Wordless Saturday

So you have Diabetes.... Now what???

Today is Dr. Seuss's birthday, the kids have been celebrating this all week long with various things at school, and today in celebration we had "Green Eggs and Ham" for breakfast. So in light of Dr. Seuss, I thought it would be fitting to find a quote from him that fits into our lives with diabetes, and I've found the perfect one.

"Don't cry because it's over, Smile because it happened"... You may be wondering how this fits into diabetes. Well think of it this way. We all look back on pictures of times before diagnosis, and if you are like me then chances are you have a hard time viewing these pictures. The "pre D" pictures. They depict a carefree life, pictures of countless amount of carbs being eaten without a care to count how many. Pictures of a sweet little sleeping face without the fear of death during sleep. They are hard pictures to look back on, and often the ones closer to diagnosis, I find myself trying to pick out signs that I "SHOULD HAVE" seen. But in order to move forward with your new life and diabetes you have to figure out a good balance of things. This involves letting go of the guilt of not catching it sooner, and thinking about the memories that you that you often block because you you don't want to think back on simply because it's too hard to do so. So from here on out I challenge you to think of "Pre D" life according to Dr. Seuss. Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

The most important thing you can do for yourself and your family after a diagnosis of diabetes, (New or old) is to move forward, and choose to be happy. Yes we still live in fear of what D will do, but it doesn't have to run out lives. If you are a parent, like myself to a child with diabetes, I know how hard it is to not give into that fear, to not let D take over. But in order to show our children that living with diabetes isn't the end of their life, we must accept that it happened, and it's here. We must show them that even though they have diabetes, diabetes doesn't have them.

So instead of looking back on a "Pre D" picture today and crying for the carefree childhood lost, smile because they had a chance to experience it, even as brief as it may have been. Don't let diabetes have more control in your life than it already has....

Hope is what we have!

Today, March 1st, 2012 is a Day for Hope around the Diabetes Online Community (DOC). When you live with a chronic illness, and invisible one at that it can get frustrating and overwhelming. The word "cure" has been thrown around for many, many years now when
others before were diagnosed. While it can get upsetting to see that today we do not have one yet, we don't give up, and have "HOPE".

I will be honest there are times I shrug my shoulders in defeat that we may never see one, but deep down I still have Hope that we will. When Clifford's bg#'s are on a roller coaster of a ride, I usually want to scream, but in it all I still have hope. I really don't think I could get through all this without it. When you have hope you see a light at the end of this long dark tunnel you travel through every day. If I didn't have hope I would feel as we/ he is stuck in this dark tunnel for the rest of his life, and that's just too depressing to think about.

I have hope that there is a greater reason that God chose my son and many other great children and adults to get this disease. There has to be, and that's why we have hope. We are closer today to a cure than we were yesterday. It's difficult enough to manage a disease that doesn't play by any rules to NOT have hope. You must stay positive and know there is a light at the end of the dark tunnel known as diabetes....

So if you are reading this, join me today by writing "HOPE" on your hand for those that you know and love suffering in that dark tunnel, for yourself, or just because you too have hope that those suffering will find their light.

2 Healthy years with Diabetes

Two short years ago today, we sat and watched while Clifford was still unconscious coming out of DKA (Diabetic Ketoacidosis), many tears were shed, I feared that my son wouldn't wake up from this nightmare known as diabetes. But here we are two years later with a happy healthy Clifford, bouncing and full of joy to share the news he has had diabetes for 2 years today.

It hasn't been easy, in 2 years of living with diabetes he's endured 13,140 finger pokes to check his blood glucose levels, and 4,380 injections. This is not counting the numerous blood draws he gets every 3 months, and the many IV's needed during hospital stays. In these 2 years we've had our share of scary experiences, one involving Clifford passing out from a hypoglycemic event, and being transported via ambulance to Children's hospital. The scariest of them all was when he suffered from seizures due to another hypoglycemic event and was life-flighted to Children's hospital, to this day I really do not like seeing a medical helicopter in the sky. It was only a 15 minute trip, during which I got sick, either from morning sickness with the twins, or stress of my son going through this.

However during these 2 years we've celebrated and witnessed much more positive events, A 7th birthday, then an 8th birthday, basketball practices, cub scout achievements, the birth of our twins, birthday's of siblings (I think we hit a 2 year birthday which btw was the day Clifford passed out, a 3 year birthday( 2 of these), a 4 year birthday, a 5 year birthday(again 2 of these), and (2) 6 year birthday's. The start of Preschool, Kindergarten (2 times), 1st grade (2 of these too), and 2nd grade. Many family holiday's and successful carb counting situations. Yesterday being one of these. It was swagging at it's finest and I would like to brag. Clifford's bg was 135 at his Blue & Gold banquet for Cub Scouts, some swagging involved for pasta, a salad and a piece of bread he was 75 when we returned from home. Then snack was given and a HI-C juice box since it was bedtime (75 is a good # but not one I like at bedtime), he woke up at 113 this morning! A nice way to start his 2 year celebration with diabetes.

We are soon embarking on a new journey with diabetes on the start of his insulin pump in 17 short days, we cannot wait. In all you can see it's been a trying time, but more so a fun and exciting time. Everyday is a celebration of a healthy day with D when he wakes up! So here's to many, many more healthy years with happy and exciting times with Diabetes!

Illness after illness

It's been a few days since I've been able to post, reason for that is we ran into the flu with Clifford. And you all may know that flu and T1 do not go together well. For the first time I considered having him go to the ER because of being unable to get ketones down. This may have been in part because I was so exhausted. But I pushed through kept doing what I knew had to be done (water, insulin, peeing every 20-30 mins) and gladly those ketones were gone by morning. He is feeling better minus some tummy pain but that is to be expected after having the flu and getting sick. Good news is we have zofran on hand because his ped called it in for us.

On Thursday Clifford was still home from school recuperating from the flu, and his sister Hayleigh came home from Preschool with pink eye, nice little swollen eye all red/pink with nasty stuff oozing out of it. ( I know a pretty picture for this early in the morning). Well they wouldn't even have her come into the doctors because it's "Highly contagious" so they called and drops, and she is doing better as well. They were both well enough to go to their dad's for weekend visitation, and in part that was a good thing because Friday during the day I started feeling "off" really just out of energy wanted to sleep and had a huge migraine that wouldn't go away. I went to bed early enough around 9pm, but woke up multiple times because the flu had hit me. I think at one point if asked I would have expressed that I was dying. I even slept in the shower for a few hours off and on because the water helped my stomach to not hurt as much. Which if you saw our shower you may wonder how I was able to do that. I am slowly recuperating as well but still feeling like crap, hot to cold temp, stomach aches, want to go to sleep. However I have things to do and have managed to pull myself to work, and hopefully get the dishes done here today. It's also been quite interesting in caring for the twins while sick. I'm hoping my frequent handwashing and non-kissing them (which is hard to do btw with those cute faces) has helped to not get them sick. It may sound selfish but I'm really for all illness to be gone from the house, I wish I felt a little better today so I could scrub and wash things like a mad woman. With 7 kids, we've had almost 2 months straight of everything from the flu (multiple times, 2nd time for me in a week), chicken pox, 2 different strains of pneumonia, pink eye, sinus infections galore, you name it we just about had it. It's expected, but we are just ready for a nice break like not again until cold/ flu season next year please!

Diabetic Barbie

I was able this past week to get an interview with Emma and her mom, who have created the "Diabetic Barbie", you can check out their facebook page, and give it a like while your there. They need to get to about 5,000 likes before they can contact Mattel to see what can be done about getting a Diabetic Barbie on the shelves for those with Diabetes.. I got the privilege to interview Miss Emma and see just what made her interested in creating a diabetic barbie.

What is your name, age, diagnosis story, and date to share with everyone: My name is Emma Ermel and I just turned 8 years old on Valentine's Day. I got diabetes when I was 4.

Emma's mom Amy was able to share Emma's diagnosis story with us all: Emma was diagnosed with diabetes on June 26, 2008. She had shown all the classic symptoms, increased thirst, started wetting the bed again, lost weight, but at the time I had no idea these were symptoms of diabetes. I took her into the doctor thinking she had some sort of bladder infection. Well we were sent in for a urine test and received a call from the doctor the next morning to come back in because the test had shown sugar was spilling in her urine, and they wanted to do a blood test to check it out too. So we went back in and did another urine test as well as a blood test. We received a call back from the doctor the following morning from the doctor and told me that I needed to bring Emma into the ER ASAP because her blood sugar was 33, and she was diabetic. My heart sank and I burst into tears, uncontrollably. We took her in, spent the whole day learning how to give insulin injections, count carbs, etc. Then they actually let us go home. We were the first family that our hospital had ever let go home on the day of diagnosis, unbelievable. Emma had her first low that night, it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, really, I felt so helpless. We survived though!

How has having diabetes changed your life? Diabetes hasn't changed my life much. I just had to get needles a lot before, but now I'm on a pump and only have to get a needle every 3 days, it's much better!

Do your friends understand about your diabetes? My friends know about my diabetes pretty much. they know I have to check my finger before I eat and they know that my pump is like my pancreas. They don't really bug me about it which is nice. a lot of them help me out with my fundraisers for JDRF too which is really cool!

Now tell me what gave you the great idea to come up with a diabetic barbie?

I thought a lot about having a diabetic barbie because I heard from my friends at school that they were making a bald barbie with cancer. It made me wish that there was a Diabetic Barbie at the stores to buy too.

Let's talk about barbie more, what kind of "accessories" will she have, as you know accessories are a girls best friend.

I think it would be cool for diabetic barbie to have a pump like more or she could have a case with a pen needle like I used to have. She would have a meter, and a case too. She could totally have all of the stuff that we have and maybe even carry it around in a purse like my Mom does!

So you know, you are a hero to many, as well as myself, but I'm curious, who is your hero?

Thank you for saying I am a hero! I think my heroes are my mom because she takes care of me, and probably Albert Einstein because he was really smart. But he was also silly, I saw a picture of him sticking his tongue out and read in a book that he liked to ride his bike and play even though he was a grown up. (note from Mom: Emma is currently doing a report on Germany for school and read a book about Einstein since he is German, she thought he was the coolest guy ever!)

What would you tell other girls and boys with diabetes?

I would tell other kids with diabetes that it's okay to have it. It doesn't make you weird. Everybody has something special about them.

When you grow up what do you want to do/ be?

When I grow up I want to be an artist, a dancer, and a song writer.

List 5 things that you love/like about having diabetes.

I get to meet other really nice kids with it too.

I get to go to cool places that JDRF does like a swimming party

I get to have my hot chocolate sale fundraiser for JDRF

I get to show people my pancreas is on the outside of my body

Is there anything else you'd like to tell everyone?

I guess all that I would say to people is that I hope someday kids like me can buy a Diabetic Barbie and get to play with her too!

Emma is a great girl who is determined, and motivated. Hopefully soon she can get to the 5,000 likes on her FB page so that she is able to tell Mattel how important to those with diabetes a diabetic barbie would be. Let's help her achieve her dream and do our part by taking a look at her FB page and sharing some love with Emma!

Pumping update

As you all remember last week we were blessed to receive Clifford's insulin pump in the mail. Well now everything is in place and he will "OFFICIALLY" be on the pump on March 22nd. On March 16th, he gets hooked up to saline, and we begin our pump training. I've gone through the books and practice tests, I've done all the training on the education website as well, and went through their practice tests. I've even gone and read his pump manual. I think the next step is to look over our Nova Max link manual. We received our OneTouch meter, and I had previously called Nova Max to request a Nova Max link meter. The reasoning for this is we used OneTouch in the past and absolutely hated it. That is why we switched over to Freestyle Lite, then when CCS Medical stopped providing the Freestyle Lite Strips, we switched to Nova Max, because I actually had a Nova Max Plus at home giving the ketone testing a try. We ended up switching over completely to Nova Max because we liked it much better than Freestyle. Freestyle is only used in our house at night time now because of the handy dandy little light on the end. Makes it much easier than carrying a cellphone up and trying to use that as the light, or turning on Clifford's light and risk waking him up.

I've done the practicing of the bolusing, and setting multiple basal's with the pump as well. I'm very ready for him to start, and super excited about it. The funny thing is when she called to set up our Insulin start date it was actually on the date he had his diabetes clinic (3 month check up). So during the morning on the 22nd, we'll be meeting with his endo, and diabetes educator as well as the nutritionist like we always do. We'll get his A1c, which I'm curious about as I always am. We were 7.5 at our last check up which disappointed me because we were 6.8 at our previous one. But I try not to be too hard on myself as since he was diagnosed we've ranged from 6.8-7.5 with a couple in between. I don't think that's too shabby while on MDIs. During the early afternoon on that day is when we start on insulin and begin our pumping journey. I will keep everyone updated with how things go as I hope it will help those that are considering pumping see how the process works.

I am prepared to have a few weeks to months of chaos with the pump while we establish basals that work and tweak his ratio's etc. I guess it doesn't help that during this time he's growing too right? But even so I will update hopefully daily to let everyone know how things are going and how we're handling our pump journey. Clifford is excited as he thinks the Mio infusion's are tiny in comparison to his syringes. He is also excited about the idea of being able to participate in his care a little more and learn how to bolus himself for meals. He tried giving himself an injection with the help of myself once, but didn't care for it. I have a feeling in no time he will be interested in changing his own infusion sets as well. It's been almost 2 years in getting here. We are 1 week out for his 2 year Diaversary. I have decided to make him a cake, or cupcakes (not sure which), his favorite meal which is seafood enchiladas, and write him a letter telling him how excited and proud I am of him for coming so far in the last 2 years. I really hope he will have a fun day. He doesn't know anything about this, so let's keep it a secret! I want to surprise him after school with it all!