Looking at Photographs.....

That's Clifford about 1 month before being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. D probably already began it's invasion on his body during this time, but we had no idea. It's hard to go back and look at old photographs, instead of just remembering the happy times, or that particular occasion, it's more of a "Hey that was before D" scenario. All of the pictures now are "Before D", and "After D".

Eventually I get to remembering what happened or what was going on when that picture was taken, but the first thought was that was before all of this.. How do you get past labeling your pictures "Before and After D?". You don't, you will always remember if that picture was taken before or after. It's not always a bad thing, it can be hard, and sad, but it's also a time to think about how lucky you are, even now after the diagnosis.

This particular picture may have been before D, and even though it's hard to look back on these pictures, it's also a happy feeling because he is still with us. It takes awhile to get over the guilt of diagnosis I will call it. I previously wrote a post on this subject which you can find here. But eventually we do move on from blaming ourselves for D entering our lives, and work in taking as much comfort in our new "norm" that we can. Besides D has enough power in our relationship already, don't give it more then it deserves!

Screw You D, this summer!!

After 4 days of waking with "Moderate" ketones, (We flushed them out everyday btw) we finally had a reading of none this morning!! All week I've been pushing Vitamin C, and his children's vitamins to keep him free from catching what was going through the younger kids. So far so good :). The verdict from the doctors was the girls had an Upper Respiratory infection, which was one of the 800 million things Google suggested it could be, Go Google for being right!

After this past cold/flu season I'm really hoping we can all catch a break from illnesses. Caring for a sick kid is well difficult, caring for a sick diabetic kid is scary on top of difficult. Thankfully we managed to get through many illnesses free from going to the ER or any hopsital stays! We will be going into the Summer season with a new attitude, "Screw you D!, we're in charge!".

We are not going to let D ruin our summer. D will not get in the way of normal summer fun like playing outside, running, playing sports, or anything else that involves an increase in activity! D can take a back seat this summer and let us do our thing. So to D we will say:

Screw You D

This summer you will let us be

Normal kids all full of life

Take a backseat and cause no strife

We will run, jump, skip and play

until the sunshine fades away

When you come knocking

we will be rocking

On top of our D game

causing you nothing but shame

Take a break this summer

Because for you, D, it will be a bummer

Okay so my poetic skills are lacking but you get the picture! Why not join us in saying "Screw You to D" for your summer vacation as well!

The dreaded Ketones....

Per my last posting, I suspected that Clifford might be getting sick. We have no temperature, no cough, no runny nose, no other symptoms of him getting sick, other then a few higher blood sugars, and the dreaded ketones. We were within range during the night, (116 at 10pm, etc) and woke at 244 with as you can see 1.2 ketones.... *sigh* Second day of what we'll call "moderate" ketones. Yesterday was 0.9. The normal "ketone" schedule followed ( Drink extra water, pee, drink more water, pee again, extra insulin, pee)

I really do not like seeing this number on the ketone meter, just sayin'. Tells me, because the 244 is not super high, and we've had those numbers before with "ZERO" ketones, he is most likely getting sick. So in the event he had his vitamins as normal, and some added vitamin C to hopefully kick whatever is trying to get him 's hiney!

I originally suspected Croup as the culprit to enter the house via Hayleigh from Preschool. As Hayleigh had out of no where spiked a fever, and had a deep barking cough. But even after going to the doctor's there was no diagnosis. Now with Maggie coughing, and wheezing, Abby losing her voice, and coughing, I'm thinking it may be something else. We shall see what the doctor says today for both those girls.

I definitely miss the "School free" days when germs were kept at bay and we went through cold/ flu/allergy season with nothing more then a few sniffles.... It just looks like I'll be adding more vitamins, and immunity items to my arsenal come fall when Abby goes to Kindergarten, to bring even more germs home. Also thinking perhaps we should invest in some masks (serious, not kidding)...... Here's hoping it's not much of anything and all will be free from it soon, seeing as we are entering into SUMMER VACATION.

Back to my original topic, Ketones... They suck, plain and simple. We flushed them out yesterday, and we'll flush them out today but how dare they sneak into Cliffy's body. Thank you D for helping them to appear. But just like you, they are not welcome. At least with Ketones we can get rid of them.... One day D your day will come, one day... * Evil laugh follows*....

Illnesses and More.....

The house has some how become stricken with a cold, at least the kids that is. Cliffy hasn't yet started showing symptoms but it's a matter of time because his bg#'s are fluctuating up a storm from good to high. All last week we didn't have a high waking number and today it was 214 with 0.3 ketones. While I know under 0.4 not really much ketones, but still much higher then our 0.0 or 0.1.

Just the fluctuation in bg#'s tells me something is coming on. I guess that is one positive of Diabetes, you can usually tell a day or two in advance from bg#'s that he is getting sick or will be sick soon. Thankfully the only positive thing from this "cold" to me is that it's just that a cold, there is no vomiting.

If you know about T1D and vomiting well, then you will know just how relieved I am that it does not accompany this cold. It is very hard to keep the bg#s up of someone who can't keep any food, (carbs) in their tummy's. With this cold we'll probably have some high's to deal with and maybe small or trace doses of ketones from the higher numbers. So it will be fluids, fluids, fluids, and probably some motrin for a fever. There is only a total of 14 school days left and I was really hoping he wouldn't miss anymore. After the winter this household has had, I was hoping we'd get a break from illnesses.

There were not one but two week and a half stretches where all the kids were sick. Clifford missed a week of school from the flu. Not just that but his bg#'s were being tested at least 20-25 times a day to make sure we could keep his numbers up from dropping, we went through a lot of pixie sticks, and juicy juice during that time, as well as one mini glucagon shot. But it all he stayed out of the hospital and I manged to flush out his ketones.

So here's crossing fingers, and praying he's not catching something because we need to catch a break in the illness department, especially when it involves diabetes.

Why does God allow suffering??

Looking through tomorrow's adult Sunday School discussions, I saw we were discussing "Why does God allow suffering". This really made me sit and think because we all know when dealing with Diabetes our faith is sometimes tested. I previously wrote a blog post titled God and Diabetes . It was my way of letting other's know that I struggled with an answer to why God would choose to let my son suffer daily with a disease there is no known cure for. It was a true test of faith, the biggest test I've ever had to encounter.

I've learned in my readings that you have a choices to make daily, whether that choice is to be happy, to work, to love, to be angry, bitter, or to let Diabetes put a hold so tight on your life that you will never know what it feels like to be happy. I don't know about you but Diabetes already has the upper hand in our lives, and I'm not going to let it take control more then it has to. Back to the daily choices, there are many I choose daily, but the most important one is to "live". I understand it's hard when dealing with D to comprehend why God would make the "choice" to have D enter into your life. But think of it this way, I'm not going to sit back and just "deal" with D. I'm going to make sure we do our very best to make sure it's not taking over Cliffy's life more then it has to. I'm also going to do my very best to make sure we advocate, and work to find a cure. I don't think God would want those working on his behalf that will just "deal" with what he's placed upon us. I think he wants only the most determined individuals helping each other by working to the ultimate goal of a cure, an end of this disease. For this reason I feel God chose us that are touched by D because he knew we wouldn't just "deal".

Our Year with Diabetes in Pictures....

Today's D Blog Post is Saturday Snapshots featuring D!! I've decided to basically sum up our year with Diabetes in Pictures.

This about sums up our year with Diabetes... Through it all he's still smiling!

Awesome Things......

It took awhile for me to write up this post as it's very hard to imagine what "awesome" things diabetes has brought us. Today we experienced our first "LO". A "LO" reading on the meter means the blood sugar level is below 20!!! This happened after recess at school.

Honestly there are only a small handful of good things I can think of because of Diabetes..

1.) We take it day by day.... We were forced to slow down and cherish everyday with one another. It's a celebration when Clifford wakes up in the morning on his own. Putting him to bed at night is one of the more scary things that I have to do.

2.)I now have a HUGE understanding how many things work and affect the body. For example did you know that there are 4 calories per gram of carbs???? Or that 1/3 of energy from protein is made into sugar??

3.) Because of diabetes I am more aware of the symptoms of D. I am more able to recognize them much sooner.

I apologize for not having many positives about D today but I'm worn out from our first low incident, and the day in general.