A Glucose Lick

Teenagers (at least mine) seem to only learn from mistakes and consequences.  Or if they hear the wisdom from a friend and not Mom.  But, man oh man, it is scary when those lessons deal with diabetes.  Why must they learn about managing diabetes through mistakes? 

How many times do you repeat yourself when it comes to diabetes behavior? 

Before they go out the door: "Do you have your meter, glucose, phone, do you have your meter, glucose, phone, meter, glucose, phone, brain, meter, glucose, strips, phone.  Keep your bag close, keep your bag close, your bag close, your bag close, close.  Put glucose in your pocket, in your pocket, on your person, in the Spibelt, in your sock, in your bra, right off stage, glucose, glucose, glucose!"  

pick your life-saving poison


Roo comes home from musical practice with "Guess what number I hit today?!"

Me:  I don't like this game.  400?

Roo:  58!!  (which is loooww for her.)

She had to leave the stage and there was only crushed Smarties in the bottom of her bag!  She sent a friend out to her car for more glucose!  I told her you should have been licking the sugar dusty bottom of that bag.  I had an image of a hanging horse feeding bag thingy or a salt lick.  A sugar lick.  I should hang a big old glucose lick around her neck.

And repeated: At least two forms of glucose and a medium carb before you go out the door.  Two forms of glucose and a medium carb.

What exactly is going on in those mushy teenage brians?  Please tell me!  

One good thing she said was that her friends got a reminder of how to help and one checked her blood sugar for her.  LOVE those friends!

Wordless Wednesday: 3 months x 2 = 5 feet

Holy cow, this silly picture won me a

Best of the 'Betes Blogs award for

Best Use of Photography!

Thank you to whoever nominated me
and to all that read! And a special thank you
to our dog for listening to me for once when I said "No!"

Jury Duty

I recently received notice I was being called for jury service. Who knew a little postcard could get my heart racing.  Of course my first thoughts were d-mama thoughts: I can't do this, what if something happened, how would they reach me!? And then I read the line that said something like "There are no phones or electronics in the court room so you might as well just leave them there phones in the car because you ain't gettin' them in."

Uh...hells to the NO!  I could not compute the idea of not being able to be contacted for the care or for an emergency for the girls.

Let's be honest.  I had no sense of civic duty.  I had no conviction of citizenship.   It was like survival and protecting my littles.  I had a split second thought of maybe chancing that my days would be cancelled when I called the night before but that was quickly and fully overshadowed by what if I was actually picked for a jury for the longest trail ever to be seen in our county, a la O.J. 

I called the county clerk to see if a medical letter would excuse me.  She replied, not so enthusiastically, "Well...we can't do anything about it if you have a medical letter."  Cool.

I called the girls' endo and asked if they could provide a letter stating I'm the primary caretaker of two children with a chronic illness and should be excused from jury duty. (Why do I always want to capitalize Jury Duty?)  They provided said letter.  Awesome.

I sent the letter from the doctor and my jury duty reply in to the county and received this a couple days ago:

Not a shining pillar of citizenship but I'm relieved just the same.

Progress

Yesterday Pink and I had a solid plan to get her back to school for even a short time.  I could see obvious signs of anxiety after being home sick for so long.  The departure time kept getting moved back further and further until we were past even the latest goal of 12:30.  All morning I was upbeat, "Positive thoughts!", encouraging, baby steps, but when it came down to actually going out the door she was doubled over thinking she was going to vomit. 

I pushed again.  I was determined to get at least one toe in that building yesterday!  She just needed to get shoved past that evil anxiety wall.  As much as I explained the anxiety that was happening she could not get past the wall.  I started to get really defeated and scared.  I didn't know what to say or what to do!  She was just crying as I was telling her she HAD to get her shoes on but she would not budge off the couch.  Pink doesn't cry.  It didn't help that she saw me get the phone numbers to the counselors I was referred to.  I was desperate.  Was I supposed to carry her? It was awful! 

For a second I gave up and said she could go back to her room to rest.  But I couldn't give up.  I wouldn't give up.  I joined her in her room and sat on her bed.  I looked at her and my eyes welled up.  I looked away to gather myself and said out loud "I'm scared."  She saw me crying and hugged me.  gulp

"I'm scared for you.  I'm afraid you are getting stuck and I feel a darkness around the corner.  I think you are afraid to go to school and have so much attention on you after being gone so long.  I think you may be afraid of not feeling well while sitting in class.  I think that the makeup work may seem overwhelming.  I might be way off but I think that is what is happening now." 

Pink was quietly crying, "I don't want any attention on me.  What would I say?"  heart cracking

Me: "I know you can do this.  It will be hard for only a couple minutes and then it will be no problem.  Today we will go in together after school and just talk to the teachers.  Just to get into the building.  We'll wait until all the kids have filed out and just you and me will go in.  I'll do the talking.  We'll only talk for one or two minutes with each teacher.  This is important."


Pink = bravery



She agreed.  I got her in the car.  We went and waited in the parking lot until all the kids were out.  Pink was quiet and stoic.  A good sign.  This means she is in her get-it-done mode.  As soon as we walked into the hall where the teachers were gathered they stop what they are doing and came right up to her exclaiming how they've missed her and asking how she is.  I held my breath but Pink pulled it off.  They barely mentioned any work, just supported her.  One teacher even waved her hand in the air "Don't worry about any of that work!"  Bless them.

Pink was great and as we walked out of the building we both were so much lighter.  I was so relieved!!  She was relieved.  She even said "I think I can go now if I need to go in late." 

I went on and on how proud I was of her.  What a great job!  Very brave!  You might say "Not so much" but I know exactly how she feels because I'm just like that.  Attention and social events give me anxiety.  Almost every day I have that same conflict in my head but being an adult I've built skills to deal with it.  Poor thing is just starting.  

I feel like I bumbled this really badly.  Somehow I could have made it easier for her.  I just don't know.  There was resistance today, almost backsliding but I could see that she knew she had to do it.  I give her all the credit.  And right now she is at school!

One of us is going over the edge...

Late one evening at work when I would have rather been home...

dammit

I don't know what happen to the sound in this video

but there's a scary Pennywise-ish laugh. shiver.

Probably just me losing it.

Come on, come on, comeoncomeon

Sigh.

"DONK" - exactly how I felt.

That's what I get for choosing the PB M&Ms.

P.S.  The above was several days ago.  I checked the machine today

and it appears several others have been playing the junk food slots.

vent

In true vent form I'm just going to type and not edit or structure.

Pink has been sick.  She has been to school two days in the last 2 1/2 weeks.  She has terrible stomach problems, pain-ish and nausea, in the morning so that she can't get out of bed.  It gradually gets better until she can eat her first BRAT food around 1:00-2:00pm and then by evening more normal food.  Then it starts all over again in the morning.  She always has had an icky morning tummy.  She prefers not to eat right when she gets up.  The last half of the school year last year is when it started to worsen but we could still get some food in her.  The summer she slept in and didn't usually eat until 10:00 or 11:00am so no problems.  This year it has been even harder to get food into her before school and then 2 1/2 weeks ago it was so bad she thought she was going to vomit and we are still in that state. 

Her BGs have been pretty good.  In the beginning I bolused 50% for food because I was afraid she was going to start vomiting.  She never did vomit but the 50% ended up perfect.  So I thought she really did have a tummy bug in the beginning.  A couple lowish numbers.  Then back to normal bolusing, Then high numbers with the start of her period and now today we are underbolusing again.  A little weirdness but nothing huge.  And no ketones.

We've been to the doctor twice, I've talked to them several more times, I've talked to the endo team, there's been two bloods draws (poor baby).  The doctor found a UTI.   All other blood work normal.  The second visit I asked for a Celiac test.  Thyroid normal.  The first antibiotics we had trouble staying on schedule because they would make her gag and make her tummy worse.  We switched antibiotics and have been on schedule with those.  The doc wants to wait until those are complete.  Two different antinausea.  Antacid.  He said the type of bacteria found has been known to do funny things in PWDs.  I forgot to write down the name of it - stupid.  The endo team didn't have much to offer at this point.

Her abdomen is not tender.  She passed the office neuro exam.  No fever. She has an occasional headache.  She doesn't sleep well.  I've questioned her extensively about happenings at school in many different manners: encouraging, pleading, pressuring.  She is the daughter that shares nothing but I do believe it did not start out because of something at school.  However, I do believe anxiety is playing a part it in now.  I've gotten some referrals for counselors - if I can get her there.  That is new territory for me.  Probably would help me too.  I've been in contact with the teachers and principle and she has been doing a pretty darn good job keeping up with most of her homework. 

I'm so frustrated.  And exhausted.  And sad.  I've burned almost all my vacation time.  I'm the primary financial support of the household and sole D caretaker.  The health insurance carrier.  It makes me anxious to not be with her when she is not well.  I've had to take to leaving her so I can work a few hours a day.  I insist she stay awake.  She has her meter, water, glucose and the phone on her nightstand and I call about every hour.

Today was not a good day.  Not my finest parenting moment.  I got (forced) her as far as the parking lot of the school and she literally had her hand over her mouth saying "I'm going to throw up."  I then proceeded to pressure her really, really hard.  I talked to her about how at this point she can't wait until her stomach is perfect.  She has to push through it.  It will be hard but she just has to get into the school building.  Threw in some guilt about my job and how I'm going to be in trouble with the school (a lie).  I kept us sitting in the parking lot for 45 minutes.  She basically only had P.E. left for the day and what is the point of that.  So I dropped her off at home, both of us pissy and huffy, and I went to work to get in a little bit of time in hopes of not losing my job.  Those are all things I've talked about before but in my frustration today (and a little bit of panic) I just laid into her.

We made up a little on the phone.  I apologized.  Tonight I talked calmly and supportively.  We both were both so sad tonight.  We made a solid plan to try to get to school tomorrow again.  I assured her that the school is completely supportive.  Which they are - they are amazing!  The school counselor called me to say I might receive one of those letters about a meeting but not to worry about it.  They know the situation, how diabetes can complicate illnesses and have seen me coming in for homework.  It was actually a supportive call and not one of those warning calls veiled in supportiveness.  And I met the the best teacher in the school district.  He surpassed his reputation.  We talked 10 seconds about homework and fell into a giddy, gushing conversation about To Kill a Mockingbird.  Just like that.  Love!  His eyes sparkled when he talked about Pink and how she is reading it.  Then he CALLED me a couple days later asking if he could STOP BY to drop off more material for her homework.  Huh?  She was home alone so I told him he could put it in the mailbox.  And then he slipped in there he was shopping and saw a fundraiser for JDRF and said to himself "Oh, I better buy one of those shoes for Pink!"  <baaawwl>

Too much sadness.  Then I feel guilty about being sad because others have it worse.  Then I think it's ok to to be sad and then back...and forth and back.

I just want her to feel better and be happy. 

We can do this. 

 damn, that was long, sorry.

No D Day: ------

                                        
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