Still Crazy after all these years

So.  My last post alluded to something dramatic happening to Elise and I over the past week.  Yeah... about that...

It all started Friday night/Saturday morning.  If you are a veteran parent, you know that this is the time when all children get sick.  In the wee hours of the morning heading into a weekend.

Elise woke us up complaining of a tummy ache and a sore throat.  Wunderbar.  Her BG was high and ketones starting to creep up.  by 8:00 am, she was 359 and 2.4.  With a temp of almost 103.

She wanted no breakfast, so I gave her water and put her in the car to drive to the doc, who is open starting at 9:00 am on Saturdays.  My plan was to drive there and call from the parking lot so we'd be the first ones seen.  On the way into the office, Elise threw up several times.

Did I mention that it was Fred's birthday weekend, and his parents had just flown in to visit?  Because it was.  And they had.

Fred's mom came with me and the dx was strep.  The doc offered us the option of a shot instead of the 10 day course of antibiotics.  Elise was cool with it, so that's what we did.  We had to sit and wait afterwards for 15 minutes to make sure she didn't have a reaction.

Throughout our time at the doc, I checked her BG several times, bolused (when necessary), and set temp basals.  I started to see an improvement in her numbers, but had no idea what her ketones were because I had used my last strip before I left the house and forgot to replenish.  This comes into play later in the story.

After the 15 minutes, we headed out to the car.  Elise was strapped in and as I was driving towards the highway, Elise started to scream that her neck hurt and she was breathing really strangely.  Trying not to crash the car, we headed back to the office where they put her on an oxygen/pulse monitor.  The doc came in and checked her over and couldn't see anything wrong.  Elise kept whimpering that her neck (not throat) hurt.  Her BG at this point was in the low 200s.

The doc left us for about 15 minutes and came back to check again.  She was about to let us go when Elise's pulse shot way up and she started to shake and scream that her tummy hurt.  The doc was very worried about DKA, since she had large ketones to start with, and hadn't been able to keep any fluids down.  And the Mom-of-the-year left the ketone strips at home.  Go me!

She wanted to call an ambulance to take us to the Children's ER, but I was afraid it would freak Elise out even more.  Plus I had my mother-in-law with me, and I couldn't leave her there by herself.  I assured the doc I could get her to the hospital on my own.

So we jump on the highway and I start doing my best imitation of a Nascar driver with some right turns thrown in for kicks.  About 10 minutes into the 20 minute drive, Elise passes out.  Not asleep.  Out.  My mother-in-law cannot wake her, and I have no idea what Elise's BG is. To top it all off, I get lost because I came in from a different direction than I'm used to (damn these flat lands with their no landmarks!  Where are some mountains when you need them???).

I also need to mention that I am juggling calls between Laura (Nate's Mom), Fred, and the endo-on-call.  The latter one, our connection gets cut of in the middle of his instructions.  I try to reach Fred again, can't.  So I call Laura and doing  my best to reign the crazy in, I ask her for help getting to the hospital.  At this point, Fred calls, so I switch over and completely loose it.  Doing my best impression of an insane person, I start to scream at him when he asks me if I'm going north or south.  Why was I screaming?  Because I could have been headed east for all I knew... freaking metroplex and their confounding highway system.

Dontcha wish you were on my speed dial?  I'm a peach, I tell ya...

Anyway, we finally find the hospital, get Elise in and get her IV fluids.  A blood draw shows her ketones are down and her BG is 128.  They have no explanation for the shaking, stomach pain or passing out, but I am just thankful that Elise is perking up.  By 2:30 pm, we were given the all clear to go home.  Elise says, (and I quote) "this was the most funnest day ever!"  Wha???

During my ride from hell to the hospital, I drove 90 mph (highway only), ran a few red lights and made some illegal u-turns.  I was praying I would get stopped by a cop, so he could show me the way to the hospital.

The moral of this story?  Don't forget your freaking ketones strips at home.  The end.

The smell of vomiting

I don't know about you, but when unpleasant things in my life arise, sometimes I'll put the situation to song to make it seem somewhat... funny, for lack of a better word.

Like on Friday night... I was nestled very snugly in my bed, playing a hard-fought game of Angry Birds on Fred's iPad that I had commandeered, when from the bedroom down the hall came a very loud... "BLEARGH!!!" (times 3). The bedroom that happens to belong to Elise. Le sigh.

As soon as I walked in, THAT smell hit me, as did the size of what Elise had expelled from her body. Good Lord, it must have been everything she ate that day.

So, as I shook Elise awake (yes, she rolled over and went back to sleep), checked her BG and ketones (80 and .4), stripped her linens, got her undressed and into the bath to wash the puke from her hair, I started humming to myself;

"Bah bah, bah bah, this is the smell of vomiting..." (Death Cab for Cutie's Sound of Settling).

Yes. I know I'm weird. I'm okay with it.

Anyway, the rest of the night was spent trying to get Elise's BG up, her ketones down, and the carbs we gave her to stay IN her. We tried apple juice, a popsicle, diluted OJ... everything we gave her came back up. Some of it on my bathroom floor. My very carpeted bathroom floor. That Mattias had barfed on only 24 hours prior.

(Side rant: Who decided that it was a good idea to put carpeting in a bathroom; the elimination station for all things disgusting from the human body? I can only imagine the cesspool of human vileness that is breeding in those carpet fibers).

In the end, smarties were the only thing she would tolerate and by 2:00 am, we finally got her BG to a point we felt comfortable with putting her to bed. And her ketones were falling instead of rising. She was still feeling yucky the next morning, but the pukefest had passed.

We hadn't dealt with the low BG + puking + ketones thing in awhile, and every time it happens, a shiver of fear runs down my spine at the beginning. I run through our sick day plans in my head, wondering if I've forgotten something. I do a mental inventory of our pantry and fridge, hoping I have something with carbs that Elise can keep down. I start to debate about when I should take Elise to the ER.

I'm about to go on a tangent here... but stay with me. I'll bring it all back.

Fred and I used to be avid white water rafters. Since we started dating, we had done a river every year; some of the hardest (commercially run) in North America. Every time we'd do a trip, they'd have a safety briefing at the beginning of the trip. I always paid close attention because frankly... rafting scared the poop out of me. I am not a strong swimmer and I wanted to know EXACTLY what to do if I fell out.

On one of our last trips, it wasn't me falling out, but another guy on our raft. It was in the middle of a class 4 (pretty big rapid), and he popped up right beside me. I didn't have to think, I just acted. Took my paddle, stuck the t-grip out to him so I could drag him closer to the boat. All the while our guide is yelling, but I couldn't hear him. I was locked into the task at hand. When he got close enough, I grabbed him by the shoulders of his life vest, braced my feet against the side of the boat, and fell backwards, using the weight of my body to pull him into the boat.

After it was over, I was amazed at how I didn't have to think. I just acted. I just knew what I had to do.

And I hope one day, when dealing with low BG + puking + ketones (which I am now dubbing lowpuketonefests) I won't have to worry... it will come as easily as hauling a guy into a boat that outweighs me by 100 pounds.

Rafting pics!

I should be sleeping...

But instead I decide to blog. Hey... free therapy, right?

So many things on my mind and I need to just get it out:

-First, thanks for all the sweet comments on my last post. Unfortunately, we don't have family here, but I have had two friends volunteer to come help out around the house. I'd love to get some sleep in during the day, but there is just too much to do...

-Because we put an offer on a house, they countered and we accepted.. YIKES! Now we have two months to sell our place. Have I mentioned that it looks like a land fill threw-up around here lately?

-I did get a bit more sleep last night, although Mattias woke me up at 1:30 am to eat. Fred wasn't in bed yet, and when I looked for him, he was sitting on the sofa folding the laundry (4 baskets full!!!). He had also started the remove some of the clutter from our downstairs area. Crazy man... I love him.

-Elise's BG was 480 at 1:00 am last night. We never see numbers like that. We rarely see numbers above 300, so it freaked me out when Fred told me. She had the same bedtime snack as always, and the same amount of insulin (which sent her low the night before), so I don't know what it could have been. It wasn't a missed low, because she was 200 at bedtime and headed steadily up after that (via the CGM).

-Even though her BG was that high, she had no ketones. Weird.

-After her correction, she woke up this morning at 240. Well, my first check showed 337, so I corrected her for that. Then the CGM asked for a re-check, so when I did I got 245, and 240. UGH!!!

-She went off to school and at 11:00 am, I got a phone call. Her teacher said her CGM was reading HIGH, and a finger check showed 405. HUH?

-After last night's high numbers and today's lunchtime high number, I can only conclude her NPH is bad. This is the first time we've ever had a bad vial of insulin in the 2 1/2 years we've been doing this.

-Have I said thank you enough for your comments and support? They are better than candy... which I have been stress-eating at every opportunity. I blame Target for selling their Valentine's candy at 75% off.

-I am officially going to bed now. Good night.

What's going on?

It's been a weird, wild and wacky couple of days. Starting with the night my husband fell down the stairs and Elise puked.

The next day (Thursday) she woke up at 179. We did everything as we normally would, except about an hour after Elise ate her breakfast, she said she didn't feel so good. Eileen says everything is A-okay in the mid-100s, but a quick finger poke says 132.

Did you catch the part where this is one hour post-meal? Yeah, she should be MUCH higher than that. Except she wasn't.

I calibrate Eileen and head off to open gym. When we get there, Eileen starts beeping her head off. Quick poke... 48! Crap-on-a-stick! To make a long story short, it takes 33g EXTRA (on top of her 15g snack and 25g lunch) to get her above 80. Her post-lunch number is 108. I give her a pre-nap snack, thank God for Eileen and put Elise down for her nap. Everything is great until right at 3:00, when BAM, her BG shoots up to 310. I guess all those extra carbs caught up to her.

Fast forward to today. Elise and I are so, very excited because we're meeting Tracy and Matthew for lunch. Elise wakes up with a bg of 174, and again we do everything as we normally would. About one hour after breakfast, Eileen starts screaming LOW again. Finger poke... 48. Crap-on-a-stick and holy déjà vu!

I start stuffing Elise with carbs and head off to lunch after I get her BG up enough. Another long story short... today it takes 50g of extra carbs (on top of lunch and snack), and she never gets any higher than 99 (pre-nap number).

Because of what happened yesterday, I'm a bit leery about giving her a snack before her nap, but I do anyway. All is well until I walk into her room to check out her CGM. I notice a smell. A very bad smell. Elise has thrown up all over her bed, and is sleeping in it. Oh. Dear. Lord.

At this point she's only been asleep for about 30 minutes, so I do what will surely get me nominated for Worst Mother in the World... I let her continue to sleep in a puddle of her own vomit. My reasoning is this... better she be covered in vomit and well-rested, than covered in vomit and cranky. Right? Can I get a holla? Anyone?

All this to say, aside from meeting Tracy and Matthew, it's been a pretty sucktastic day. Elise has been amazing through all of this. The weird thing is, she's not acting sick. She's her usual sunny self. She has no fever, no ketones... just these crazy low blood sugars, throwing up, and just for fun; a few bouts of diarrhea. Thankfully, she has an appetite and will eat and drink, although we've drastically reduced her insulin amounts until whatever this is has run it's course.

I'd be remiss if I didn't add how much fun it was to meet Tracy and her AMAZING son Matthew. I was wondering how the dynamic of a 3 year old girl and 9 year old boy would work, but Matthew was so sweet with Elise, and she stuck to him like glue the entire time. I think her hero-worship started when she saw Matthew do his shot at lunch all by himself.

Tracy was so much fun to chat with, and I am so glad she made the long drive over my way to meet up. Thanks guys for bringing some fun into an otherwise Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day!

When is water not really water?

When I go to a restaurant and they have a self-serve pop station, I always let the water run for a good 5 seconds before I fill up Elise's cup. I actually appreciate it a lot more when they have a stand-alone water faucet.

But the other day, Fred and I were out with Elise when she said she was thirsty. We realized we had both forgotten to bring her water, so since we were in the car, we elected to get her some water from a drive-thru.

We got her a small water and she began to drink. The girl really must have been thirsty because she drank over half of it and then said, "it tastes like juice!"

Fred and I looked at each other in horror and I grabbed the cup to take a sip. Water... but with a suspiciously orange-y aftertaste. I opened to cup and saw the water had a very slight orange tint to it. We decided that it shouldn't have been enough to do anything drastic to Elise's BG.

We checked her BG a few minutes later and found it was 93. Since it was bedtime, we headed home and proceeded to give her her bedtime snack.

Elise was having trouble settling down and falling asleep, which is usually a sure sign we're having a BG problem. We checked her (about 2 hours post-snack), and she was 250. With a bedtime BG of 93, she's usually at about 150 by 2 hours post-snack.

To make a long story short, we had a horrible night last night, watching her BG rise with each check. We kept hoping her bedtime insulin would take effect, but it never seemed to help. So at 4:00 am, with a BG of 440 and .6 ketones, we gave her a correction. She woke up at a nice 88 this morning and has been between 85 and 129 all day so far.

Do I know with absolute certainty that the "water" had everything to do with this? No. But I would say I'm about 95% sure:

-Elise's overnight numbers have been pretty good. Last week we lowered her bedtime NPH by 1/2 a unit, and we were debating on lowering it again after a few nights of having to give her a few extra carbs during the night to keep her from falling to low.

-She's not sick... no ketones today, and she's back to her normal, happy self, with great BG numbers.

-She had the same snack she has every night. We gave her a few grams of carbs (7) more, only because of the previously mentioned lows that had been happening. And 7g of carbs will raise her by about 50, so I don't think that was responsible for the huge BG jump.

Why do I bore you with this story? Because although I don't know for sure that the water was the culprit, you can bet that I'll never take the chance again. I don't know why they run the water line through the same dispenser that all those sugary drinks come out of, but don't you think it would be a grand idea for ALL restaurants to have a stand-alone water faucet?

All good things must come to an end

The good things in this case being Elise's numbers. During the past 2+ months, her numbers have been nothing short of phenomenal. Okay, her daytime numbers... I think I've given up on ever figuring out what the heck goes on in her little body at night.

Oh, but her numbers during the day were ever-so-wonderful. I was so in love with those numbers, that if it wasn't for Fred, I would have run off and married those numbers.

But I'm off chasing rabbits again.

Anyway, yesterday I noticed her numbers trending higher. Like high 200s. Very out-of-place for her. Plus, she did not want to eat. And at 11:00 last night she woke up inconsolable with a fever of 101, BG of 269, but no ketones. I tried to calm her down for almost an hour, then gave her some Tylenol because she seemed to be in some pain.

At the 3:30 check, she was 360 (YIKES), and .5 ketones. Hmmm, something definitely was going on. When she woke up this morning, her fever was gone, and she declared herself to be "feeling much better". Yeah, I hear sleeping will do that for ya. Her BG was still high at 269 and ketones were .4, not bad, considering.

But something was eating away at my gut, so I made an appointment for her anyway. Dx... strep throat. UGH, poor little girl! Between the illness and the antibiotics, I've resigned myself to the fact that our run of good numbers are over for now. But mark my words, I will get them back!

I'm too in love to give up that easily!

My aching head

Today is the first full day that we switched back to diluted Humalog. We finally got rid of the ketones about midnight last night, but she crashed at about 4:00 am with a BG of 49. We gave her some DH in her bedtime N shot, and I am so surprised at how far her BG came down (from 476 at 9:00 pm to 49 in 7 hours).

She woke up at 166 this morning and stayed at about 150 until after lunch. Her BG before naptime was 371 (usually it's in the high 100s). This is telling me she probably needs her morning N adjusted, but that I can handle.

My brain is hurting trying to figure out why the full strength Humalog made her BG go so high, and the diluted makes her numbers normal. The only thing I can think (and you wily veterans please correct me if I'm way off base) is that the full strength made her BG so low that her liver was kicking out a tonne of extra glucose. That is the only thing my pea-brain can think of.

Even the on-call endo last night was puzzled. Now I don't feel so bad.

Back to the drawing board

After a day of Elise's BG not going below 350 and ketones ranging from 0.9 to 1.9, we're going back to using diluted insulin. We talked to the endo on call and she agrees that this is the best course of action.

It seems a little counter-intuitive right now, but we're hoping this will work.

Poor Elise is feeling horrible and keeps telling me, "I no feel good." It is absolutely heartbreaking.

Another long night

After Elise's 66 at 10:00 last night, we knew we were in for another long, sleepless night. At 11:00 she was 105. At 12:00 she was 151, which made us feel better. Unfortunately, two exhausted parents slept through the 2:00 alarm and we never checked her until about 3:30 when she was 309.

And then at wake up, she was 443 with 1.9 ketones. What the WHAT??? I am so freaking tired of all of this. Fred wants to go back to using diluted so we can get these crazy numbers to go away (if that is indeed the problem), but I know we need to bite the bullet and keep using the full-strength. The hard part is we cannot figure out a sliding scale for her. On diluted it was 1 unit when between 300-400, and over 400 she got 2 units. That equals less than 1/4 of a unit!

I just don't know where to start to fix the problems... I think a call to the endo is in order. Joy. It's not that I don't like our endo, it's just the CDEs are a pain in the butt and are often more aggravating than they are helpful.

Unlike you guys... thank you for your comments. Talk about a bright spot in an otherwise craptastic time.

Just stuff

First off, I've been meaning to post a HUGE thank you to Nicole for the sweet present I received in the mail. I love it and love you for sending it, my wonderful friend! Sorry I'm so late in posting about it.

Yesterday we had one of those days. You know, scary high numbers that totally came out of left field. They continued through the night and Elise woke up in the upper 300s with 1.3 ketones. I managed to get everything under control by lunch, but man... days like that can really take the wind out of your sails. Especially since things have been so amazing lately.

And I saved the best for last. Our trip to San Francisco is coming up! We leave on Thursday and I am so excited I just may pee myself a little before we leave. I haven't had a vacation since I was 6 months pregnant with Elise. We'll be staying at the house of some friends of ours (who will be away for 4 out of the 6 days we're there... woo-hoo free hotel!), and getting to hang out with some other old friends we haven't seen in awhile (we used to live in SF). The daughter of the people we are staying with is who Elise is named after... and I cannot wait for the two of them to meet. The other Elise is now 8 and I think my Elise will just adore her.

And the best part of all? I get to meet MERI!!! Sweet, wonderful, superstar, the-sister-I-never-had... MERI! I am so excited I just DID pee my pants a little!

So that's my post of "just stuff". If you could, please pray that our trip goes smoothly with no flight issues and especially no BG issues!

Return of the bad night time numbers

I just don't get what we're doing wrong at night. It seems every time we make a change, we have a few good nights and then it all sucks again. Yes, you heard me... sucks. I'm tired and crabby and all I want is a good nights sleep where I'm not worrying about stupid numbers.

What I can't be sure of is if Elise is going low overnight and the morning highs are a result of a rebound. But we're checking her. Last night before bed she was 197... a bit high, but we gave her the usual dose (3.5 of NPH) and a few less carbs. At 1:30 am she was 193, and she woke us up at 3:00 am crying for banana, something she does when she's low. To our surprise, she was 283! Did we miss a low and she was just slow feeling it?

She woke up this morning at 254 and 1.1 ketones. In fact, I have a suspicion she wakes up with ketones almost every morning. I'm going to start putting cotton balls in her diaper again and using ketostix to find out for sure. The ketones were gone by 10:30, but her BG was almost 300. At lunch she was back to a normal 98.

We have an endo appointment coming up in 10 days and I'd like to have this figured out by then. I just don't know what else to do. Until I know for sure that she's not going low overnight, I don't want to raise her insulin.

We had actually had about a week of pretty good overnight numbers, so I thought we were through this.

It's enough to make you want to sit and eat a whole bowl of apple butter in one sitting.

New post... now with more complaining!

I've been so caught up in getting the shirts ordered, I haven't blogged about anything else. Time for a regularly scheduled post in which I complain a lot. Ready? GO!

Seriously, we are STILL dealing with night time issues, and I am so tired I feel like I am going to fall over at any minute. The smart thing would be for me to lay down and nap while Elise also naps (which would be right now), but then when would I complain? Actually, I don't really like to nap during the day, I always wake up feeling worse.

We had ONE good night, where Elise's BG was in the 170s all night long, but otherwise it's been the same thing over and over. Her bedtime check she's between 90 and 130. We give 15g of carbs (whole wheat bread, soynut butter and banana mashed with avocado), and then 3 units of NPH. At least, right now it's 3 units. I think that's going to change tonight.

At midnight check she's usually in the low 200s. By 3:00 am, she's in the upper 200s, to lower 300s. This morning she woke up at 350 with 1.1 ketones.

To make matters worse, she's STILL waking and crying during the night. And it's killing us.

We're now giving her shot and snack at the same time (used to be 45 minutes apart), and the first night we did that, she had the 170s through the night. But then the next night it was back to the same old, same old.

I think our next course of action is to either lower the snack amount, or up the insulin. The last time we upped the insulin to 3.5, we had a low at about 1:00 am. Maybe less carbs will do it. The one time we tried to give her some fast-acting with her snack (only 1 unit), we battled lows all night.

What really gets me is that her daytime numbers are wonderful. After an initial wake-up where she's high, her numbers range from 90-160 during the day. Why can't we figure out the night stuff?

And how long will it be before I'm certifiably crazy due to lack of sleep?

It's going to be one of those days

It's on mornings like these that I wish I drank coffee, because I am going to need something to get me through to nap time.

I really tried to go to bed last night when everything was done before 10:00, but of course I didn't and when Fred and I finally went to bed at 11:30, Elise woke up screaming.

Usually when that happens, we go in, check her BG and settle her down. Even if she's low, she usually goes right back to sleep with no problems after we feed her something.

But last night her BG was 342 and we could tell she felt awful. She kept screaming that her tummy hurt, and no matter how hard we tried to soothe her, she just kept crying. We don't correct her for highs except at meal times (and sometimes before bed), so there was not much we could do. Plus she's on NPH at bedtime, so we were hoping it would peak soon to help take care of the high BG,

Meanwhile, over an hour later, she's still crying. It is such a horrible feeling, knowing your child is in pain, but there's not much you can do about it. I was so tempted to just give her a unit of DH, but I was worried about her going too low. We decided to check her again and she was at 304 with .9 ketones.

Finally, around 2:00 she settled down. We haven't had a night like that in ages, and to make matters worse, Elise decided to wake up a full hour earlier than normal. And even worse, I woke up with all my neck muscles in spasm and can barely move.

I'm ready for Tuesday to be over.

Getting better

Elise seems to be doing a bit better. We took her to the pedi and they ruled out the flu and strep. They did do a urine culture, since Elise is prone to UTIs. It was so horrible watching them catheterize her. She's had it done more than 10 times in her young, little life; but this was by far the worst. She kept calling my name and saying, "all done, all done, please?"

It brings tears to my eyes just typing it. I can't wait until she's potty trained.

We're still waiting to hear back, but meanwhile Elise is waking up in the 300s and with ketones. She was 1.4 today, but yesterday she woke up with 2.6 on the blood ketone meter. I think that's the highest she's ever had.

I think she's also teething, it looks like something on the bottom is trying to pop through next to her two front teeth. The poor girl, as if she's not dealing with enough right now.

And I can't tell if her tummy may still be bothering her, or we've entered into the "picky toddler domain", but feeding her these last few days has been a beating. She doesn't even want yogurt, which has always been a favourite. But I'm wondering if that has anything to do with the fact that we were feeding her yogurt when she threw up.

I still can't eat Thai food after a rather unfortunate incident in my first trimester when I was pregnant with Elise.

But she's getting a bit better each day, and I am thankful for all the tips, sweet comments and prayers.

Learning our lessons

With my Mom visiting, we've been a bit out of our routine lately. Which is not such a huge deal, but last night it messed us up big time.

Usually at bedtime, Fred bathes Elise, while I get her snack and shot ready. But my Mom loves bath time with Elise, so Fred and I have sort of divvied up the other tasks. Last night we had the added confusion of a low (56) before her bath, so we were scrambling to get some carbs into Elise, then re-test, fix her snack and get the insulin ready.

To make a very long story short, Elise woke us up at 3:30 this morning. She was crying and asking for water, which is usually a sign of a low. I stayed in bed as Fred went to test her, but snapped wide awake when I heard him calling me frantically over the baby monitor.

"Joanne... get up! Where's the ketone monitor? She's 560!"

I don't think I have ever gotten out of bed so quickly. She was 1.8 on the ketone meter, and then it hit us... we had forgotten her bedtime NPH. We had given her 6g of carbs for the low, 15g of carbs for her snack, but no insulin for overnight. Talk about feeling like the worst parents in the world.

What should have tipped us off that there was a problem was the fact that she was 360 before we went to bed. But we have seen numbers like that before at night, and she wakes up fine the next morning. We should have checked her again, but we didn't.

After calling the after-hours number, we gave her the sliding scale. If I had sat and thought about it long enough, I wouldn't have needed to call, but this had never happened before, and I wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing.

She woke up high (356 ) and with ketones (1.8), but was normal at lunch and even low (55) when she woke up from her nap.

Fred and I had been feeling pretty good about things D-wise lately, but it seems when we get lulled into that false sense of security that diabetes rears it's ugly head and bites you in the bum.

A scary lesson, and I'm just glad it wasn't worse.

I'm alive... ALIVE!

No need to send in the troops... all is well here. Okay, well enough I suppose. I'm still getting over my illness, but at least I have my voice back! And I'm making up for lost words, too! My poor, poor husband...

As for Elise, I finally got to talk to one of the nutritionists from the endo's office, and she also thinks we need to be giving Elise more carbs at snack time. So, on Friday, I started giving her 15g of carbs mid-morning, in the afternoon and at bedtime. I made sure she had a complex carb, some good fat and protein with each snack. And the first day, everything seemed okay.

But then all those extra carbs started catching up with Elise and she was having BG levels in the upper 300s. Yuck! We haven't seen numbers like that in a while. I stopped giving her a snack in the afternoon because when I'd check her BG and she was at 378, I just couldn't give her more carbs on top of that. Last night at bedtime, her BG was so high that we gave her some DH along with her NPH because both the CDE and the nutritionist insisted we give Elise 15g at bedtime (is it just me or were there a lot of acronyms in that last sentence? If you have no clue what I just said you can always click on the "explanation of diabetes terms" link on the side of my blog).

This morning she woke up with a BG of 250, and ketones at .9, so I gave her a little extra DH. Her sliding scale starts at 300, but I find if we start the day off high, we never get into range. To my delight, she was within range the rest of the day! Well, except for mid-morning, but we always deal with a post-breakfast spike, and it was 248... which isn't that bad (for us).

I hope our numbers stay as even as they were today and that there are no more illnesses for awhile. I think my abs are getting pretty ripped from all the coughing!

Are you tired of all this yet?

I was so caught up in my running out of gas drama that I forgot to post what the doctor said about Elise's rash. It looks like it's hives caused by an allergic reaction. What I've been noticing is that is gets worse when Elise is either in the sun or in the heat (can;t figure out which yet). Great, my child is allergic to either the heat or sun and we live in Texas where it's been 100 degrees plus for like 2 weeks now.

She also said that the napping issues could be tied to Elise's separation anxiety which is very age appropriate right now.

Wednesday hasn't started off so great as Elise woke up at 2:30 with a BG of 56. We gave her 8g of carbs and she woke up with a BG of 239 and .9 ketones. I didn't get a whole lot of sleep because I was up all night coughing, and my husband left at 4:30 this morning to go to the airport to fly to NYC until Friday.

When I did get out of bed to wake Elise up this morning I found that I had no voice. Zip, zero, nada. The only way I can make any sound at all is to whisper. Which was wonderful because I needed to call Elise's endo and try to figure out why she's waking up with ketones every morning. The poor lady had to listen to me whisper for about 20 minutes! But the good news is we've got an action plan and I finally feel like I have some answers.

But the good news is I still have a smile on my face and Elise is in a pretty good mood. Mostly because she thinks my "new" voice is hilarious!

Joanne's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad... weekend

Oh man, if I could go back and erase the last two days, I would. I cannot remember being that miserable in a long time.

It started Saturday morning when I woke up feeling sick. Sore throat, headache and a wee bit nauseous. I wrote it off as just being tired and tried to get on with my day.

After lunch, we had a battle royal with Elise about nap time. Seriously, the girl screamed for over an hour before she finally went to sleep. I usually don't like letting her get that upset (for fear of what it will do to her blood sugar), but I'm starting to see hints of a strong-willed child, and I feel like I need to put my foot down. She's tired, all the signs are there, she just doesn't want to miss anything. She awoke, screaming of course, after only 45 minutes.

After she got up, we had to go grocery shopping. We had Elise in one of those carts with the car on the front, and about halfway through, we noticed her face was getting puffy and red. She also had a rash on her arm with what looked like a white bite-mark in the middle. We got her out of the cart and it cleared up. So weird. We always use those carts and have never had a problem. Fred told me the reason he picked that particular cart is because it looked brand new.

Throughout the day we were battling high BG numbers with ketones on and off. She woke up with them, then they were gone at lunch, only to reappear at bedtime. We hung out with some friends that night who had invited us over to come see the owl and her owlets in their backyard. Elise loves owls, so we thought she'd love it... and she did, except she was soooooo cranky the whole time.

When I went to bed that night, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I had a fever, chills, muscle aches and my throat was on fire. I downed two Tylenol PMs, and tossed and turned until I fell asleep.

Sunday morning Elise started crying at around 4:00 am, so Fred went in to check her BG. High 200s with 0.7 ketones. She settled down, but when she woke up a few hours later, her BG was still high and ketones were now 2.0. We called the endo, spoke to the on-call doc and felt reassured that what we were doing was right.

After lunch, Fred had to drive some neighbours to the airport, and as soon as he left, Elise went crazy. She's been having this separation anxiety from him lately. If he even leaves the room, she gets so upset. I think it was made worse this weekend because she wasn't feeling well. I tried to settle her down and put her down for a nap, but she went ballistic! It was awful listening to her scream like that. After about 45 minutes, she finally slept... for 30 minutes.

When she woke up, we let her play for a bit, and at some point we noticed she had the same rash as yesterday, but now it was all over her body. It looked so bad, but it didn't seem to bother her. Thankfully, we have a friend who is a PA that lives nearby, so he told Fred to bring her over. He said it looked like an allergic reaction to something, and gave us some soap to bathe her with and told us to use Benadryl cream on the rash. It did the trick and the rash started looking better almost right away.

All this drama caused us to miss church, which wasn't a huge deal since the last two times we've been, Elise has gotten so upset in the nursery, we've had to leave service to get her.

I woke up this morning feeling worse than ever (seriously, the last time I felt this bad is when I had strep throat). I managed to get in to see my doc, but the only appointment time they have is when my husband is in a meeting. So I have to drag Elise with me to a germ-infested doctor's office. Yay.

So let's see; we're battling high BG numbers, ketones, rashes, illness, separation anxiety, sleep issues and just plain bad attitudes (mine included).

If you stayed with me this long, either you are extremely patient or a sucker for punishment. Either way, thanks. I needed to get that off my chest. To make matters extra-specially worse, Fred is going to NYC on Wednesday until Friday.

Life sure stinks sometimes.

I must be missing something...

This morning Elise woke with a BG of 179, but 1.1 on the ketone meter. She was also coughing quite a bit (That yucky watery kind of cough), and at one point threw up because she was coughing so hard. She was pretty congested, but had no fever and was in pretty good spirits. Weird.

So I gave her breakfast and insulin, and throughout the morning, she remained in a fantastic mood. And her cough disappeared, as did the congestion. At mid-morning check she was 179 and 0.1 on the ketone meter.

Soooooo, is she sick or not? What the heck is going on? I am scratching my head over this one. Someone (sorry, I can't remember who), mentioned something called starvation ketones in the morning. Elise has woken up with a "normal" BG, but had at least trace ketones three times in the last two weeks. Now I'm wondering about the other times her BG was below 250 in the morning and I didn't check for ketones.

Anybody else have experience with this?

I'm glad this day is over

In bed at 8:30, ketones finally gone, BG is 143... that's much better.

Then again we had almost the exact same scenario last night (except BG was 154), and look where she woke up this morning (BG - 252, ketones - 2.6).

We'll see...