Meanwhile, Somewhere in Texas*

Diabetes is being a jerk... even on the snow tube hill.

*picture may not actually have been taken in Texas 

And now you know... the REST of the story

Awhile back I posted a snippet about our awful experience with the TSA when we flew out of DFW airport.  I've been wanting to finish the story, but every time I tried to start, I'd get so freaking mad all over again.  

I figured it's about time to commit it to paper, lest my pregnant brain decides to get even more forgetful.  The story may run a little long, but here it is...

It all started as soon as we approached the security checkpoint.  Like any good (read: paranoid) person, I had printed out pages from the TSA website pertaining to anything related to kids, diabetes and travellers with disabilities.  I was fairly confident I knew what I could request from the TSA, and what I could expect.

I explained to the first woman that my daughter had type 1, and that I was okay with most of her supplies going through the scanner, but I'd prefer it if her pump didn't, and I wanted a visual inspection done of her pump supplies and PDM.  Which should have been okay, according to what is printed on their website:

"If you are concerned or uncomfortable about going through the walk-through metal detector with your insulin pump, notify the Security Officer that you are wearing an insulin pump and would like a full-body pat-down and a visual inspection of your pump instead."

My request was greeted with a look that suggested I had asked if I could run through the scanner naked and she replied she would have to ask a supervisor.  Meanwhile I put everything (except her extra pods and PDM) on the belt, while Fred and Mattias walked through the scanner, leaving Elise and I on the unsecured side.

We waited for about 5 minutes, then were rudely told to stand back ("no, over there... move back.  More.  Even more. You need to be out of the way").  I asked what the hold-up was and was told that they had to locate someone who could tell them what to do.  Meanwhile, Elise was getting upset and started to cry.

Let me interject that I had been nothing but calm, but Elise is just a very sensitive kid and can pick up on nasty vibes.  She told me if she could have Pinky (her stuffed bear), she would be okay.  Unfortunately, Pinky had already been scanned and was sitting on the secure side.  And they wouldn't give a crying 4 year old her stuffed bear back.  Nice.

Another agent (a guy this time), came over and asked me what the problem was.  I repeated my request, telling him he could see the information I had printed out from his agency's very own website, but he declined; again asking me what the problem was.

I told him I wasn't comfortable with putting what amounted to my daughters life support through the scanner and I wanted a visual inspection. He pointed at the PDM and said that it was fine to go through the scanner.  He seemed to be under the misinformed impression that it was a meter.  I told him that the PDM controlled the pump and if something happened to it, the pump itself was useless. He had trouble grasping the concept and walked back to the secure area.

So far me and my pregnant butt had been sitting on the cold, hard floor with a weeping child for about 20 minutes.  Elise starts wailing that she doesn't feel good, which is a sign that she may be low.  I wave at Fred to get his attention and tell him I need her diabetes back, which had already been scanned.  The guy tells Fred that he can't give me the bag, because it's already been cleared.  That's right, he was trying to deny my daughter the right to test her blood sugar.

Fred argues with him and tells the guy that Elise might be low and she HAS to check her blood sugar.  To which the guy replies, " she has to check right now???"

Fred says yes, grabs the bag and hands it over the partition to me.  It turns out she was in the low 200s, most likely from the stress, so I correct her and we continue to wait.

About 25-30 minutes after we first approached the security checkpoint, Elise and I were allowed back to the secure area, but we had to continue to wait while they swabbed EVERYTHING that was in our bags.  At least Fred and I were together.  By that time a suit had arrived with a giant binder and proceeded to try and figure out what to do with us.

It turns out the problem is that they can't pat down a child.  Ergo, they couldn't do a proper inspection on my very threatening 4 year old child with type 1 diabetes.  We had to wait another 30 minutes, and by that time we had missed our flight. 

The whole experience was awful and scared Elise so much that when it came time to come home, she started crying when it was time to go through security again.  Except at SFO, we had no problems at all (even though I requested the visual inspection again - yeah, I'm a slow learner), and the woman I dealt with told me that what they did at DFW was wrong.  She also told me that at SFO, it's a privately contracted company that handles security, while DFW it's the TSA.  Interesting, dontcha think?

Since this is getting rather long, I'm going to sum up what has me so pissed off (other than the obvious) in bullet points:

• Don't have something written on your website, then ignore it.  And when someone tries to point it out to you, don't tell them (something to the effect of) "we don't have to follow those guidelines".
• Refusing to give a child her teddy bear makes you a jerk.  And watching her stony-faced while she weeps for 45 minutes makes you a colossal jerk.
• Don't try to tell me what a PDM is for. I think I know.
• I think part of the problem was that the Omnipod was unlike any pump they had ever seen.  It would be nice it they were aware of all pump types.
• Use the brain you were given to assess the situation.  One-size-fits-all rules don't work.  If a pump-wearing 4 year old with type 1 diabetes is considered a threat, then we are all in trouble.

Yes, I realize that I could have made everything easier by just letting her pump go through the scanner.  But I was not comfortable with that option, so I tried to follow the TSA's OWN GUIDELINES and look what happened.  Why was it okay at SFO and such a problem at DFW?

I have yet to file a complaint with the TSA, but it's coming.  If nothing else, another family, CWD or PWD won't have to deal with the stupidity that we did.

Things I learned from Diabetes this month... August edition

-It amazes me how incompetent, poorly trained, and ridiculous the TSA are.  I mean, I have heard stories, but never expected it to happen to us.  The story is still forthcoming and it makes me see red each time I think about writing it.  If anybody knows the right forum to file a complaint, I'd like to know (I know it's out there, I just haven't had the time to research it).  Meanwhile, I think I met a bunch of monkeys at the SF Zoo that could do a better job than the agents we interacted with that day.  Oops, excuse me... that's an insult to the monkeys.

-After almost 4 years, diabetes can still make me cry.  I have an upcoming post about that too, but UGH, I had forgotten how angry and sad it makes me sometimes.

-Travel with D just plain sucks. I knew this, but our SF trip was a reminder.  Don't let this observation discourage you, but prepare you for the fact that even if right before you leave you are having the most amazing run of number you've ever seen, travelling will (more than likely) promptly screw that up.

-We stayed a few nights in a hotel when we road-tripped down to Santa Cruz and unfortunately did not have a fridge in our room.  It was a nuisance and a complete (stupid) oversight on my part.  Never again... when travelling with diabetes (and kids) a fridge is a MUST!

-THIS is what 10g cho of cotton candy looks like.  Also, the pure joy of my little girl enjoying it.

-Diabetes sucks, but cancer sucks more.  I know that by now most of you have heard about my sweet friend Meri losing her best friend and beloved husband to brain cancer at the age of 40 on Sunday.  My heart is breaking for Meri and her boys.  I only had the chance to meet Ryan once, but even that one evening was enough for me to know that I was in the presence of a man who loved greatly and was greatly loved by his family.  And Meri has been an amazing source of encouragement and friendship to me.  Please, if you have the means to give to this family who has not only lost a husband and father, but the sole income provider, please click on this link and give what you can.  And keep them in your prayers.

A quick hello and why I'm going to kick the TSA in the groin

You may notice things are a bit quiet around here... Fred and I have taken the kids out west and we're hanging in SF for the next week and a bit. The posts might be a bit sparse because I'm blogging from the iPad, which is painful when it comes to formatting. First world problems, right?

You do need to come back, though. I have a doozy of a story about the TSA at DFW airport, and how they watched Elise cry for 45 minutes, refused to accommodate my requests, suggested that  we didn't need to check Elise's BG when she said she felt low and ultimately made us miss our flight.

Somehow, this pregnant D-mama's head didn't explode, but someone is going to get a talking to when I get home.

And this morning I woke up to a fun surprise... My blog was featured on Disney's Website along with Meri and Hallie! You can go here to check it out.  Thanks Kim for such a nice write-up!

Have D, will travel

The other day I was reading this thoroughly funny and informative post about travelling with D and a baby by Kerri, when it dawned on me that I had never posted about our experience when we went to Portugal last summer. I think mostly because I blocked it out as a survival mechanism if I ever hope to get on a plane again.

For our trip (a 17 day excursion), we brought the following; a suitcase for Fred and I, a suitcase for the kids, a suitcase with a necessary baby paraphernalia, a suitcase full of miscellany, a car seat for Mattias, a hospital grade breast-pump (because of feeding issues with Mattias), a pack-and-play, a stroller, a bag full of extra supplies, a bag full of food, Elise's carry-on diabetes bag that was large enough to put a 12-can cooler in, a diaper bag and a boppy. We left the partridge in a pear tree at home.

The trip there wasn't all that bad. We left Dallas at 5:00 pm and the kids slept most of the flight... Mattias sacked-out on the boppy on my lap (I sooooooo love those contraptions!) and nursed whenever it pleased him.

Unfortunately, we had to transfer in Madrid which meant lugging the kids and all our carry-ons through customs. Our family gets quite a few raised eyebrows since we all travel on different passports (Portuguese, Canadian, and American). We often get asked, "sooooo, you are all one family?" Bahahahaha!

The trip home was quite a different story. In Lisbon, we ran into difficulties at check-in. The girl said we had way too many bags and she was going to charge us. I was prepared to throw a hissy-fit (I mean, we had the same amount of bags that we came with), but Fred calmed me down and we paid the 50 euros.

Then, at security (at this point we are in danger of missing our flight due to the bag argument and a very long security line), the guy tells us we cannot take the syringes through. Yousaidwhatnow? I was all primed and ready for hissy-fit #2 (never mind that he couldn't even understand me) when Fred took charge. He finally was told he could get a letter from somewhere in the airport giving him permission to carry the syringes through security, leaving me to wrangle two kids and our fifty thousand carry-on bags.

We ended up running for our flight and was allowed to board first. I think they felt sorry for us. At one point the gate agent remarked that we seemed to have a lot of carry-ons, to which I replied, "yeah... and?" Travelling makes me bitchy.

(keep in mind that two of our bags were considered medical and didn't count towards our total, and one was a glorified pillow)

Once in Madrid, it was snack time. When we went to Portugal, Elise was still on NPH, so we had to be mindful of the clock all the time. So once we got off the plane, we sat in the gate area so Elise could eat. By the time she was done, we realized that it was going to be tight making our connection to Dallas. We still had to go through customs, and the gate was in a completely different terminal that we had to take a train to get to.

So once again, we ran. By the time we got to our gate, they were announcing the final boarding call. Then, I heard someone absolutely murder my name on the intercom. To this day, I don't know how I even knew they were calling me. I finally found out from the gate agent that I had to go to a gate about 200 meters away for a secondary screening. I asked if just I could go, but was told I had to take my whole family (and bags) with me. Commence head exploding... NOW!

Once there, they asked me insane questions about packing my own bags (no, a dog did it), did someone give me something to take on the plane (just some nervous guy who gave me a ticking box), and other nonsense that would have been funny if we weren't about to miss our plane. They decided I wasn't dangerous (because Canadians usually are), and we *just* made our flight in time.

I carried Mattias onto the plane (Elise and Fred were still at the gate checking the stroller), and tried to find my seat. When I got there, it was occupied by some Spanish dude that did not understand the words "get your tapas-eating ass outta my chair!"

Finally, he moved, and as I'm trying to get myself, Mattias, the boppy and the three bags I was carrying situated, Mattias started kicking his feet, getting them caught in the waistband of my yoga pants, which yanked them down.

Yup, I gave my seatmate his own little peep-show. He had the decency to look away while I pulled my pants back up.

It. Was. Awesome.

To make a very long post not quite as long as it could be, we spent 18 hours travelling that day. We also spent an extra hour at the Dallas airport because Fred had lost his cell phone during the trip and we didn't have a way to call our ride to pick us up (I bummed a cell phone off my seatmate... hey, he OWED me).

And one last little post-script to this slightly-more-hilarious-now-that-it's-a-distant-memory, we had moved while we were away in Portugal. Rather, our realtor supervised the move for us. So we left our old house, and came back to a new one. With all our possessions in boxes, the gas turned off, and the house at a balmy 92 degrees inside.

It was travel-craziness at it's best. I think Elise ran in the 400s almost the whole plane-ride home. But I would do it again in a heartbeat. Next time I'll leave the yoga pants at home.

Finding same... 30,000 feet in the air

I don't know about you, but when when I'm in a fairly large group of people, I start to wonder if there are any PWD, or CWD in the crowd. I even look for the tell-tale signs.

A medical ID bracelet.

A meter case.

Tubing.

Am I the only one?

As we were flying from DFW to Madrid, I started to look at the other people on the plane. I remember checking out the wrist of the woman seated across the aisle from me. I saw nothing.

Then, during dinner, I heard beeping.

I thought to myself, "somebody's pump is beeping."

Then... "wait... somebody's PUMP is beeping!"

I looked across the aisle to the woman whose wrist I had checked out earlier, and there she was, bolusing at 30,000 feet up.

So we started chatting. She was dx'd at the age of 21, and her endo at that time had worked with Drs. Banting and Best. I'd say she was probably in her mid-70s.

I was so encouraged by our little chat. She has had very few complications, and told me about how she loved to travel all the time. In fact, she was flying to Madrid by herself to meet up with some friends from Germany. Living with D, loving life, and thriving.

Sweet music to this D-Mom's ears.

H*E*L*P!

Can I just say that travelling with D SUCKS?

Sorry for the lack of picture posts on the other blog, but I have no internet access that I can upload pictures on. As it is, I´m using some weird-ass Portuguese laptop that has weird buttons in strange places. You`re just lucky this post is read-able.

Anyway, we have been having the worst time with Elise´s BG. It´s either sky high or bottoming out. The only time it´s in range is when it´s either shooting up or crashing down. It´s awful.

Poor Elise woke up in the 400s this morning with 2.4 ketones. Nothing we do is working and I´m almost ready to pack up and go home.

Blame it on the time difference, blame it on the lack of schedule, blame it on not being able to find a restaurant to serve us dinner when we need to eat, blame it on the fact that I cannot SWAG Portuguese food to save my life... I don´t know.

I titled this post help, but I know there´s really no advice you can give me. I suppose this is just a much needed vent. Here´s hoping things get better... soon.

So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehen, adieu

Well... we're about to be off. We have (almost) proved that it is possible to put an offer on a house, pack up one house, close on another, move about 75% of our stuff to the new house, and pack for a 17 day trip overseas, all while wrangling two kids, diabetes and a dog... and do it all in a two week time period.

Wanna know something crazy? We also tried to have new carpet installed at the new house. It didn't work out. I'm okay with that.

I think I have one strand of sanity left, and I fully expect it to snap at the airport when some jerkwad of a TSA agent decides that the apple juice I'm trying to take through security is a threat to national security. I can see the headline now... "Local woman goes crazy at airport - punches TSA agent in the nutsack".

Anyway, the ol' blog won't be totally silent. I have some re-posts scheduled. Maybe a few new ones. And if you want to hop over to my other blog, I'll be posting pictures and trip updates there.

Don't miss me too much! Okay, miss me... it's good for my ego.

And just as an FYI:
*** I've heard rumours that there are people who search blogs and facebook pages to find people who are going to be away, and then break into their houses. Fair warning: our neighbour knows we are going to be away and he'll be watching. He's ex-military, has family members who are cops, plus he owns a bunch of guns and is just dying for an excuse to use one of them. I'm just sayin'.

It IS Texas, afterall... YEE_HAW!

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!

Heading Home

Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, OHMYGOSH! I'm in Vancouver for 10 whole glorious days! This is the first time I've crossed the 49th parallel in 5 years... hopefully everything is as I left it. Is there a $5 coin yet? Can I still buy a Crispy Crunch? Please tell me they still make ketchup chips!!!

I think I'm going to be eating my way through our vacation.

It looks like this will be my last hurrah before the mid-July travel embargo, unless any of my fabu D-Mommas out there would like to throw something together for a weekend. Anyone? Meri? Cabo?

Anyway, because I have issues, there was no way I could leave my dear ol' blog inactive for that amount of time. So, I've scheduled a bunch of posts. Some are new, some are re-posts, and I think one is even a cross-post of a re-post (from my other blog).

So toodles for now... be good while I'm gone!

*** I've heard rumours that there are people who search blogs and facebook pages to find people who are going to be away, and then break into their houses. Fair warning: our neighbour knows we are going to be away and he'll be watching. He's ex-military, has family members who are cops, plus he owns a bunch of guns and is just dying for an excuse to use one of them. I'm just sayin'.

It IS Texas, afterall... YEE_HAW!