The dilemma

I cannot believe it, but the time has come to start pondering kindergarten for Elise.  How did this happen? Wasn't it just yesterday that she made her grand entrance into this world? Shouldn't she still be babbling and cooing, all snuggled in my arms?

Isn't she due for a diaper change right about now?

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

Okay... Focus.

So. Kindergarten. And the dilemma. Once again I need your advice.

We are zoned for what I will call "school A". This school is about a 10 minute drive from our house. The kids in our neighbourhood take a bus (this will not be an option for Elise since there is no way I will put her on the bus at such a young age) to get there. In years past, it didn't have the best reputation, but they now have a new principal and things are turning around. My neighbour who sends her kids there says it is wonderful. A former neighbour who teaches there says the same.

"School B" is about 2 minute drive from our house. Although Elise couldn't walk there because she would need to cross two very busy streets, it is a lot quicker to get to AND right across the street from the preschool Mattias attends. It has an excellent reputation, and is an "exceptional" school (I think that's what the ranking is called). There is also a ton of parental involvement.

I was told I could petition for Elise to be sent to the closer school for medical reasons, and I so I was thinking of talking to the principals/nurses/kindergarten teachers at each school to see who I get a better vibe from.

 And this is where I ask you to help me with my dilemma.  What should I ask? What is important to know? What would ask if you were me?

I really want Elise to be in a school that will care as much about her as her preschool has (although I'm pretty sure that's impossible, her preschool rocks!). Right now I'm not leaning either way and I'm waiting to talk to each school before I form an opinion.

So if you have any pearls of wisdom, send them my way!  Please help me DOC... You're my only hope.

***At this point, if I had mad photo shopping skills, I'd include a picture of my head on Princess Leia's body.  But since I lack the talent and time, do me a favour and picture it in your head, m'kay?***

Riddle me this...

Why, when we do an unscheduled pod change at 2 am, does Elise require no increased temp basal to offset the post-change highs?

But if we do a pod change during the day, we have to temp basal as much as 75% for over four hours just to keep her in range?

Why must you be such a pain-in-the-ass diabetes?

Bend it like Beckham

She's got her cleats, shin guards, and will be wearing good ol' #7 on her back... I am so excited that Elise will be playing in her first soccer game this Saturday!

Does that make me a nerd?

I started playing soccer when I was 4, and played all the way up until I found out I was pregnant with Elise. The only time I took a break was when I had to have both femurs broken (not at the same time) when I was 15.

And now my little girl is following in my foot steps! The funny thing is, her shirt colour is orange, and so was mine when I was her age.

Of course I am pretty nervous about wrangling her blood sugars during the game (they have a 30 minute practice followed by a 30 minute, 3 on 3 game). Especially without the dex. Plus, Fred can't make her first game, so I'll also be chasing Mattias around too. Blergh.

I'm wondering if anyone has tips on pre-carbing/temp basaling. What would a good pre-game breakfast be (the game is at 10:30)? Any other tips would be most welcome!

I don't have a pic of Elise all gussied up in her uniform, but I did find one from my early years... note how I am rockin' the bowl cut!

If you ask really nicely, I'll share some of my track photos... in which I am wearing spandex. You know you want to see that!

Pod change highs

Well, it's been almost two months since we started pumping, and things have been much better after a very rocky start.

(That is until, as you all predicted, those lows that we were having turned into heinous highs when the full-extent of Elise's illness showed it's ugly face and that coupled with the craziness of Christmas her numbers have been so coo-coo bananas that I don't even know where to start to fix them).

Holy run-on sentence, Batman.

Anyway, the one issue that is vexing me every three days is those pesky post-pod-change highs. Elise skyrockets into the 300s and doesn't come down for a looooong time; sometimes it can take up to 8 hours.

I don't think it's due to stress. Elise is pretty cool when it comes to changing the pod. I hand her the PDM and she presses the button like it's no big deal.

We also usually do it right before a meal, so I can give her a big-ass bolus. Take today for example:

She was 108 pre-change. We had an issue, and had to discard two pods, so the change took a bit longer than usual, but she was only "disconnected" for 10 minutes.

I bolused her for her dinner, plus another .5 of a unit for good measure. That's a lot of insulin for Elise... a dose like that should drop her by about 125.

She ate, and two hours later was at 340. I corrected and 2 hours after that she was at 359. BLERGH!

I'm hesitant to give her too much insulin because we're without the dex, and I find I am so much more cautious when I don't have a continuous flow of numbers to help guide me. I'm also less aggressive with corrections.

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? Should I bolus her more? Do a change when it's NOT a meal time? Do a temp basal after I change? Does anyone have any tips that have helped them with this? And is this just a pod issue, or do kids who wear Animas or Medtronic also go through this with site changes?

Help me DOC, you're my only hope!

(yeah... I'm a nerd. So?)

Let me pick your brain

Better than your nose, right?

Anyway... I haven't talked about it much lately because I've been too busy whining, but our trip to Portugal is coming up in less than a week, and I have a few questions for my peeps in the DOC.

We've travelled with Elise and D before; Kansas City, San Fransisco, and Vancouver. But this is the first time we'll be so far away. Plus the flight from here to Spain (where we change planes) is 10 hours loooooooong. Kill me now!

Not to mention a ready-to-crawl-at-any-moment 8 month old. I need a Valium just thinking about it.

Onto my questions:

1. We have never travelled with the Dexcom before... can the it go through the x-ray? Do I take the receiver off of her? If she has to go through the body scan, does that affect the Dexcom?

2. I'm pretty well versed in no-carb/low-carb snacks (cheese, meats, veggies, nuts), but does anyone have some other suggestions? I'm assuming Elise will run high while on the plane, so I want to have some stuff for her to eat if she's hungry and her BG is flying as high as the plane we're on.

3. I'm still noodling the time difference + life style difference thing. At home, we like to eat at the same time as your grandma does (5:00). In Portugal, they're still finishing up their lunches at that time. Dinner happens around 8:00. Which is the time Elise usually gets her bedtime snack and shot. If anyone has experience with overseas travel and NPH (yeah, right, sometimes I think we're the only ones using it), please let me know.

Here's my thought: Elise's BG usually drops right before dinner. I'm thinking we give her a second uncovered 15g snack (first one happens around 3 pm) at 5:00. Then, when it's dinner time (we're shooting for 7:00) we'll do a combo shot of humalog and a lowered dose of NPH. The humalog will cover her meal and the NPH will hold her through the night. Since she'll be eating dinner so late, plus her dose will be lowered, she shouldn't need a snack. Thoughts? Anyone?

4. If the TSA agent wants to pat Elise down, do I kick him in the nuts, or punch him in the face? Actually, I guess if it happens, it will be a woman. Punch in the face it is.

I welcome any other advice you may have. Hit me with your tips!

Crash and burn

It seems to me that I may have asked this question before. But I don't remember and am much to lazy to search for it, so here it goes:

Lately we have to give Elise her rapid-acting insulin at least 20 minutes (and sometimes 30) after she STARTS eating her dinner, or she will CRASH. For example:

Yesterday her BG before dinner was low 100s. She ate (and finished her dinner - 40g), and I gave her her shot 25 minutes after she started. One hour later she was 45.

Two days ago she was low 300s (not sure why) before dinner, so I gave her her shot at the same time that she ate. She had 35g, and about 45 minutes later was 151 with double arrows down on the CGM. I rode it out and she ended up steady in the low 100s.

She gets between 35-40g of carbs at dinner. It used to be 30g, but we usually have to give her between 5-10g when she crashes, so we just added it to the meal time. Anything over 40g, she goes high after she crashes.

It's like her body absorbs the food soooooo slowly at dinner. This is the only meal it happens at. Breakfast I can bolus her up to 30 minutes prior to eating with no problem.

She only gets 1 unit of humalog at dinner. I don't want to give less because it is so imprecise to measure up 1/2 a unit. And I don't want to go back to diluted either.

So, any ideas? Anybody have this happen to them? I know I could work around it on a pump, but with everything going on in our life right now, we have put the pump decision on the back burner.

Edited to add: This has been going on for about three weeks. We dealt with it about 3 months ago, but it went away in it's own. Unfortunately, it's back and doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Edited further to add: So tonight she was 191 going into dinner. I gave her her insulin right as she started eating. Via the dex, her BG went down to about 150, but always with a flat arrow (her BG would lower by a few points each update). Weird. We never saw a crash, but we never saw a spike... just a flat line for almost 2 hours post-dinner. Maybe she's starting to come out of whatever this is. Glad to know we're not the only ones.

I:C Roll Call

Okay D-moms and D-dads... I need to know, what is your child's insulin to carb ratio at dinner time? Over the last 2 weeks, Elise's has been creeping ever upward (or is it downward?).

She used to be 1:20. But we kept experiencing lows, so we tried 1:25. Nope. Then onto 1:30. I was going to try 1:35 tonight, but she was 216 before dinner, so I did 1:33. She STILL went low and needed 10g of carbs to get her into the mid 100s. The lows are happening exactly 1 hour after she's done eating.

We've also had to lower her overnight NPH dose by 1 unit. We've had 3 nights in a row of battling low after low after low and getting no sleep. Each night we'd lower her dose, and we'd still have to feed her up to 25g extra just to get her into the low 100s.

I know, I'm trying to make sense out of the non-sensical. But I guess our next step is to go to 1:40. Is that a normal I:C for a 3 1/2 year old? Is Elise just really sensitive to insulin? Could she still be honeymooning 2 1/2 years later?

I'd love to hear what the I:C ratio for other kiddos are, just to compare.

Thank you for being a friend

Why am I quoting the Golden Girls theme song? It could be because Elise has an unnatural fascination with the show she calls, "The Grandmas." And no, I don't actually let her watch it... it's a little "mature" for her age. She just happened to wander into the room when I was watching it while nursing Mattias. I had to turn it off when Dorothy called Blanche a word that sounds like "smut" (just substitute an "l" for the "m").

Every once in awhile, she still asks me if she can watch "The Grandmas". In fact, she just asked me as I was firing up the old blog for this post... and voila, a title was born.

Now, onto my reasons for this post. First and foremost to say thank you for all the lovely comments on my post about not wanting a pump for Elise. To say I was overwhelmed would be a huge understatement.

I was so afraid to hit publish on that baby. Not because I thought you guys would want to storm my house and burn me at the stake for such hearsay, but I honestly thought that not wanting a pump for Elise made me a bad Mom. Or at the very least, a sucky stand-in pancreas.

It did my heart good to read comment after comment of support, stories of MDI-related success, and echos of "same". I loves me some D-O-C!

My second thing is that I'm still struggling with the "to-pump-or-not-to-pump" dilemma. Mostly because Fred and I are planning to take the kids to Portugal sometime this year, and the thought of travelling on NPH makes my stomach cramp a little bit. Granted, we've done 3 airplane trips on the stuff, but this will be the first time our attention will be divided between two kids, and let's not forget that Portugal has a 6 hour time difference.

I also wanted to ask what would be some good questions to go armed to the pump class with. I really wanted to do a lot of research, but haven't been able to devote much time to it due to illness and a sick, clingy baby that has suddenly decided he wants to do nothing but be held and nurse 24/7.

And last... I do have one more secret... but I'm not telling yet. And no, I am NOT pregnant. Do you think I'm freaking insane?

Be Prepared

I was a Girl Guide as a child (Canada's answer to Girl Scouts), and although I didn't really enjoy being a Girl Guide (I was a very shy child and hated to be a part of big groups like that), I took their motto of "Be Prepared" to heart. Mostly because I was born anal-retentive.

I like to be prepared in any situation, for any situation. I do not understand what the words "pack lightly" mean. This lends itself nicely to being the parent of a Type 1 Diabetic; I can't think of any other disease that causes the caregivers to become pack mules.

But I have to admit that I've become a wee bit lazy in my "being prepared". If I'm running out to the store with Elise, I don't always take her insulin with me. I pretty much always have something for a low, but there have been times when we're going to Target or the grocery store and I've forgotten her emergency kit at home. Instead of turning around, I just figure I can grab something at the store if she goes low.

That's why the story in Sarnia, Ontario has given me great pause. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, motorists were stuck for over 24 hours on a highway due to a snow storm and had to be rescued.

On a side note, when the local news had a blurb about this story, they said it took place in Ontario Canada. Ontario is a pretty big place, folks. Let's narrow it down a bit. It's sort of like saying, "a tornado destroyed a town in Texas. In other news..." I'm just sayin'.

And it made me think... what if something like that happened to us? What if we were stuck somewhere with no access to food or the life-saving insulin my daughter needs? What would we do? Now granted, we don't get much snow here, but it reminds me of something that happened to us last Christmas Eve.

We were coming home from dinner following the Christmas Eve service at our church. It was a pretty bad storm for these parts; snow was coming down sideways. We did okay until we reached an overpass. The problem with overpasses is that they freeze when it's snowing/sleeting and become hills of ice. We tried to go over it, but kept sliding backwards. Other cars were coming behind us and were getting stuck too.

It was growing closer and closer to the time that Elise needed her bedtime insulin (which I did not bring with me) and a snack (I don't think I had any food with me either, she had eaten everything at dinner). Thankfully, Fred is an awesome driver and drove backwards through the maze of cars until he made it to an intersection. We then drove along the feeder road until we could drive under the highway instead of over it. A trip that normally takes 15 minutes took almost 90.

Thankfully, it ended well. But that memory, plus the story out of Sarnia, is the kick in the pants I need to become more committed to being prepared. As the mother of a 3-month old and a type 1 diabetic, I have a lot of crap to haul around with me. But the alternative is just too scary.

So tell me. How do you prepare? What are some of your must have items? Are there any products you just cannot do without?

***Yup, that's a picture of a sassy 5-or-6 year old me as a Brownie (I couldn't find any good Girl Guide ones). Go ahead, laugh. But I think I was cute as a red-headed button.

Sending out the bat signal to the DOC

I need help. And while that's true on so many levels, right now I'm referring to help on the diabetes front. For the last week, Elise has been CRASHING after dinner, only to soar to record BG highs three hours later. I'll explain:

For her dinner, she usually gets 2 units of humalog, and 35g of carbs. The carb amount has been slowly creeping up over the last few weeks to 45g (I'd rather give her more carbs than try to measure out 1/2 units). We give her the insulin about 5 minutes before she eats at dinnertime, and her BG going into dinner ranges from 80 - 170.

About 1 hour after dinner, we start to see arrows down on the CGM. Sometimes there's a small spike, but a lot of times (like tonight) she stays even through dinner until she starts to fall. But when she starts, she falls fast. Like 100 points in less than 30 minutes.

A lot of times, we don't catch the crash until she's in the 60s (tonight we caught it at 80). We give her carbs (10-15g), then 3 hours later she's in the low to mid 300s and stays there most of the night. A few nights ago we had to correct her in the middle of the night (we've probably only done that 3 or 4 times since her dx), and last night we gave her the correction up front (because she was in the 300s) with her bedtime dose of NPH. And she STILL only came down to the mid 200s and cruised there throughout the night.

So tonight we lowered her dinnertime insulin to 1.5 and she still crashed. We gave only 7g of banana to bring her up. Right now she's out with Fred visiting a neighbour in the hospital, so I have no clue what her BG is, but she was holding steady at 103 when she left.

So what the what is going on here? The food she's eating isn't out of the ordinary. Tonight it was tortellini soup with some bread and yogurt for dessert. Last night it was sandwiches, grapes, yogurt for dessert and chocolate milk. It's almost like there's a delay in her food absorbing.

Everything else is normal as can be. I am just scratching my head over this one and would love any insight that anyone has to offer.

Edited to add: thanks everyone for the comments. If it were a food absorption issue, wouldn't it happen at every meal? Why just dinner? The food she's eating is the same as she always eats. And we haven't contacted our endo or CDE because; A) today is not the day to fax in logs, B) they won't talk to you without looking at your log, C) the CDEs are useless and I haven't talked to one in over a year and a half and, D) you have to go through a CDE first to get to the endo. Yeah, the system sucks.

Last night she was in the mid-300s all night and woke up at 242. Gotta figure this out.

Two Quick Questions

I know this is my second post today, but I have two questions for all the pros out there:

First, those of you on MDI (or remember when you were) do you find you find the insulin is less/more effective depending on which site you use? The reason I ask is because we just started using Elise's tummy, and it seems when we use this site, the insulin is more potent and we experience lows.

Number two: We just got an email that a student at Elise's pre-school was diagnosed with hand, Foot and Mouth disease. He goes on a different day, but is in the same room. We called Elise's teacher and she assured us that they wipe everything down at night, and make the kids wash their hands before and after snack time as well as after they use they playground (and the bathroom, of course), but I'm wondering if we should send her tomorrow.

If you read my last post, we had pretty much decided we were going to send her despite her crazy numbers, but this latest issue may have changed my mind.

What do you guys think? Am I just being way to over-protective? The last thing we need is an illness around here.

Take this D and shove it

Elise starts pre-school tomorrow, and I'm a bit freaked out. And yes, a lot of it is due to the fact that she has never been apart from me (aside from the time I was in the hospital having Mattias).

But most of it is because we have not figured that freaking full-strength insulin crap out. And I'm a little frustrated, can you tell?

I can give her the same dose at breakfast, same food, same EVERYTHING and she either goes crazy low, or crazy high. There is no in between with this stuff. Plus her blood sugar is roller-coastering all over the place. Today, only 45 minutes after breakfast, she went down to 63 and skyrocketed to almost 400 after lunch. I didn't go crazy on the carbs for the low, because she was 132 right before her lunch.

But on other days, she stays in the 200s right after breakfast up until about 3:00 pm, when she starts to go down.

I don't get it, and I am so afraid to send her off to school if she's having these lows (which she does every other day or so). I don't even know where to start to make changes and I freaking HATE the fact that we can't even turn to the CDEs for help.

I think the worst part is how it's affecting her behavior. If she's sporting any kind of attitude or throwing a tantrum, it's always when she's rising or falling fast on the Dexcom. It's getting downright nasty these days and we're kind of at the end of our rope on how to deal with her.

Part of me wants to go back to using diluted, because we never saw her numbers roller-coaster like this before. But I know we just need to try and figure it out. Right now is just a bad time to be doing it.

To top everything off, Mattias has reflux something terrible. He spits up at least 5 times after every feeding (that's per side, not the whole feeding). He is so miserable all the time, even though he's on medication. I think yesterday I changed his outfit 8 times and it seems that all I do these days is laundry.

I don't think I'd be as stressed about this if it wasn't for the fact she was starting school tomorrow. How do you guys handle making adjustments on days when your kids are away from you? Should I keep her home until we somewhat get a handle on this?

Man oh man... it's a "diabetes-can-suck-it" kind of day.

Quick Question

After two years I am finally getting off my butt and ordering Elise an ID bracelet. Yeah, I know... just add it to my "Bad Mom" list!!!

My question is, what did you have engraved on your child's bracelet? Obviously it should say Type 1 Diabetic (or should it be Type 1 Diabetes?). But do you put their name? Phone number? The fact that she's insulin dependant (and the types on insulin?) Am I missing anything?

Please and thank you for your help!

To bank or not to bank?

Fred and I have been looking into banking Mattias's cord blood in the event that it could one day be used to help Elise. We're running out of time to make the decision, and we're still very much on the fence about it.

Let's face it... it's not cheap. Over $2000 initially, then a fee of $125 per year after that. But, I would HATE to put a price on a possible cure for Elise. Could you imagine the regret?

We've talked and talked about it. Asked Elise's pedi about it. We plan on talking to Elise's endo this week too, but I'm wondering what all my D-peeps think about it.

Have you done it? Looked into it? Have any thoughts about it? Opinions? I'm looking for some fresh input before we decide yay or nay.

World Diabetes Day Shirts

I know this might be a little early to throw this out there, but Fred and I are thinking of offering to do the World Diabetes Day shirts again. If you didn't read my blog back then, here are some pics of people wearing the shirts:


Because I will be birthing a child a few months before World Diabetes Day, which is November 14, I thought I would post about it super early so I can gauge the interest level.

Last year the shirts went for $15, including shipping. I'm hoping to knock the price down a bit this year. By getting it done so early, we wouldn't have to use priority shipping. I'll have to do some figuring on how much shipping will cost for 1 shirt vs. 6 shirts, etc., so I can't give a concrete price yet. But after I get some responses on the interest level, and talk to our printer, I will have a better idea. I'm hoping to get everything done and shipped out by August at the latest.

So who's in? Leave me a comment!

P.S. For all my Canadian friends, Nicole handled the shirts for the peeps north of the border last year. I emailed her to ask if she's up for doing it again, but I haven't heard back. Nicole, If you're reading this, let me know!

What would you do?

This post is not meant to start a war over the vaccinate vs. not-vaccinate topic, but I do have a question for all you D-parents on what you would do in a certain situation.

Elise is not up-to-date on her vaccines. We've done a delayed schedule with her from the beginning, and we got behind around her second birthday due to illness and having to get both the flu shot an H1N1 shots. The ones we're missing are the MMR, Hib, and Hep A (which I am not all that worried about the last one).

I am planning on getting the MMR very soon because we're going on a trip up to Canada in the next few months, and the thought of Elise flying on an airplane, plus having to go through customs at the Vancouver airport with a bunch of international arrivals makes me nervous.

My dilemma is this; I have recently met a Mom who wants to get together on a play date. She has three kids, one who I know of for sure has never been vaccinated for anything. She is the one closest to Elise's age. She also has a 6 year old, who I assume comes into contact with a lot of other 6 year olds. Rounding out the list is a 6-month old, who I'm uncertain of if she's received any vaccinations.

It makes me nervous to expose Elise to any child who has not been vaccinated due to her having a comprimised immune system, and my gut is telling me to be careful. Am I being totally over-the-top cautious? Or do you think I should wait to have this play date until all Elise's vaccines are caught up? I should also talk to Elise's pedi (and will call her on Monday), but I'd love to hear what you would do.

"I HUNGY" Part 2

Remember how I said in a previous post that we figured out how to quell Elise's cries of, "I HUNGY"? Well, we didn't . I mean we did for a few weeks. But now they're back. And with a vengeance.

I don't get it. I look at the amount of food she's eating, and it looks like enough. But not 30 minutes after she eats, the cries begin. She's even waking up at 2:00 in the morning and saying she's hungry.

I don't know who to ask for help on this. We have zero relationship with the dietitians at our endo's office, and the few times I have talked to them, we don't really see eye-to-eye. They have a very cookie-cutter way of approaching things. They don't know Elise and they don't know me.

Plus, this might not be diabetes related. I wonder if there could be another issue that's causing the extreme hunger (I know when I was dx hyperthyroid, I was STARVING all the time). Could it be the mother-of-all growth spurts? I even wonder if she's doing it for attention.

We were at a party last night, and after getting her in range after a low BG of 62, we gave her a bedtime snack. Even as she was eating, she was moaning that she was hungry. And after she ate. So we gave her some chicken, and after she was done that, she was STILL asking for food.

It continued during the car ride home, and even as we were putting her to bed. Throughout all of this, her BG was around 145.

Has anybody experienced this with their kiddos? I just don't know what to do for her anymore, and I feel like I'm punishing her by withholding food. Any advice you have is welcome...

Juice?

Since Elise was dx so young, she never got in the habit of drinking juice, something I am sort of very grateful for. We don't really even treat lows with juice (I do keep it in my diaper bag in case of an emergency and we have used it in times when her BG was dangerously low).

But we were at a pancake dinner at a friend's house on Tuesday, and Elise noticed everybody else drinking OJ, and asked for some. We were actually having a hard time getting enough carbs for her usual 40g (I brought a special low carb, high protein pancake recipe for Elise from home - yes, control freak much?), so I decided, why not?

I figured out the carb factor, and was surprised that it was a lot lower than I expected... only about .11. Since she has never had OJ in her life, I decided to dilute it. A lot. I think it ended up being 1 part OJ to 4 parts water. And she loooooooooved it.

So my question is this... do you include juice as a regular (by regular, I mean maybe once a day) part of your kid's diet? I'm not big on sugar-free, so I mean the real stuff. I just feel bad that all Elise ever drinks is water or milk. And I didn't really notice it spike her sugar up or anything.

What is your two cents on juice?

Question

Calling all those wily D-veterans I count as friends... I have a question for you.

This morning we checked Elise's BG at around 4:30. It was 109. We were hesitant to give her anything, because all the insulin should have been out of her system by then (her shot of N was at 7:30 the night before, and NPH is generally gone by 9 hours).

So we checked her at 6:30 am, and she was down to 71. At which point we gave her some carbs. My question is; why did her BG falling with no active insulin?

Thanksgiving questions

This is our first year to do Thanksgiving with Elise (last year we opted for the uber-traditional Thanksgiving fondue... yummy!), and some friends have invited us over for dinner. I'll be bringing some food, but my friend will be doing the majority of the cooking. Of course I can't ask her to count the carbs for me in each recipe, but I thought some of my D-Sistas who use carb factors might be able to help me out.

I'm looking for an approximate carb factor for the following: gravy, stuffing and/or dressing (and if someone knows the difference, please tell me), pumpkin pie, and apple pie (if you know the carb factor for just the filling, that would be tops).

I know each recipe differs, but if I could figure out a generic carb factor for each, that would give me some place to start. Thanks much and Happy Turkey.