  Wednesday morning she was an absolute BEAR to get going & even hubby commented that something was wrong. I spent all day trying to get her into the clinic to be seen but kept being told to bring her to walkin after school.  As soon as she got home I took her down. We waited about 45 min before being seen.  The resident we seen took a urine sample & weighed her. When I seen her weight but heart dropped. She had lost 6.5 lbs in 3 weeks!!  When he came back with her results he said there was glucose & ketones in her urine & that we had to go to emerg for more tests. I knew what it was as soon as he said ketones. We stopped at home to grab her dolly & tell hubby what was happening. When we got to emerg they were expecting us. They checked her BG & it just said HIGH.  That confirmed it. My baby has Type 1. When they did the lab work it confirmed a BG of 39.9 mmol/L (718). They told me that she was just starting to go into DKA. What followed after that was just a blur. We spent 6 days in Edmonton staying with the in laws getting training. It was all done through out patient at Stollery Children's since she wasn't considered critical. That was Feb 8 of this year.

Her last A1C was 8.4 and we are now starting the process of getting her on pump therapy. It will likely be Feb 2013 before she will be able to start.

Welcome to Diabetic Gluten Free Adventures!

Welcome to Diabetic Gluten Free Adventures!  

I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing so please go easy with me!!!

I  have been reading quite a few blogs written by parents of T1's or PWD in the last couple months.  Most of them I have read every single post from the beginning of the blog.  I must say that the posts have made me feel that I am very much NOT alone on this crazy journey!

This is somewhere that I am hoping I can share some laughter, share some tears, vent some frustration and get some "same-same" that all T1 parents crave!!

Our daughter was dx with T1 in Feb 8, 2012 at the age of 8.  I will post our Dx story when I get the emotional strength to do so!!  Anyways.....since her dx things have been exhaustingly crazy.  We have dealt with great teachers, not so great teachers and friends & family with varying degrees of interest/support.

Thanks to Meri, Wendy, Nicole & Denise for already making me feel welcome in the D-FB/blogging community.  I am looking forward to getting to know Reyna, Joanne & countless others soon!!


Hopefully I'll get the hang of this "blogging" thing soon!!


Brandy