When we were at Childrens' after Ellee was diagnosed, one of the things they had to teach us was how to administer Glucagon in the case she goes unresponsive during an extreme Hypo. I'm not sure how their bodies actually act during an unresponsive state, but I picture convulsions and something like a seizure. And the thought of having to hold her still enough to get the extremely large needle of the Glucagon while she is shaking scares the crap out of me. Every once in a while, Josh or I are asked (or we ask ourselves) how low does she have to get to go unresponsive? This is the first thing we asked the nurse in the hospital. Like many things in the world of T1D, there is no clear cut answer - unfortunately. Everybody's body is different.
Last night, I found out the hard way that El can go as low as 35 without being unresponsive. (Her ideal range is 90-180.) I do not like lows, but I also don't like her being high. We have not had a hypo in the past two months since she fractured her wrist and after the consistent highs and a horrible A1C a few weeks ago, this is a positive sign that her body is functioning and reacting to the new NovoLog that were we switched to.
Yesterday was Ellee's follow up appointment for her fractured wrist and Dr. P cleared her of all restrictions do to her gaining back full range of motion! I can't explain how painful these last two weeks were for her to not be able to play on the slide or monkey bars! After meeting with Dr. P, we went eye glass shopping and ordered her a new pair of glasses! Then off to school.
After Ellee got off the bus, I took the girls to the grocery store to help decide what to make for dinner. They didn't care about dinner but asked for a banana for a breakfast, but it quickly turned into a beg to have them for their afternoon snack. While I was cooking dinner, they had their snack. I did check Ellee before and she was around 100 (yay!). Since she was on the low end, I ad it to her dinner shot. The girls played after dinner while I cleaned the kitchen. When they started fighting and getting cranky, I decided it was bath time.
When I declared bath time, Ellee actually fought me about it by throwing a fit and refusing. It was unlike her which ticked me off so voices were raised and I told her she can go straight to bed. I walked away to get the bath started for Dani and El followed us up. When I told her to get undressed and get in, she started whining that she wanted a drink. I was about to lose it when she said she didn't want water but took a drink anyways and complained, but it dawned on me... HER SUGAR! I was certain that she couldn't be low, but maybe she was really high. When I came back into the bathroom with her meter, she was in the bathtub and obviously had no energy to do anything. When her meter beeped with 35 on the screen, it was an instant panic. We were at Daddy's house so I did a mad dash downstairs, frantically looked for something for her to ingest, then back up the stairs. It was a relief to see her coming back to life as she drank the juice. At that point, the main goal is to keep her from going any lower and going unresponsive.
Lesson for Mom: check her when she starts getting mouthy, overly whinny, or defiant. Lesson for Ellee: when you don't feel good like that, tell me that you don't feel good so that I can check your sugar. We had a talk after she got her jammies on about how she felt and how that was an indication that her sugar wasn't right. We've been a T1D family for 19 months and we all have so much that we still need to learn.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Touching Video
BiG Blue Test
Watch this video, it came across my Facebook the other day. I found it very touching to see how people with T1D do not put their life on hold because of all the extra steps we have to go through on a daily basis. I couldn't help but tear up at the end when they go back through and show everyone with their finger in the air. It reminds me of little Ellee's fingers... All the little scars from testing. And to think that she is only a year and a half into this and has a life time ahead of her.
Watch this video, it came across my Facebook the other day. I found it very touching to see how people with T1D do not put their life on hold because of all the extra steps we have to go through on a daily basis. I couldn't help but tear up at the end when they go back through and show everyone with their finger in the air. It reminds me of little Ellee's fingers... All the little scars from testing. And to think that she is only a year and a half into this and has a life time ahead of her.
Doctor Appointments
After the horrible incident we had with Dr O (to whom we were referred to by our Pedi) I decided that I should followed my original gut feeling to go to OIO. We were able to get Dr. P to see her (since we had already gone to another doctor) and I honestly can't say enough good things about this guy! He was wonderful, very personable, explained very clearly what happened, and even spelled out a game plan for us. None of which the other doctor did. We were disappointed to learn that even though Ellee doesn't have to wear the brace anymore, she still can not participate in "rough activities", including soccer, the playground, & gym. Major bummer. =( It's hard to get a 5 year old to stay off a playground, even harder when she doesn't have a brace on to remind her of why she can't!
Soccer season is over, for all of the 3 weeks that Ellee got to participate in! Both girls have been talking about dancing. This fall, a lady has opened a dance studio in town that offers ballet. I spoke with her last week about starting the girls and we decided to start them on Monday to see how they like it! I completely forgot about Ellee's Endo appointment Monday afternoon but hoped that we could get back in time for it.
I usually dread going to the Endo. I think it's because T1D only progressively gets worse, never better, and the appointments only seem to remind me that it's all downhill. A positive is that our Endo lets us make our own judgment calls, especially if she is consistently high or has more than one or two lows, we can adjust without having to play phone tag with them. We have had our hands slapped for making an adjustment we didn't know we weren't suppose to make!
Monday we had our first afternoon appointment which works out better because Ellee doesn't miss as much school. She was only missing 2 hours, as opposed to 3-4. Josh and I have been discussing her numbers ever since she started school, soccer, & broke her wrist. We have had so many factors thrown together all at once that we really had no idea what the cause is to figure out how to bring her down. We knew that the only logical thing to do was to adjust her insulin to carb ratio and see where that goes.
There was a new Diabetes Nurse Educator that came in and spoke with us and went over all the factors that we need to look at. I couldn't help but notice the medical alert bracelet she wore on her wrist. When we got done, I asked if she was new to the office/Childrens Hospital Network. I normally don't ask things like that, but I was very impressed with her professionalism and her knowledge, and most importantly - her understanding. She explained that she just started with Childrens after working at OSU for many years, and has been T1D since the age of 3! As much as I'd like to find an Endo that is local, I am more than happy to make the drive to Dublin and Columbus for that reason - their employees have first hand knowledge of what we are going through, and that makes all the difference in the world to us! The compassion and understanding outweigh all of the textbook knowledge when it comes to dealing with the T1 Monster.
The outcome of everything is that we are going to adjust her insulin:carb ratio and see what happens from there. We already accepted the fact that we *know* that Ellee is coming out of her honeymoon period so it was easier to take when the doctor mentioned it. It was 4:15 when we got out of the office and even if I rushed home, it would be hard to make it in time for ballet class, so I called and explained and we agreed to start next week. I am already seeing a change in Ellee's numbers and will know even more once I see the school nurse's log on Friday. I am so anxious to see how dance class goes next Monday!
Soccer season is over, for all of the 3 weeks that Ellee got to participate in! Both girls have been talking about dancing. This fall, a lady has opened a dance studio in town that offers ballet. I spoke with her last week about starting the girls and we decided to start them on Monday to see how they like it! I completely forgot about Ellee's Endo appointment Monday afternoon but hoped that we could get back in time for it.
I usually dread going to the Endo. I think it's because T1D only progressively gets worse, never better, and the appointments only seem to remind me that it's all downhill. A positive is that our Endo lets us make our own judgment calls, especially if she is consistently high or has more than one or two lows, we can adjust without having to play phone tag with them. We have had our hands slapped for making an adjustment we didn't know we weren't suppose to make!
Monday we had our first afternoon appointment which works out better because Ellee doesn't miss as much school. She was only missing 2 hours, as opposed to 3-4. Josh and I have been discussing her numbers ever since she started school, soccer, & broke her wrist. We have had so many factors thrown together all at once that we really had no idea what the cause is to figure out how to bring her down. We knew that the only logical thing to do was to adjust her insulin to carb ratio and see where that goes.
There was a new Diabetes Nurse Educator that came in and spoke with us and went over all the factors that we need to look at. I couldn't help but notice the medical alert bracelet she wore on her wrist. When we got done, I asked if she was new to the office/Childrens Hospital Network. I normally don't ask things like that, but I was very impressed with her professionalism and her knowledge, and most importantly - her understanding. She explained that she just started with Childrens after working at OSU for many years, and has been T1D since the age of 3! As much as I'd like to find an Endo that is local, I am more than happy to make the drive to Dublin and Columbus for that reason - their employees have first hand knowledge of what we are going through, and that makes all the difference in the world to us! The compassion and understanding outweigh all of the textbook knowledge when it comes to dealing with the T1 Monster.
The outcome of everything is that we are going to adjust her insulin:carb ratio and see what happens from there. We already accepted the fact that we *know* that Ellee is coming out of her honeymoon period so it was easier to take when the doctor mentioned it. It was 4:15 when we got out of the office and even if I rushed home, it would be hard to make it in time for ballet class, so I called and explained and we agreed to start next week. I am already seeing a change in Ellee's numbers and will know even more once I see the school nurse's log on Friday. I am so anxious to see how dance class goes next Monday!
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