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???")