Back to the drawing board

Thanks for all your comments on my last post... it really does help to have some encouragement and to know I'm not alone in wanting to rip my hair out!

The night after I wrote my last post, we still had numbers in the mid 200s throughout the night. We checked quite a few times and saw that she most likely wasn't going low overnight. Just to make sure, last night we just left everything the same, intending to do a few checks throughout the night.

At bedtime she was 116. At 11:00 pm, 199. When we checked at 12:30 and she was 145 (when her NPH was peaking), I figured we should be okay.

Unfortunately, at about 4:30 am, I was awoken to hear her little voice calling me over the baby monitor. She was 52. After 8g of banana, she went back to sleep.

She woke up this morning at 69. The only thing I can think of that was different is she played at our church's indoor playground after dinner last night. It's always hard for me to predict how exercise is going to affect her, but last night I guess it really did!

Does anyone have some sort of "formula" to know how many more carbs to give their kids when they do exercise?

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.

Meal Ideas: Best Apple Butter EVER!

I know the title is misleading... I would never advocate the eating of apple butter as your meal. Except if you are me and your husband is out of town and you are too tired to make a "real" meal.

But really, this is the best apple butter I have EVER tasted. And I should know. I've eaten apple butter on TWO separate occasions, which in my mind, makes me an expert.

Seriously, you should make this.

What you need:
8 - 10 apples, or approx 900 - 1000 grams. (carb factor for apples is .13)
(I used a mix of honey crisp and gala... it was what Kroger had on their clearance fruit shelf. I paid $2.00 for 14 apples... score!)
1/2 c (or less, depending on how sweet you want it) agave nectar (carbs for that amount came to 134)

or (but not both)

2 C white or brown sugar (sorry, don't have a carb count for that)
3 tsp ground cinnamon (5.4g of carbs)
1/4 tsp ground cloves (.325g of carbs)
1/2 tsp ground allspice (.7g of carbs)
pinch of nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt

To Make:
*Core, peel and dice all of the apples.
*Combine all ingredients in a crockpot (at least 4 Qt). Set on high for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
*Set crockpot to low and leave for 12 hours. My big crockpot cooks a bit warmer than my smaller one, so I had it on low for about 4 hours, then set it to keep warm before I went to bed. As a added bonus, your house will smell AMAZING. You know, if you like apples and spices and stuff. And if you don't, well then you are just weird.
*Puree with a hand blender or some other similar contraption.

Why It's a Great Meal:
*The whole family can enjoy the apple-y goodness
*I like that I can use the agave nectar to sweeten it and it tastes just fine.
*Ummmm, did I mention that it is so, so good?
*I mix the apple butter in with some of my homemade yogurt and top it off with some homemade granola (recipe coming soon) for a quick, healthy breakfast.

The carb factor for the batch I just made came in at around .28. This, of course will vary depending on how many apples you use, or how much and what type of sweetener you use.

If you're unsure of what apple butter is, you can read all about it at Wikipedia, here.

Portabili-D

When I think back to a year ago, I marvel at how much more "portable" we are. It took me quite awhile to be okay with packing up all our D stuff, food, supplies, etc. and straying too far from home. Now we just throw everything in a bag or two and have some fun!

Last night was no exception. We took Elise to see my hometown hockey team, the Canucks, take on the "yucky Stars". Elise's words... not mine. No, really!

We had dinner at her favourite restaurant, and took the train down to the arena. It was going to be a late night, so that meant schlepping all her dinner supplies and food (she eats the restaurant food, but I like to bring some healthy choices from home to round out her meal), as well as he bedtime supplies and snack.

When we were giving Elise her bedtime insulin while watching the game, I could hear a whispered conversation behind me. The woman asked her friend next to her what we were giving Elise. I heard him reply, "she must have diabetes.... type 1."

To which she replied, "oh, I feel so sad for her." The exchange was not meant for me to overhear, but due to my superb skill at eavesdropping, I heard the whole thing.

During the intermission, I struck up a conversation with the people behind me, and Elise having diabetes came up. The guy said he saw us give her a shot and figured that's what it was. It turns out he's an EMT, and that's how he knew about type 1.

He then said that Elise looked wonderful and we must be doing a great job handling a terrible disease. Wow, in the span of the week I've run into two people that understand... a new record!

Even though my team lost, it was a great night, and I love making these fun memories with my daughter. Suck on THAT, diabetes!

You STILL may be able to order a shirt

We have had some emails asking us if it's too late to order a shirt... it seems Elise and I did a great job selling it in our pictures. Hey, stop laughing!

Anyway, the unfortunate part is it is not feasible for the printer to do one shirt at a time, but they would gladly print up a dozen at a time for us.

We've received orders for 4 shirts today. This means we need orders for at least 8 more shirts to make this happen. We would love to be able to fulfill these orders.

The only sizes available are unisex small to XXL.

So, if you'd like a shirt, the drill is to send an email to shirts@helpmefred.com with the number of shirts, sizes, and mailing address. Then you'll need to send the money via Paypal (shirts are $15 each). When we get the money, we can then submit the order, but only if we get orders for 8 more shirts! If not, we will refund your money.

If we get this done quickly enough, we should be able to get the shirts to you by November 14th.

Some people get it

I know as a community we encounter so many people that just don't get what Type 1 Diabetes is. And that's why it is always such a pleasant surprise when you run into someone that gets what you're talking about, even though they have no first hand experience.

It happened to me last Friday. Elise and I ducked into Old Navy really quickly right before lunch because they had $2 costumes and t-shirts. And what penny-pincher can pass up a deal like that?

They had one costume left, and it was 4T/5T... score! I also grabbed a shirt and headed to the front of the store to pay, where I was greeted by enormous lines. I hopped into the shortest line, but failed to notice the lady in front of me had a shopping cart FULL of clothes.

I was getting nervous because the clock was inching closer and closer to noon (when Elise's NPH is peaking). The lady and I struck up a conversation, and at one point she must have noticed my "pee-pee" dance (okay, it's not exactly the same, but does involve a lot of fidgeting, glancing at the clock on my cell pone and staring at Elise for a telltale sign of a low), and she asked if I was okay.

I told her that I was trying to get out of the store so I could get up to Chick-fil-a by noon. I then hesitated, wondering if I wanted to open the diabetes can of worms. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, "my daughter has diabetes and needs to eat at a certain time because of the type of insulin she takes."

Yeah, I know. That's a lot to spew out to a complete stranger.

But she immediately grabbed her purse and said, "oh my gosh, I would have let you in front of me if I had known that, but she's halfway ringing me through. I have some fruit gummies in my purse if she needs them."

After picking myself up off the floor, I told her we should be okay, but I was just going to check her to be on the safe side. Elise was 110, and that was just too close for me to stay any longer. I asked the lady if she had any experience with type 1, and she replied that no, but she had read some things about it.

It turned out that the cashier would hold my stuff until I could come back after lunch, so I raced out of there to get Elise her lunch.

Yes... so many people out there DON'T get it. But when you meet someone who does (and has no actual experience), it sure does feel good.

Coming soon to a mailbox near you

If you ordered a shirt, I just wanted to let you know that they were shipped out this (Tuesday) morning. Hopefully you received an email from me with that info, but I wanted to post it here just it case it went into spam, or I missed sending you one.

I hope you like them!

They're Heeeeeeeere!

The shirts, the shirts, the shirts!!! Fresh from the printers, so hot they're smokin'! I've uploaded some pics so you can check them out. Please ignore the mess that is my kitchen. Yes, it looks like that ALL THE TIME. If I can ignore it, so can you. For a fun little game, see if you can find where we keep the diabetes supplies...

kid's 2/4 front (a bit big on Elise who normally wears 2T)

kid's 2/4 back

Women's M front... and me, born to model (ha ha ha ha)

Check out my boo-tay (actually, don't)!

I am so excited they're finally here! I'm hoping that I'll get them to the post office tomorrow. Remember, they should take about 2 days to get to you.

Woo-hoo! SHIRTS!

Pictures!

If you would like to see our cute, little Hallowe'enie, I posted a bunch of pictures on my other blog (read: I'm too lazy to re-post them here). Click here to check them out.

What I learned about Diabetes this month... October Edition

-Those who are your friends, and "get it" will totally make accommodations for your child and this disease. Even if you are practically dictating the schedule for their child's birthday party. "I see that the invitation says from 10:30 until 12:30... would it be possible to have the kids eat around noon, since that's when Elise has to eat her lunch?" Yes, I actually said this to my friend Matt. And I knew that he was totally okay with it. Which makes he and his wife awesome in my book!

-Cheesecake is bad. I mean, it's good. Really, really good. But for Elise, it's bad.

-I am quite possibly the only person in the world who tests a new bottle of test strips every time. Or I was the only person in the world... take that, One Touch suckas!

-Camping, or "cabin-ing" in the middle of nowhere, TX is totally do-able when you have a toddler with diabetes. As long you pack every little thing that you might ever need... ever. And have a nervous breakdown the night before you leave.

-Falling 10 feet off of a play structure will lower your child's BG by 50. No, it won't. Please don't even try that and sue me when it fails.

-Hallowe'en is going to be tough for the next few years. Elise is starting to get that those little, shiny packages that strangers are giving to her contain food. And she wants to eat it. But she doesn't understand that she can only have a little bit, and even then, only at meal time. And she is captivated by those dum dum suckers.

-The D-Community is ah-mazing! Okay, this is one I've known about for a few months now, but this October has just reinforced that fact. From supporting a new D-Momma, to trusting this total stranger with your hard-earned money for a shirt; you guys blow me away. When I am independently wealthy, I'm going to fly all of us to somewhere fun (Hawaii), so we can meet each other face-to-face. Who's in?