To sleep, perchance to dream

I'm tired.

Actually, tired doesn't capture it.  Exhausted misses the mark too.  Honestly?  I don't think there is a word in the English language to describe this feeling.

For more than two months, sleep has been coming at about 45 minutes at a time, less than 4 hours a night. I can't remember a night when I haven't seen every hour on the clock.

One night I went to bed at 11:30 pm and woke up at 12:30 am.  For the night.

It isn't all diabetes; we've had ear infections, upper respiratory infections, teething, adenovirus x3, night terrors, a baby who wants to nurse a least once a night, rashes, toddlers that wake up at 2:30 and declare themselves "awake for the day".

And then there was that time that Elise threw up all over her wall, bed, herself... and then went back to sleep.  There's nothing quite like walking into your child's bedroom for a 1:30 am BG check wondering, "what's that smell?" 

And of course, interspersed in all of that is diabetes, and the highs, lows, and ketones that comes with it.  Because diabetes has been such a jackass of late, no two nights are the same, making it impossible to make adjustments.  So every night we've been up either fixing a high, feeding a low, or setting temp basals to ward off both.

So.  I'm tired.  And it's stealing my joy.

I don't like the person I've become; I yell a lot.  I'm too tired to have fun with my kids. The thought of cooking, cleaning or doing anything domestic exhausts me to the point of tears.  I can't write. And worst of all, I can't even make sense of Elise's numbers anymore.  There is so much that needs fixing that I don't know where to start.  I can't spot a trend to save my life because my brain has turned to mush.

The other night, all three kids needed us at the same time; Lucas was crying, Mattias was having a night terror, and Elise was low.  It was 1:00 am and I had only been asleep for 30 minutes.  I turned to Fred and told him, "I wish I were dead."

I really don't, but there is a reason that sleep deprivation is a form of torture.

I usually try to find a nice, tidy way to end my blog posts... but nothing has come thus far; except maybe this:

And so, she fell into bed at an enviable 10:00 pm and slept blissfully, uninterrupted, until the morning alarm rang out it's greeting at 6:00. She awoke, feeling refreshed, and marveled that every morning should feel like this one.  From then on, she slept happily ever after.

The End.

Breaking the (sleep) Cycle

It's no secret that parents of CWD don't sleep well.  At least compared to the average parent.  But at least there are some nights where we can get a few hours.

Not around here.  Not lately.

Besides D, we have a child who suffers from night terrors.

And another who is teething, sick and miserable.

Which means no sleep for Mom and Dad.

Because every night, it's at least one child that needs our attention.

Sometimes two.

Or all three.

And sometimes, it's all at the same time.

Which leaves little to no time for shut-eye.

So if you see me, and I look like shit.  And I have no idea who you are, where I am, or why I'm wearing my bra OUTSIDE of  my shirt, just cut me a little slack please?

I haven't slept in awhile.

Like the deserts miss the rain

Thank God that week is over. I've been MIA and for good reason. Fred was out of town and my kids decided to try and kill me by not letting me sleep. Every. Single. Night.

Whether is was Elise up for 3 hours crying, the dexcom alerting to numbers that were off by sometimes as much as 200, stubborn lows, or Mattias waking up every 90 minutes, which happened every night while Fred was gone. Combine all that with the usual feeding problems and it was a nightmare.

But he's back, and I am so, so thankful. He is an awesome husband and does whatever it takes to support me. Even though his flight came in at 12:30 am, almost two hours late, he came home and talked me down from a very tall ledge (for reasons I'll get to in a moment). Mwah! Love ya, Freddie!

I am also thankful for my friend Liz, who came over twice, brought me lunch, and listened as I did the "ugly cry" for two hours. She also gave me some very wonderful advice, which I appreciate even more because I know it wasn't easy for her to do, because she was unsure of how I would take it. Thank you Liz, it's the REAL friend who will tell you the stuff you don't necessarily want to hear.

I started taking a prescription drug for my nursing issues. I was very leery about taking it because of the side effects, but after learning Mattias hadn't gained any weight in 3 weeks, I felt I had no choice. It has been wonderful and awful all at the same time.

Wonderful because my supply has almost doubled and I've only been taking it for a few days. Since I started, Mattias stopped waking up every 90 minutes at night, and only woke up once to feed. Ah-MA-zing! He also seems more content during the day.

Awful because the side effects really are terrible. During the day, the fatigue is so bad I feel like I'm going to fall over. I can't concentrate and can barely form a coherent sentence. And at night I lay in bed, suffering through panic attacks. The night Fred got home, it was really bad. I had gone to bed at 9:30, and was unable to fall asleep (read: pass out from sheer exhaustion) until almost 3:00 am. I cannot even begin to explain how horrible it felt. I was so tired, but couldn't sit still. At one point I remember thinking if removed my pjs and went walking out in the pouring rain, I would be okay (yeah... weird. I know). Thankfully, Fred came home and sat with me, attempting to calm me down.

After all that, you'd think I would stop taking it, right? Not so much. I did cut my dose (after consulting my doctor) in half, but I have my reasons for continuing.

The way I look at it is this; as parents of a diabetic, we don't have to wake up 2 - 3 (sometimes more) times a night to check our kids. In fact, some endos don't understand why we do it. But we do. For our kids. For their safety. For their health. Often at the detriment of our own. Because we would do anything to avoid the unimaginable.

Now Mattias will not starve, but to me his health is at risk. He started in the 50th percentile for weight and now he's in the 10th. He has feeding issues and I will do anything I can to help him.

The good news is the lower dose doesn't make me quite as crazy. I still get agitated, but I can deal with it. I'm also not going to take it at bedtime, because that I can't deal with.

If you've made it this far, congrats. I know there has been a lot going on in the DOC lately, but I haven't had time time or energy to blog, read other blogs or comment. Those of you who are going through the fire right now, please know that you are in my prayers.

Hopefully I'll get my crap together soon. Because I miss you guys.

The tri-fecta

We've had bad sleep nights here before. That's certainly nothing new. Whether it's because of Mattias wanting to party in the wee hours of the morning, or due to BG issues or night terrors with Elise. Yup, been there, done that... got the dark circles under my eyes to prove it.

But never before have we had such a piss-poor night because of ALL THREE.

I went to bed around midnight, took my usual hour to fall asleep; and just as I was teetering on the edge, Mattias woke up to be fed. Okay, no problem.

Except that he pretty much refused to go back to sleep.

And then Elise's BG went low. And then she started crying about bumble bees in her room. Mattias was ticked off that nobody was paying attention to him. More BG issues. Dexcom beeping. More crying. Curses uttered. A failed attempt to nurse Mattias again, hoping he'd fall asleep. Screaming. Beeping. Cursing. More lows.... you get the idea.

It seemed once we'd get one problem with one kid settled, the other would need attention. And so it went. All. Night. Long. Unlike the Lionel Ritchie song, we were not raisin' the roof, nor having fun.

I think I finally got to sleep around 5:30 am. Poor Fred had a flight at 6:30 am. He left the house at 5:48, and STILL made the flight. That, my friends, is impressive.

I awoke, 2 1/2 hours later, and catapulted myself out of bed, because I realized that Elise had to be at school in 1 hour. I can't believe I actually got her there without spontaneously combusting.

So, here I sit. Sleep deprived. Tired. Alone for the next few days. Stressed. I've already had my first marshmellow/caramel chocolate egg of the day.

Something tells me it won't be the last.

Wednesday's numbers

BG at 8:03 pm (bedtime) - 133
BG the next morning at 8:02 am (wake-up) - 131

Number of times Mattias woke up to nurse - 1

Number of times Mattias woke up and put himself back to sleep - 4

Hours of sleep for Mom - 6

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about.

Something's got to give

It's been in a terrible week here. And while I am prone to hyperbole, the past seven days need none. The simple fact is I have hit a wall and I'm not sure I can even get back up.

Most of it is due to lack of sleep. By my calculations, I have had no more than 14 hours since last Monday. I wish I were kidding. We've had nights where we've constantly been battling lows. We've been dealing with night terrors. And each and every night, Mattias has decided to wake up and party every 3 or so hours.

Since Mattias doesn't have his own room and sleeps in ours, there's not a whole lot we can do. Last night at midnight, Fred set up the pack and play in our office and slept in there with him so I could get some sleep. Except that Elise's BG was low from 1:00 am until 5:00 am. I was up every 30 minutes checking to see if it was coming up.

The other night (well, morning since it was 5:00 am) with Mattias chatting up a storm in his crib, I completely lost it. I told Fred I would rather be dead than live like this. It was a total meltdown.

And before you call the men in white coats to take me away, of course I don't really feel like this... I am just so tired I can't even control my emotions anymore. I feel like I am perched on the edge of a very tall ledge and all it will take is the slightest breeze to send me into a free fall.

Being this tired has made it very hard to take care of Elise, and it's showing. Her numbers are crazy but I don't have the energy to figure it out. Seriously, it's all I can do to give her her insulin and prepare her food. I haven't made an actual meal in a week because it's just too overwhelming.

Add to all this the stress of buying a new house and trying to sell ours. We put an offer on an amazing house yesterday, but it's contingent on selling the one we're in now. Unfortunately, it's in no shape to be shown, and I don't even know where to start.

Are you bummed out yet?

I feel very removed from the DOC right now. Sure I've posted a few times, but really... I'm just phoning it in. I'm trying to read all of your blogs and comment; I just don't have it in me. I want to respond to all the lovely new people who have commented on my blog but there is just never any time (or energy).

I can't make Mattias sleep. I can't control Elise's diabetes or make her night terrors go away. Something's got to give and I'm afraid it just might be my sanity.

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my sleep the most

I wake up every morning dismayed to find out that it is, in fact, morning. My nights are spent wandering in and out of sleep; punctuated with a few moments of sitting straight up in bed, thinking, "OH MY GOD, WHAT TIME IS IT? DID I SLEEP THROUGH THE ALARM? WHAT IS HER BLOOD SUGAR? WHERE ARE MY GLASSES?"

In our house, 6 hours of sleep is a good night. About 4 hours is the norm. If it were 4 hours of uninterrupted slumber, I could live with that. Instead it is broken up into 30 to 60 minute increments. I think the longest I've gone without waking is 2 hours.

During the day, I walk past my bed and it calls to me; a siren's song enticing me to just come and lay down for awhile. Giving a two-month old and a three year the run of the house while I take a snooze is not the best idea, but my resolve is growing ever weaker.

I think what vexes me the most is how I've aged about 10 years in the past two. I've never been particularly vain about my appearance, but it used to tickle me when people would think I was a teenager. In fact, while I was pregnant with Elise (in the early stages... you couldn't tell), a guy at my church asked me what high school I went to. And no, he wasn't legally blind or senile. And no, it had nothing to do with my behavior either.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here. A very sleep-deprived choir. One that would probably fall asleep while singing The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. But I feel like I am sleep-walking through my life. I'm never 100% present. My brain feels like it's been insulated with cotton. I forget words. What I'm saying in the middle of a sentence. Why I've come into a room.

When I do sleep, I have some of the most awful dreams you could ever imagine. Dreams of not being able to get the meter to work. Dreams where Elise is high and we have no more insulin. Dreams of a tornado and I can't find my glasses, so I try to find Elise without being able to see and I cannot find her.

I'm starting to wonder how long a person can live like this and stay sane?

Tired

I'm tired. And yeah, I know I'm preaching to the choir on this one... but I never thought it was possible to be physically exhausted to the point of wanting to throw up.

We've had a bad couple of nights lately. Lots of lows. Eileen buzzing and alarming. Elise's blood sugar keeps dropping into the 60s overnight. We give her carbs only to have her drop about an hour later. I guess it's time to lower her nighttime NPH.

Again.

If I had to estimate, I'd say I'm probably getting about 2 hours of sleep a night. Unfortunately, it's not all at the same time. I might fall asleep for 15 minutes, then I need to pee. Or after 30 minutes of shut-eye, Eileen warns us that Elise is dropping. Or after a mere 5 minutes, my back is complaining that I need to roll over. Or my husband starts to snore (if he's not using his CPAP machine). Or if he is, it starts to make too much noise. Or. Or. Or.

And it's starting to affect me mentally, physically and emotionally. I have tons of examples, but I will spare you from the boring minutiae of my day-to-day life. I will say this, I pity anyone who dares be rude to me, cut me off in traffic, or look at me the wrong way. We have an expression around here and it's called the "WOJ".

And it stands for the Wrath of Joanne. Woe to anyone who wrongs me in my increasingly fragile mental state. I am exhausted. I am 9 months pregnant. I am hormonal.

You have been warned.

Cries in the night

I'm tired this morning, and it has nothing to do with diabetes for once.

Nope, I'm tired because Elise had another long night of night terrors. To be totally honest, I'm not sure that they're 100% true night terrors, but they are terrifying for me.

Elise has been suffering from them since she was about 18 months. The first time it happened I nearly had a heart attack, since I was awoken from a deep sleep to the sound of my child emitting a blood-curdling scream.

Thinking it was D-related, I ran into her room, meter in hand and saw that she was thrashing around in her crib and crying. I thought maybe she was having some sort of seizure, but when I checked her BG, it was on the high side of normal.

She continued to scream, but when I took a good look at her, I saw she wasn't even awake. I had heard of night terrors before and knew not to wake her, instead just staying with her until she had calmed.

Elise gets these episodes every so often (maybe 3 - 4 times a month), but the hard part is they last most of the night, starting around 3:00 am. She'll calm herself, then about 45 minutes later it will start all over again. Her BG is always "fine-ish", and there's nothing we can do except to make sure she's safe. Last night we found her on the floor.

These days, in addition to the screaming and crying, she also talks.

It can be funny; "No Momma, I don't want to wear THAT dress... I want THIS one!"

It can be non-sensical; "Colour with the paper on your head."

And it can be heart-breaking; "No, no, I don't want another shot... please!"

It had been awhile since she'd last had an episode, so I was hoping we were done with them, but last night was rough. I think she went from 3:30 until about 6:30 this morning; crying out every 30 minutes or so. Considering I didn't get to sleep until 1:30, that makes for one tired Momma.

Most of the reading I've done on this subject tells me that I just need to be patient and wait until she outgrows it, but until then, I have yet another "sleep-thief" to deal with.

Much ado about naptime

The winds of change are blowing here at our house, and Momma is not happy about it. It's looking like Elise might be on the verge of dropping her nap, which is troublesome on a few fronts.

Right now (since the stupid time change) she naps from about 3 pm - 5 pm. I actually put her down around 2-2:30, but it takes he awhile to settle down and fall asleep. These days she's falling asleep closer to 3:30-4:00. This presents a problem because the later she naps, the longer she's up that night. When she naps until 5:00, she's up until about 11:00 pm. We put her to bed at 9:00, but she tosses and turns for almost two hours!

The days she doesn't nap at all, she becomes a quivering puddle of Elise-goo at about 7:00 pm. It's enough to make you want to run and hide. Any other child you would say, great! Put her to bed at 7:00 and be done with it!

Except Elise isn't any other child, and because of when she eats dinner, it is impossible to put her to bed any earlier than 8:00.

We eat dinner at 5:00 (which in my opinion is sooooo early). Elise takes about an hour to finish everything, so she's done by 6:00. There is no way we can test her an hour later and get an accurate bedtime BG number. Not to mention giving her a bedtime snack and her insulin. It's too soon after her dinner.

We've also discovered that we have a very slooooow absorption rate with Elise's diluted Humalog. We find it peaks closer to about 3 hours after she gets it. I know, weird. But it's true. It's just not safe to give Elise her bedtime NPH that close to her dinnertime DH because it will drop her low while she sleeps, even with her snack.

So what is a mother to do? Drop the nap and just fight to keep her up until 8:30 (I get ulcers just thinking about it), or let her nap late and go to sleep late? I'm stumped.

Stupid diabetes... why do you have to make EVERYTHING so bloody hard?

ETA: Oh for the love of all that is good and holy, I went to get Elise up at 4:00 because it sounded like we had another failnap, and when I tried to open her door, I couldn't. She had fallen asleep right in front of it. I usually check her BG at 4:30, but I can't even get in her room. Unless of course I wake her up. I give up.

A night in the life

It's bedtime and her BG is 254. Not horribly high, but it is following the same pattern of the last few days. Semi-high at bedtime, high overnight and high in the morning. Changes on the horizon?

Usual bedtime insulin and snack. Down by 9:00 pm. Ninety minutes later I can still hear her tossing and turning so I go to check on her. She's awake and says she doesn't feel good. A quick check reveals an 88 on the meter. We give her 10g of carbs, plus some protein. She's happy with her unexpected snack and falls asleep within 20 minutes of consuming it.

Midnight. She's 157. Better, but not good enough. The alarm is set for 3:00 am.

3:00 check and she's 107. She should be going up. Why isn't she going up? She gets 5g more, and it's off to sleep again. After we set the alarm for 4:30 am.

Sleep? What is this sleep that you speak of? It's 4:30 and a 109 pops up on her meter. No more active insulin in her system, so why is she not higher? Sigh. This means another check in a few hours.

Last alarm of the morning. The hour of 6:00 am has come quickly, and with it brings a BG of 62. We think 10g should do. She eats and goes back to sleep for a few hours.

We look bleary-eyed at each other, the unasked questions swirling in our brains. Why? How? Huh? It doesn't matter. We shrug our shoulders and turn the page.

Today is a new day.

Pancreas, we have a problem

It's official. My brain is fried. I can no longer think, reason, talk, remember my name, walk and chew gum at the same time (although that one was always a little dicey), or figure out the BG numbers.

I am flummoxed, stumped, puzzled, bewildered, confused, befuddled, discombobulated, and just plain at a loss.

And yes, this is yet another post where I bore you with the breakdown of Elise's numbers.

Last (Monday) night:
7:40 pm - 93. She gets her new lowered dose of 3N, and 17g (2 more than usual) of carbs
12:11 am - 74. She gets 8g of carbs
12:47 am - 102
1:16 am (crying) - 138
2:19 am (crying) - 125
3:54 am (crying) - 63. She gets 8g of carbs.
6:45 am - 91. We realized we never re-checked her after her last low. We're not too worried about this number as all her N should be out of her system by now.
7:54 am - 152

Today we had a pretty good day, numbers-wise. Then as then sun sets, Elise's pancreas starts at it again.

Tonight:
5:05 pm (dinner) - 234. High, but we give her a normal dose of 10DH and her usual 30g of carbs. We're eating a Chick-fil-a, so she plays in the play area for about 30 minutes afterwards.
7:42 pm - 196 - Still give her the lowered dose of 3N, and her usual 15g of carbs. We figure she's on the high side, so this should be okay.
9:15 pm (crying) - 44. What the FREAKIN' WHAT? How do you go down by 150 AFTER eating 15g of uncovered snack??? We give her 15g of carbs, plus almost a block of cheese (I may be exaggerating a wee bit). She also drank a sippy cup and a half of water. Ugh, can you say midnight diaper change (and no, I don't mean mine)?
9:32 pm - 69. Going up slowly. Gonna be a looooong night.

One thing I'm wondering is how much is exercise affecting her? I have noticed a pattern on nights where she's more active, she tends to go low.

But we also have these night time lows even when she's not active. Like last night for instance. Another thing I can't help but wonder is how long the DH stays in her body. I know they told us it peaks at about the 2 hour mark, then is pretty much gone by hour 4. But this does not seem to be the case with Elise, especially at night. It seems to peak a bit later and last longer. But how can that be?

Tomorrow we are going to be contacting the endo. Not the CDE, but the actual endo. Fred and I can't take much more of these night time issues. We have been testing her 6 - 8 times through the night almost every night. And it's not leaving much time to sleep. Even lowing her dose isn't having much effect. Last night when we lowered it, she had more lows that night than she did the night before on the higher dose.

If you didn't understand that last sentance, don't worry. Neither did I and I'm the one who typed it.

Bah, this post has already gotten too long and I need to go check Elise.

Flummoxed

I like the word flummoxed. It looks cool when typed out, and it's just plain fun to say. It means; bewildered, puzzled, confused. As in; I am so flummoxed by Elise's BG numbers yesterday.

It all started around 4:30 yesterday afternoon. Elise had woken up from her nap about 2 hours earlier with a BG of 158. It's a nice number, usually guaranteed to get us through to dinner. But at 4:30, Elise complains that she's thirsty. She had been playing at an indoor playground at our church, and I thought it was from that, but my gut told me I should check her anyway.

She was 61. I gave her some yogurt, and her before dinner check came in at 95. She got her usual dose of DH, and about 5g more of carbs than usual, because we were eating dinner at the church, and Elise would be going back to play on the playground afterwards.

An hour after dinner, she was 63. All I had left for her were some goldfish crackers. I gave her about 8g worth and then we went home.

Bedtime check, she was 102. Good. She got her usual bedtime snack and dose. She actually got her shot late because we were decorating the tree. Only 2 hours after her shot (way to early for the N to be peaking), she was at 60. We give her 10g. She's 78 at next check.

At 1:00 am, she's 54. Crap! we give 10 more grams of carb. I don't remember what happened after that (I think we both passed out from sheer exhaustion), but when we checked her at 3:00 am, she was 69. She gets 7g more. Finally by 4:00 am, she's 144. But down to 119 at 6:00.

When I woke her up this morning, she was 242. This was only 2 hours after the last check, so I'm wondering if she went low again and we missed it. She's been running in the mid to high 200s all morning.

Right now she's been napping for almost two hours and I'm wondering if I should sneak in there to check on her. We contacted the CDE at our endo, but they weren't much help.

So yeah... life is crazy right now. Thank goodness for impromptu kitchen dance parties to make you feel good.

Knock Knock

Who's there?
35.
35 who?
35g of extra carbs we needed to keep Elise's BG up through the night and she STILL hovered in the 60s.

Oh man, I am so tired I think I might vomit.

Actually, I woke up with a sore throat and feeling nauseous, so there's a very good chance I could vomit.

I just don't know what to do anymore.

Sleep? I think I remember that

I was reading Laura's blog post about wanting to change her middle name to Exhausted. It made me laugh. Then I yawned and fell asleep. Because I know exactly what she's talking about. I'm thinking of changing my name to Weary Exhausted McNeedstosleep.

Last night was the first time in three nights that we didn't check Elise almost every hour. I am not even sure how I'm functioning at this point, except that my body is just so used to operating on my usual 3 hours of slumber.

Whenever I tell people about needing to check Elise at night, the response I almost always get is, "wow! It's just like having a newborn!"

Except that it's not. Because with a newborn you know that eventually they will learn to go 10 - 12 hours without waking up to feed. And that knowledge can help you wake up for another 2 am feeding.

And unlike a newborn, there is a chance that this disease will steal your child's life away in the middle of the night. And however small that chance may be, it still doesn't stop you from slipping into your child's room in the wee hours of the morning; holding your breath as you watch the numbers on the monitor count down and finally give way to the 150 that gives you enough peace to sleep for an hour or two more.

And unlike a newborn, it's almost impossible for you to leave your child with someone just so you can get some rest. Pretty much anyone can look after a newborn, but only one who has experience with diabetes can help take the pressure off, especially when they are so young.

Like other D-Mommas, at night I live somewhere between sleep and awake. To paraphrase Jen's blog title, I am Elise's pancreas. And as far as I know, a pancreas doesn't sleep.

So when people say the "newborn" thing to me, I usually laugh and say, "I wish!" I'm betting they give me some weird looks, but I'm just too tired to notice.

Good news/Bad news

To combat the high overnight numbers, we decided to give Elise 12g instead of her usual 15g snack at bed time.

You may be thinking to yourself, 3g... is she on drugs? That's not going to make any difference. Except with these wee ones, it does. Elise was 168 at 11:00pm, 122 at 12:00, 150 at 2:30, and woke up at 179.

And now you may be asking yourself, "why so many checks during the night?"

Because Elise woke up at 11:00, and cried until about 12:30. At least we know she's not waking up because of the high numbers.

But the question remains; why IS she waking up? I looked in her mouth, and thought that maybe I could see some molars coming in, so we gave her some Tylenol. But she still cried for an hour after that.

So, I am at a loss. Elise used to be a great sleeper until two months ago. She started sleeping through the night at six weeks, and we never looked back.

Do they make Children's Tylenol PM? They totally should.

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?

Will I ever get a good night's sleep?

It's not what you think... Elise actually slept through the night last night, waking up at 8:15 (about 30 minutes later than usual). Ordinarily, that would make me so excited I would be dancing a jig (now THERE's a scary picture for ya), except the dog decided last night would be a perfect time to avenge the fact that she's not getting all the attention anymore, and throw-up twice in our bedroom.

And the best part? She waited until just after midnight... when I was slooooowly drifting towards that beautiful refuge known as SLEEP.

All Fred and I could do is laugh as we cleaned it up.

Tonight we decided to up the dosage on Elise's NPH again as she woke up with a BG of 278 this morning (that's too low to be a rebound from a missed low, right? Aren't they usually in the upper 300s or even 400s?), so no uninterrupted sleep for us for a few nights.

Which begs the question... what am I still doing up???

Momma needs a nap

About a week ago, I wrote this post; where Elise woke up at 11:30 and cried until 2:00 am with a BG in the 300s. Well, she has been doing that pretty much every night since. Her BG isn't always so high (ranges from 188-362), but I just can't figure out what's going on.

At almost 11:30 pm on the dot, I can hear her start stirring over the monitor. Then she starts to cry. So we go in to check her, and since we don't correct her at night, we let her be. We try to soothe her, and get her to calm down and tell her that she needs to go back to sleep. We're trying not to start taking her out of her crib to cuddle her or bringing her to bed with us because those aren't things we want to become habits.

But she cries off and on for 2 to 3 hours, sometimes waking again around 4:30 am for an encore. Although these usually only last about 30 minutes.

Her BG is definitely high for that time of night, but I'm hesitant to change her bedtime NPH for two reasons; she wakes up in the morning with a BG anywhere from 100 to 251 (mostly trending towards the lower numbers), and I can't imagine trying to sneak into her room twice during the night to check her BG without her waking and doing the crying thing for three hours.

Is it the high numbers causing her to wake? I don't know. Could it be teething? Maybe. Growth spurt? Who knows? I do know that I'm exhausted, only getting about 3-4 hours of sleep a night, and I want to figure out how to make this stop.

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.