We have a pump start date!

Although the pump will likely be shipped to us in the next couple of weeks, we cannot get trained until January 10, the day after K turns 4. It is a FULL day of training! (similar to the day we spent at CHLA when she was diagnosed) With all the holiday, school vacation busy-ness, it will go by fast, but I must admit, I was hoping that we'd have it before the end of the year.
So the pic above is the pump (on the right) that K will be getting, along with and the meter/remote - except her's will be pink. She's bummed it does not come in purple, but we can get her a purple pouch to keep it in (like a little fanny pack). 

Thankfully, K's healthy again and we got her off the albuterol nebulizer for her asthma - boy was that sending her sugar levels SKY high. So, although  her BG was lower than it's ever been yesterday (39),  her sugar levels have been fairly stable overall since we stopped the asthma medicine. 

K has a routine appointment with her endocrinologist tomorrow. We have way less questions than 3 months ago!! We'll begin anew in January - a whole new thing to master.

Yesterday was crazy!!

and not in a good way!! Poor K has been under the weather and she had fever yesterday. We're not sure if this is what is effecting her BG levels or if her body is just being wonky - as it just is in this phase of her diagnosis --but we're going w/ the fever for right now. After breakfast, her BG was 432 -crazy high (she ideally should not be above 200) - surely the highest she's been since the day she was diagnosed. There was nothing unusual about her breakfast and relatively low in carbs. (She had cereal and scrambled eggs.) Later, we dosed her a lower than her normal ratio of carbs to insulin for lunch and two hours later, she was 57!! (She should not be below 70) Poor thing - she was just all over the place. OH, and let me point out that before that 432 reading - she vomited! -because she had been coughing so much! I still freaked out (Marc was at work) - so I called the doctor on call - who was awesome. She said that vomiting wouldn't affect her too much because it was mostly fluids (sorry for the yuck factor) and because it was so long after breakfast. She gave me advice on how to deal with her lows and highs and reminded me that fever increases her BG levels so to increase the dosages for now and check her BG more often.
So, after the phone call, when I got that 432 BG reading I decided to check her ketones - in case she had ketoacidosis, which I cannot even explain. (See http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/complications/ketoacidosis-dka.html). I didn't really think she was that sick, but the test is painless and I'd rather catch it early. To check for ketones is kind of like a pregnancy test - I took a special stick from a bottle that we keep on hand and dipped it in K's urine stream super quick. Fifteen seconds later, I then compared the strip to various color ranges on the bottle and THANKFULLY, it indicated that she had negative-to-slight ketones present - nothing to worry about! So, we're just nursing her through this icky cold and she made improvements today; phew!  Sorry for the stream of consciousness writing - but that gives you an idea of my Friday (oh and I never changed out of my pajamas...)

To Ping or not to Ping?

We've been given the go-ahead to get the pump!!  It's sad that I'm so excited. So, first for those of you that say, "huh? what's a pump?" (like I would have 4 months ago) - an insulin pump is a medical device, the size of a pager (remember those?) that administers insulin into the body via a tube and "infusion set". The infusion set attaches into a fatty source of the body, like the tush or tummy (medical language) and is replaced and moved about 3 times per week. Although inserting that set hurts more than the injections - here's the key to wanting the pump: She won't need the injections every time she eats!!! and she can start eating and we can give her a little bit of insulin and as she keeps eating we can give her more - w/o her ever feeling it! We don't have to hover and MAKE her eat what we dose her for ahead of time and we won't have to inject her when she wants a snack. Right now she completely prefers non-carb snacks (cheese, tofu, edamame, nuts) rather than get an injection. We obviously will still encourage those snacks b/c they're healthy, but it's nice to have more options...  We still have to check her blood glucose and count carbs, but the pump, we hope, will make things a bit easier. (everyone we've talked to PRAISES it!)
Some people are surprised that K would be getting it so young - but we've met people with kids younger than two that get it. The issue for her is that her doses are still low (because her body is in its final throws of making insulin) so we'll have to dilute the insulin at first - but that's just another step and not a huge hindrance. My only concern with her is that she won't like wearing it (it has to be on all the time -except bathing/swimming). But I hope living more normally will overcome that annoyance.
So now our decision is to choose which one. We've been told to choose between the OneTouch Ping by Animas or the Medtronic Paradigm. We're leaning toward the former because it has a remote built into the meter so we not only don't have to pull out the pump from her pocket to dose her, we can dose her while she's playing - up to 10 feet away from us. But, we'll probably meet with reps from both companies.

Halloween Success

For somewhat obvious reasons, I was kind of dreading Halloween. As friends/family reminded me - we never let our kids go crazy Halloween night with candy. I know some families let their kid(s) eat as much as they want that night and then just dispose of the candy (or not). We are the opposite- we let them have a few pieces that night and then let them have pieces throughout the year (yes, it usually lasts that long). It keeps us from buying other sweets and bringing them home - there are always little treats available this way.
So, we let all the kids pick three pieces of candy when we got back from "trick or treating". We counted the carbs of K's, dosed her and let her enjoy them. She devoured them, went to bed and two hours later - her blood sugar (BG) was like 106!!!  --at 2 in the morning, it was 85!!!!  and she woke up around the perfect 100. Phew!
On a side note, her mid morning BGs this week have been really high. I spoke with her case manager today and we're lowering her morning ratio of carbs to insulin (which I had been doing on my own anyhow - but we'll lower even more). This whole thing is really quite unscientific and really nerve-racking!! But we're freaking out less - that's good, right?
Another side note - we've raised $2725 for JDRF in less than 3 weeks!!! Thanks to all the donors!! K gets that we're raising money to hopefully cure her some day. (I hope she doesn't come home and says 'when do i get the cure???")

JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes

So, with the encouragement of a dear friend who used to work for JDRF and the feeling of needing to DO something about diabetes (beyond learning to manage it for our child), our family will be walking a 5K around Dodger Stadium to raise funds for type 1 diabetes. I sent out the first email last night requesting donations and I cannot believe the outpouring of support. Our friends/family/acquaintances are just amazing. A few will even be joining us. The link to that is here: http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=87894877
The last few days of her management have been good. This is our third day of no highs or lows-  and that's a first!  Her body is constantly fluctuating so we are always adjusting her insulin dosages but we've had a good run. (crossing fingers....)

Why I now despise potlucks...

First of all, with three young kids, potlucks are kind of a pain anyhow. I don't mean your typical 4 family potluck, I mean the large gathering, organizational potluck. For whatever reason, there have been a lot of them lately and it causes me enough anxiety that I just don't go. There was a recent PTA potluck event that I felt I could not avoid, so we fed the kids at home before the meeting. That worked well because when there are a jillion other kids around, they don't want to stop to eat anyhow.
Let me also state, because we have to medicate K before she eats carbohydrates, meals in general are arduous for us. What is she really going to eat?? So, potlucks are one level beyond that because we do not control the food there, do not know the ingredients, it's always chaotic (the general drawback to large potlucks) - and like other public outings, I don't really like medicating her (ie insulin SHOT) in public. Yes, I've wrestled with her on the floor of public bathrooms to make that happen, but as that image makes clear, it's just not ideal... 

Yep, i'm starting a blog

So, K was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes nearly 2 months ago. I wouldn't say life has gotten easier since that crazy day. We are over the shock of it all, but I'm still having a hard time. I decided to finally blog because people probably think I'm "used to it" now and when people ask how she's/we're/I'm doing, I don't want to unfurl how I really feel (because that would be overwhelming for even my closest friends), I don't want to be a downer all the time (and I feel like I am), but I don't want to lie either. So, I will blog about my feelings, events in our day, challenges, and triumphs. 

First, let me clear up some things for those of you that (like me 2 months ago) don't know that much about type 1 diabetes. 1) it is lifelong. Her pancreas is barely making insulin; she's in what the the doctors call the Honeymoon Phase - I don't know why b/c this AIN'T no honeymoon!!! - but it means her body is in its final throws of insulin making and soon (could be a few months; could be a couple years), will stop all together and her insulin doses will go up dramatically. So, 2) - she must get insulin injections several times a day - which she still hates and fights tooth and nail. There is no oral medication for type 1 diabetes. (eventually she could get on the Pump, which I'll talk about another time) She must be dosed before she eats carbohydrates and she gets a different kind of insulin once at bedtime. How much we give her for carbohydrates depends on what she's going to eat, so... 3) we have to estimate/guess her carb count PRIOR to eating - and she's three years old...  How many three year olds eat what they say they're going to eat...?  We are constantly changing her ration/insulin because her body is still adjusting to the insulin. I don't quite understand it myself, but I know it's nerve-racking!!  4) She needs to have several periods of fasting (2 hours) throughout the day so that we can accurately check her blood glucose level. We check her at least 7 times a day. Thankfully she doesn't mind the finger pricks!!  But she doesn't like to be interrupted from what she's doing. 4) No one else in our family has type 1 diabetes and they don't truly know what causes it. She was likely exposed to a virus up to a year before her diagnosis that triggered her body to begin attacking the beta cells in her pancreas. So, that is my unscientific explanation of our situation. :)