Thursday, March 11, 2010

Hello win column

I have learned that diabetes is crazy mix of disappointments and victories. I don't like the word disappointment, but I like the word failure even less, so disappointment it is.

I try not to take the disappointments personally, but I hate when I guess a snack amount wrong. Or over/undershoot a carb
amount to bring up a low. Or get the carb/insulin ratio wrong. Or I try a new recipe, carefully counting out all the carbs, and it ends up shooting Elise's BG through the roof for no apparent reason. Or I miss a low... the list could go on forever.

But I savour the victories. Perhaps it's the disappointment to victory ratio that makes them that much sweeter, but I swear if those victories could manifest themselves as a dewy meadow, I would run barefoot through them. No, naked. AND barefoot.

We had one such victory the other day when we went over to a friends house for dinner. I make probably THE best cheese fondue ever (and I'm so modest about it too!), and I love making it for my friends. Of course, these days, my house really needs to be declared a state of emergency
, so hosting is out of the question.

So I took my fondue set on the road and went to work creating my dish of cheesy goodness. When it came time to eat, their kids joined in, but Elise had already eaten her dinner about 90 minutes prior. Of course she was curious as to what was going on, and REALLY wanted to take part in the "dip dip".

Fred and I just looked at each other, tired of all the crap that comes with diabetes. You could tell we were just worn out because we just shrugged our shoulders at each other and told Elise to "have at it". Although we just let her dip the apples and kept the bread out of her reach. No matter, she was happy.

Following the cheese, our hosts decided to break out some chocolate fondue. Again, we just looked at each other and said, "if she wants it, let's let her have it." The interesting part was we never even checked her. I think we were just so burned out at diabetes running our lives, we figured we'd deal with the repercussions of a high BG later.

After all this "extra" food, we figured her BG was going to be uber-high, but when we checked it at her snack time (about an hour after we ate), she rang in at 108. Whaaaaaaat? So we gave her her normal snack and insulin. She went off to play with our friends' kids until we left at about 11:00 pm.

When we got home we decided to check her one more time, and she was 129. I think we learned a valuable lesson that night. We can try like crazy to "control" Elise's diabetes, do everything "right", but it doesn't always work out as planned. Then there are the times we throw caution to the wind and sometimes it all works out, with no explanation as to why.

I believe we need to find the balance between the two, and firmly plant ourselves there. Living in either extreme is not good for my soul. The tricky part is figuring out what it looks like for us.

I'm happy to say that after a year and a half, we just might have found a place in which we can rest.

10 comments:

  1. This is great to hear and wonderful to know that you are finding your groove!
    THANKS for sharing!

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  2. I LOVE this post! I've done this so much with Jada before....sometimes you just have to let them be kids...let them join in with everyone and deal with the highs later...because you know you can and you know she's going to be okay. And probably better for it. Part of our job with these kids is to help them feel "normal" (whatever the heck that is!).
    You guys are just doing AWESOME!!!

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  3. Balance is good! Definitely savor the victories, but don't beat yourself up over the disappointments. You're doing a great job with Elise!

    How about posting your recipe for cheese fondue?! After reading your post, I'm now craving it! "THE best cheese fondue ever" and "cheesy goodness"--that's my kind of food! Sounds delicious! :)

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  4. I am smiling a peaceful happy smile for you. :)

    Rest dear friend. Rest.

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  5. Ah...rest...

    It's a beautiful thing. And you need all you can get before the new addition :)

    This post gave me warm fuzzies. Keep up the good work and always run naked whenever possible!

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  6. Love the lesson learned here! Finding that balance, and allowing yourself to rest a bit!

    Woo Hoo to the victory!

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  7. Joanne - Thank you so much for this post. It struck such a cord in me that I decided to to a post in the subject myself.
    Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

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  8. Some days are better than others and sometimes we find balance and sometimes we cant . God bless us all .

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  9. GREAT post...I found you through Donna's post earlier today. So true, trying to raise them to be healthy AND Happy. Way to go.

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  10. Want the answer to why it all balanced this time? It's the magic of cheesy fondue - cheesy magic. That's gotta be it. Anyhow. Great post, and great job in doing your best in balancing all the craziness out. Elise is lucky to have parents like you.

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