Halloweenies

Another Halloween has come and gone, and yes, D reared it's stupid, ugly head. But I just pretty much ignored it. I figured one night off couldn't be a bad thing. And just to add to the fun, Eileen has decided to shrug her shoulders and give us the ??? for the last 3 hours. Terrific.

Anyway, here's some pics of our little Halloweenies!

Check out the size of that pumpkin!

Mattias in his Halloween shirt (a present from Megann)



My lil pumpkin



One day he's going to be so mad at me for doing this to him

The princess and the pumpkin

Go Rangers (yeah, I know...)

Ready to trick or treat!

This guy tricked out the walkway to his front door... the sign says "Welcome to the Insane Asylum. Wait, I thought that was MY house

Waiting for the candy

Elise, Mattias and I... you don't want to know how many people ask me if I'm STILL pregnant while wearing this wrap. People, that's a FREAKING 7 week old baby in there. Come on!

All this snuggling wears me out

Happy Halloween... and GOOD NIGHT!

Naked Pancreas!

Reyna over at Beta Buddies started this naked meme... I thought since everyone was showing me theirs, I decided to show you mine! I copied Hallie's idea and added one last question. Here are my answers in all their naked glory!


1. What kind on insulin management mode do you use?
MDI, for right now. We also use a CGM. Her name is Eileen.

2. How often do you inject/change pump sites?
Elise gets 3 shots a day, breakfast (a combo shot of two insulins, sometimes three if she's high when she wakes up), dinner, and bedtime.

3. What type (s) of insulin do you use?
We use NPH at breakfast and bedtime, humalog at breakfast and dinner, and diluted humalog to correct highs.

4. What are your basal settings ?
3 units of NPH in the morning, and 2 and a bit units of NPH at night. Yes... that bit is soooo scientific. But if we do 2 units she goes high, and 2 1/2 units makes her go low. So 2 and a bit it is!

5. What are your correction factors ?
1:100
2:200
Remember, she's on diluted insulin for corrections.

6. What are your meal ratios ?
Breakfast - 1:15
Lunch - no shot, she gets between 20-25g of carbs
Dinner - 1:18

Elise also gets 3 uncovered snacks:
10:30 am - 15g
1:45 pm - 5-15g, depending on BG
8:30 pm - 15-20g, depending on BG and level of activity before bedtime

7. What do you do for activity and/or PE?
I monitor like crazy and carry a pocketful o' carbs (that is totally going to be my band's name when I form one). The CGM has been awesome in these circumstances. Activity makes Elise drop like crazy, so I usually just give her more carbs during her snack times to keep her level.

8. How do you manage Pizza, Macaroni and Cheese, or any other "difficult to manage" foods?
We find if we limit the amount of "difficult" foods, it doesn't make her BG go crazy. One piece of pizza doesn't seem to affect her and neither does a scoop of ice cream.

9. How do you prefer to manage your logs/data?
We write everything in a log that Fred designed for us. Seeing all those numbers right in front of me really helps when I need to make changes.

10. What's your A1c?
Dx (Sept '08) - 6.5
Jan. 2009 - 7.7
May 2009 - 8.9
Aug. 2009 - 7.9
Nov. 2009 - 7.0
Mar. 2010 - 7.1
June 2010 - 6.6
Oct. 2010 - 7

Woo! Naked meme... who wants to streak with me?

School report card

Can I just say that I LOVE Elise's pre-school? Not only have they been so accomodating to us, but have gone out of their way to help us out.

Fisrt off, Elise's teacher (who is type 2), printed up a slip of paper that she writes Elise's pre-snack BG, how many carbs she ate, as well as her pre-playground and post-playground numbers on. She then gives it to us at the end of class so we know exactly what went on with Elise's BG while she was away from us. Her teacher did this completely on her own and with NO promting from us!

Then, as I was dropping off Elise today, the teacher pointed out the Mom who is bringing snacks for the Fall Party on Thursday (more on that in a second). I needed to know a bit more info on what she was bringing.

The mom described what the snacks were, and then APOLOGETICALLY said, "I know, they're pretty carb-heavy... I'm sorry."

Holy crap-on-a-stick, did she really just say that? Turns out she had gestational diabetes and her FIL has diabetes as well (not sure which type). She then said she would be happy to bring something with fewer carbs. Wow.

Here is my delimma about the Fall Party. The school usually gives the kids their snack at 10:00. The party is at 11:00, during which they will get another snack (what the mom is bringing). As you may know, Elise is on NPH, which lets her have a 15g uncovered snack at around 10:30 (on school days we just let her eat a bit early), then she has to eat lunch pretty much at noon (right after school is over), when the NPH is in full effect (the downside is the strict schedule, the upside is one less shot).

Sooo, what do I do? My thought is to let her have a carb-free snack at 10:00 (so she doesn't feel left out at snack time), then go up to the school and try to figure out the carbs in the party snacks. The hard part is, 11:00 is really too close to lunch and it will make the rest of her numbers so screwy. Plus the snacks (Halloween chex mix, pigs in a blanket, and rice krispies) are bound to send her BG through the roof. I think like most of what I do, I'll just have to wing it and give my best WAG.

This new chapter in our lives has us looking at our pump options. We always said we didn't mind the strict schedule of NPH as long as it worked for us. Well, it's starting to not work. Unfortunately, when we inquired about pump classes we were told there isn't any availabiblty until March. Looks like I'm going to have to get a bit pushy.

I guess our next step is to pick which pump is right for us. That should be easy... NOT!

Walk to Cure Diabetes 2010

So... only a month later and I'm finally getting around to posting the pics from our walk.

I can't say much about the event, because I only showed up for the last 30 minutes... when the skies really opened up and the rain poured down. Thankfully, it only drizzled for the majority of the walk. I am so proud and amazed of the great job Fred did making Team Elise as successful as it was. I am also moved beyond words by the 85+ people that showed up despite the inclimate weather, and the over $14,000 that has been raised so far. Want to hear an interesting fact? Team Elise had three sets of twins walking with us this year. Actually, it was 3 1/2 since one girl's twin wasn't able to be there...

And let's not forget the incredible job our friend Tiago did in Portugal. They had over 65 walkers, some of them related to Fred, but most of them have no direct connection to Elise... how cool is that? Plus Fred informs me that three of the walkers were also Type 1 diabetics.

Without further ado, here are some pics of both the North Texas and Lisbon walks:

North Texas:

Wagon ride with Grandma Cheryl

Running with Poppa (yes, that is his Ipad that he's holding)


Elise and Grandma Teresa


More running!

Sassy!


Our friends and walkers:

Most of Team Elise in the POURING rain


Lisbon, Portugal:

Our friend, Tiago, who organized the walk in Portugal

Wishing we had this at our walk!

Their weather was beautiful

And the location was pretty nice too

Team Elise Portugal

At a loss of words, for once

I don't even know what to say.

Though I feel like I should say something.

Maybe it's because since I heard the news that we had lost another member (and a child at that) of the diabetes community to Dead in Bed Syndrome I have tried my absolute hardest not to think about it.

But it's there anyway.

It's there in the way that tears start to fall any time I allow my mind to go there.

It's there in the way I find myself so freaking mad that diabetes is my daughter's reality.

It's there every single time I haul my tired ass out of bed to make sure Elise's is still breathing.

It's there when I pray for a cure.

It's there when I hug her for about the hundredth time today.

It's there when I don't want to let her go. Ever.

I am so totally heart broken for the family that lost their 13 year daughter to this insidious disease. I cannot imagine the pain. In fact, I'm expending a whole lot of energy trying not to.

Instead, I will add my voice to the rallying cry for a cure.

Let it come soon.

We did it!

After reading everyone's advice, and a call to Elise's doctor, we decided to send her for her first day of pre-school. The clincher? When she cried after we told her she wasn't going to school this morning. Yeah, she has us wrapped around her little finger.

She did amazing and never even looked back when we left her. I, on the other hand bawled like a baby.

Diabetes-wise, everything was okay... she has been high since yesterday, and remained high throughout the morning. Even this afternoon we're having trouble bringing her down. But high is better than the alternative.

Right before I woke up, I had a dream that her BG was 742 and her ketones were 9. Can you tell I was a bit stressed about the whole situation?

The best part? She absolutely LOVED it. She told me her favourite part was cleaning up, and she made lots of new friends one of which she danced with. And I got to spend some unhurried snuggle time with Mattias. I think I could get used to this sending-her-to-school thing!

Check out these cute pics of Elise:

Come on Mom... let's go!


My little pre-schooler


Does she look ready?

Now she's not so sure

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.

Elise is IT!

Okay, technically, I wasn't tagged, but I decided to hop on the meme train anyway (a little late, but nevertheless). Thanks to Heidi and Jack from D-Tales for starting the madness!

What is your name?
Elise C (gives full last name)

How old are you?
(holds up three fingers) 3!

When were you diagnosed with diabetes?
I don't know

Do you remember what happened when you were diagnosed or how you felt?
Not good

Do finger pokes or shots [or site insertions/infusion set changes] hurt?
Yes

What is a high number?
31 (Well, she IS only 3... and half Canadian. Maybe she's measuring in mmol)

What is a low number?
3... E-L-I (at this point she starts to spell her name). Technically, she's right, again if she's measuring in mmol

What does low blood sugar feel like?
Feels like you need to eat something

What’s your favorite way to treat a low?
Bunnies (Aunt Annie's fruit snacks), bananas and goldfish crackers!

How do you feel when your blood sugar level is high?
Not good

What’s the best thing about having diabetes?
Lots of food (?)

What’s the worst thing about having diabetes?
My sensor (inserting the Dexcom sensor)

Do you worry much about diabetes?
Yup (she wouldn't elaborate)

If one of your friends were diagnosed with diabetes, what would you say to that friend?
You need to have a shot and foods

What’s your favorite food?
Yogurt and apples

What’s your favorite snack?
Granola

What’s your favorite low-carb food?
Salad

Do you know what a blog is?
I don't know

Do you know that I blog about diabetes?
Yes

Do you care?
I don't know

Why do you think I blog about diabetes?
Because I have Diabetes

What’s your biggest wish?
Chocolate

Who’s your best friend?
C (a friend of hers that moved away)

What do you like about him/her/them?
Sharing and playing

What’s your favorite thing to do?
Playing with trains

Do you have a hero?
What's a hero?

What do you want to be when you grow up?
A tiger

Who’s your favorite person in the whole wide world?
Momma

Are you afraid of anything?
Monsters and gorillas

Fill in the blank. (Your name) is___________. There is no right or wrong answer.
Elise

Well, that was fun! When we were done, Elise asked if I had anymore questions for her. I think she enjoyed being interviewed. I think it would be fun to revisit this meme every year, just to see how her answers change.

A new chapter

When I was a kid, I used to go to my best friend's house all the time. I remember in the entrance way, right by her front door, there was a painting of a deer, with the inscription, "If you love something, Set it free... If it comes back, it's yours, If it doesn't, it never was.

Every time I read that, it struck my little 10-year old brain as very sad. I don't know why, it just seemed so empty to me, so without hope. I guess maybe I focused on the last part too much.

Now that I've given you a glimpse into the beginnings of my little glass-half-empty mentality, I'll get to my point.

Remember that pre-school I blogged about a few weeks ago? Fred and I went to visit them last week, and were very impressed with what we saw. The director took us for a tour, and asked a ton of questions about Elise's diabetes, and what their role would be if she because a student there. About a week later we received a call saying they would love to have Elise come to their pre-school!

Today we met with the lady who will be her teacher. We were told that she had type 1, but it turns out she's actually type 2. To me, it's no big deal... she knows how to check a BG, she understands about carbs, and she seems so on top of things. She even took it upon herself to do some research before the meeting.

We went over Elise's needs, showed her the CGM and all of Elise's supplies. We even had a low BG while we were there, so it was good for her to see how we treat it. I was impressed at how proactive she was, especially when she asked if she could check Elise's BG during the meeting (at a time we would normally be checking, of course).

The school was ready for Elise to start this Thursday (tomorrow), but we're still tweaking her insulin since the move to full-strength and I don't feel like we have it right yet. So Tuesday will be Elise's first day of school!

And now that inscription has taken on a whole new meaning. Yes, I am afraid of letting her go, but I love Elise. And she needs me to let go of her so she can start to find her own way in this world. Yes, even at the tender age of 3, she needs to start taking those baby steps towards independence. And because she is mine, I can always feel confident that she will come back.

Especially since she will be so loved and well cared for while she's away.