Y & Z

Y is for...

When They Were Young

That was then.

This is now. (Plus a cute little blonde.)

Can you believe the nerve of these kids, growing like that? I feel like punishing them. Just a tad. For all of this growing that they insist on doing. You know how much I hate that.  Unacceptable!

Z is for...

Zoo

We paid a visit to the local zoo on Monday because it was the first anniversary of my little buddy's first birthday. (You must know by now that I will not accept his growing either.) We even had beautiful weather!

It's not much of a zoo. You can take in everything in under two hours. But these kids don't know any better. Well Mackenzie does because she's been to Australia and their zoos are in a whole different league then anything we have here. But she was younger then so she doesn't remember it as well as I do.

But the zoo here does have giraffes and I consider them to be the most important of all the zoo animals. I love them. The poor giraffes are abused by the tail-biting ostrich. He's just jealous of their beautiful coat while he has mange and is loosing his feathers.

Peacocks who would not show off their feathers for me. Sigh... I'm going to find a mating call and blare over my phone next time.

A red panda who is in the EXACT SAME SPOT every time we come. Every. Single. Time. I don't mind because it's a great spot for taking pictures. You can even get a good shot of him sticking his tongue out at you. 

Some other creatures like elephants monkeys, pig like creatures, an ostrich, and, of course, butt monkeys. You might call them baboons. Kayleigh doesn't. ;)

We took the wildest of all the creatures home with us.

Brought to you by W & X...

So I'm a little behind in my blogging through the alphabet posts. So this week and next week you're getting a twofer so I can finish on time. How lucky are you?

W is for...

Ways I Cope With Having 2 Children With Diabetes

Long story short, I use sarcasm and my own personal brand of humor. I liken diabetes to a man and then discuss all the ways I'd like to hurt it. Usually on FB or through texts. It's very cathartic and lots of fun.  If you have good friends, they'll join in.

 My bestest friends and I might one day compile all of our diabetes insults and create a diabetes slam book.  It'll be a great read, I'm sure.

I also enjoy taking photos of the insane amount of prescriptions that we get every time we go to the pharmacy. It's so comical that I just can't stop myself. And I always refer to it all as our "drug paraphernalia." I just can't seem to help myself.

 It might all be weird but it works for me.  =o)

X is for...

eXcited!!!!

Yes I know that excited doesn't technically start with X I don't care, it sounds like it does and that's good enough for me.

So why am I excited? Because we're planning a vacation. To somewhere fun. Somewhere where we have nobody to please but ourselves. And we're going with our good friends.

So where are we going?

Woo-hoo!!!!  I can't wait.  Only 9 more months.

V is for...Video

I am a little behind with my Blogging Through the Alphabet. V was stumping. All I could think of was Valentine. I'm not into Valentines Day. At. All.  So I stewed on it for a bit.  And then it came to me. Kayleigh got a Hello Kitty Video camera for Christmas. Cha-Ching. I had my V.

So my dear readers, I perused her memory card and have prepared this tasty snack for your viewing pleasure.  So take a peek into Kayleigh's mind and see what she thinks is worth videoing. And good luck figuring her out.

U is for... Understand

Diabetes is a complicated, confusing diesease. Most people don't know anything about it until they have too. I know I sure didn't have a clue.

I have family member nearby with type 2, and that had been my only experience with diabetes "up close." I do/did have some other family members with it but I was young and didn't realize. Then this past July, type 1 diabetes jumped into my world. My good friend's sweet, precious toddler was diagnosed with it. I quickly learned that type 1 is nothing like my limited experiences with type 2. I would pick my friends brain about his care and it kind of made sense but not exactly.

2 months later it made more sense. My Mackenzie was diagnosed this past September and having to deal with it full time, it suddenly made a lot more sense.  After my little Kayleigh was diagnosed, everything I thought that I knew about diabetes was proven wrong because, as we in the D-World like to say, "Your diabetes may vary." That is a huge understatement. It's ugly and unpredictable and nothing like type 2 diabetes, which is ugly in a totally different way.

Since type 1 diabetes is not as common as type 2, people often make assumptions about my daughters based on what they know to be true of type 2.  Please understand that they are not the same disease at all.

So the purpose of this post is to give you an understanding of the similarities and differences of these two deadly diseases.

What They Do Have In Common

Diabetes, in general, is a metabolism disorder. Metabolism refers to how your body breaks down food for energy and growth. The majority of the food we eat is broken down into glucose, a type of sugar in the blood. Glucose is the main source of energy for our bodies.

The glucose in our blood is used for energy in our cells. Insulin is necessary to get the glucose into our cells. It is a hormone produced in your pancreas. You can think of insulin as a bridge. If the bridge isn't there, nothing can cross over. You won't be getting any energy to your cells.

Eventually the glucose builds up in your blood stream until the levels are too high, resulting in hyperglycemia.

There are 2 main reasons why this occurs. 1) Your body does not produce insulin. (type 1)  2) Your cells  do not respond properly to the insulin.  (type 2)

How They Differ

Differences between type 1 and type 2 diabetes

Type 1 diabetes	Type 2 diabetes
Symptoms usually start in childhood or young adulthood. People often seek medical help because they are seriously ill from sudden symptoms of high blood sugar.	The person may not have symptoms before diagnosis. Usually the disease is discovered in adulthood, but an increasing number of children are being diagnosed with the disease.
Episodes of low blood sugar level (hypoglycemia) are common.	There are no episodes of low blood sugar level, unless the person is taking insulin or certain oral diabetes medicines.
It cannot be prevented.	It can be prevented or delayed with a healthy lifestyle, including maintaining a healthy weight, eating sensibly, and exercising regularly.

Type 1 Diabetes

First and foremost, you should know that type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. Yes, you read that right. It is an autoimmune disease.

Basically, my daughter's own bodies are destroying the insulin-producing beta cells in their pancreas. They are not producing insulin. It had nothing to do with their weight, what they ate, how much they ate, how active they were. Their body's own immune system destroyed the cells. There was nothing we could've done to prevent it.  The beta cells in the pancreas have been destroyed and there is no way to reverse it.

When you are a type 1 diabetic, you are insulin dependent. For the rest of your life. Insulin is not a cure. It does not "heal" the pancreas. It is necessary in order to stay alive. Without insulin, cells cannot absorb the sugar that they need to produce energy.  Without insulin, the food that my daughter's eat to stay alive would eventually kill them.

Until there's a cure, there's not much we can do other than manage it the best we can. There is no controlling type one diabetes. It's too unpredictable. It's a difficult sort of life that I'm not capable of explaining. I just don't have the words. Thankfully a fellow D-Mom, over at The Princess & the Pump, has done a fabulous job of giving people a glimpse of what it's like living with type 1.  Check out "There is Something You Should Know" or "Do You Know How Lucky You Are?" for a peek at life with D.

Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetics generally have 1 of 2 problems: not enough insulin being produced or insulin resistance where the insulin being produced is not working properly. The latter being the most common reason.

There are many reasons that can lead to insulin resistance: genetics, obesity, increasing age, or having high blood sugar for long periods of time. The problem is the cells themselves. They build up a resistance to the insulin and nobody is sure why. So the cells reject the insulin, which causes the pancreas to send out more to get the energy where it needs to be, thus causing the cell to be more resistant. Kind of like a vaccine or an allergy shot that's given to build up your immunity to the "whatever."  It's a vicious circle.  And how rotten is that?

Type 2 can be treated, prevented, or delayed by maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Physical activity and good food choices can go a long way to avoiding this horrible disease. Other treatments include oral medications or insulin injections.

The other rotten thing about type 2 is that there might not be any symptoms. People often die from complications of type 2 without ever knowing that they have it. This is part of the reason why it's known as "the silent killer."

Type 2 diabetes is most common in those over 40, but it's becoming more and more common in children. Maybe a side effect to the "video game era" we live in?

The End Result

While the two diseases are vastly different, neither one is a walk in the park. They are both deadly.  Despite all of the medical advances in treatments, diabetes still remains the leading cause of blindness and kidney disease. It also puts you at a great risk for heart disease, stroke, and foot/leg amputations.  In one year, more people die from diabetes and the accompanying complications than from breast cancer and AIDS combined. Yet few people are aware of what diabetes is nor do they understand the seriousness of the disease or recognize the symptoms.

It is my prayer that you will share what you have learned about diabetes with somebody you know. It might just be that certain someone who needed to hear it most.

S is for... Symptoms

If people ever only read one post on my blog, then I would pray that this post would be The One.

Both of my daughter's were recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. My older daughter, who was diagnosed first, had been exhibiting the symptoms for well over a year.  So why didn't we catch it? Because we didn't know what the symptoms were.

Hind sight being what it is, it seems so obvious now. But at the time we attributed them to hormones, growth spurts, adolescence. Diabetes never even entered our minds.

Type 1 diabetes is a horrible thing to have to endure. There is no way you can prevent it and there is no cure for it. Your only option is to live with it and try to manage it as best you can. There's no magic formula. What works today probably won't next week. What works for your type 1 friend might not work for you. In the diabetes world there is a little acronym that is used often: YDMV. Your diabetes may vary. And believe me, it sure will.

The onset of diabetes is slow and the changes are generally subtle. Often a diagnosis isn't found until the child is very ill.  In the case of my older daughter, her onset was unusually slow and it's only by God's mercy that we found out before she was seriously ill.

Most likely diabetes isn't something that your doctor will be checking for at your well check up.  I'm told that this is because the test is some $$ and because, in the big picture, isn't considered that prevalent. About 15,000 children in the U.S. are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes each year. It seems like a lot to me but what do I know?

Diabetes (type 1 and 2) is referred to as The Silent Killer. Because the symptoms sneak up on you. Millions of Americans right now have type 2 and don't even know it. Often times people die from it before they even know they have it.

So we don't know the symptoms and doctor's aren't routinely checking anyone for it. That is scary!! And it's a real shame.

So my dear friends, today I am sharing my knowledge in the hopes that it might one day help you or somebody that you know catch this disease early. I pray that you'll never have need of it.

Symptoms of Diabetes

1) An increased in thirst or urination.  My older daughter was drinking an insane amount. She could drink 3 quarts of water in under an hour. She's go to the bathroom upstairs, walk down the stairs, and go again. Literally. Also watch out for bed wetting to appear out of no where. Or babies soaking their diapers quickly.

We thought the drinking was due to a growth spurt/sports and, well, when you drink a lot you pee a lot.

2) An increase in appetite. Think the appetite of a teenaged boy. Non-stop, out-of-control eating. Mackenzie would eat one of those giant boxes of Goldfish in one week. Sneaking it because I would not allow anyone to actually eat that much. So also be aware of unexplained "missing" food.  She ate because her body wasn't getting the sugar to her cells for energy so her cells were telling her body to eat more because they wanted energy. It was a vicious cycle.

And unfortunately, kids eat more during growth spurts and puberty so it's not like you would be terribly suspect of this symptom.

3) Sudden, unexplained weight loss. Mackenzie lost weight seemingly over night. A lot of weight. We first noticed it during basketball season so we attributed it to that and puberty when kids often lose their "baby fat."

More than a pound a week or 5 pounds in a month of unexplained weight loss might need to be looked into. When the body isn't getting the energy to the cells then the body will use fat stores and muscle tissue to get energy.

4) Lethargy. Extreme tiredness.

I remember the day that Mackenzie was diagnosed. We were at the park with our bikes. Mackenzie kept coming to me complaining that her bike "wasn't working right." It was "too hard to pedal." I kept testing it and switching the gears and found it to be working just fine. I also remember being irritated with her over it. :o(  She was tired because her cells weren't getting the energy they needed. Insulin is the "bridge" that gets energy to the cells. No insulin = no energy. Bad momma moment.

5) A fruity odor to the breath.  I don't remember or not if she had this because, as I said, I wasn't looking for the symptoms. But I've heard of a lot of people catching it because of this symptom.

What to do if Your Child or Anyone Else Exhibits Any of These Symptoms

Having any of these symptoms doesn't mean that they have diabetes, so you shouldn't automatically freak out, but I would definitely have my child tested.

Call your doctor and get your child an appointment ASAP. If your doctor is a big loser, like my OLD one was, go to urgent care or the ER.  My old loser ped wasn't very concerned about the symptoms or the fact that my daughter's blood sugar was over 500 (my friend with a type 1 child tested her sugar) and didn't feel it necessary to get her in for about four days. She is no longer our doctor.

The more people that know the symptoms, the more lives we can save. So please share the knowledge.

R is for... Reality

Everyday, when I go to correct Mackenzie's work, I am greeted with stuff like this. Each and every day, she signs her work with a different name. Each name is as random as she herself is. Whatever her interest is that day, the name reflects it.

I always look forward to seeing what she comes up with each day. It's quite entertaining and I enjoy the chuckle.

Today, as I was grading her work, I thought about how boring it would be if she were in a traditional school setting and was limited to just writing her own name.

I get the necessity of it in that setting, I was a student and a teacher after all, but I couldn't help but think that sometimes "Reality" can be very boring and stifling.

 I bet there are other sixth graders out there who would love to be able to write a My Little Pony name or the members of their favorite band on their homework but can't for fear of being reprimanded with a zero or even teased.

So on particularly trying days, seeing the name "Octavia" on my daughter's paper reminds me of how blessed I am to be able to push back some of the realities of the "real world" for a little longer.

Of course, I might change my tune if she's still doing this in college.  =o)

Q is for... Quicker

As in, we were a lot quicker in noticing Kayleigh's diabetes symptoms than we were with Mackenzie. lol As you'll recall, Kayleigh was put on a diabetes watch, back in the beginning of November, when we had randomly tested her and found some awful blood sugar levels. You also might recall that Mackenzie had been experiencing symptoms for at least a year before we caught on.

We are quite pleased that we caught Kayleigh much more quickly. This is the rest of Kayleigh's story.

Per the doctors orders we were to watch her for symptoms. Things like hugely increased appetite, non-stop thirst, frequent potty breaks, extreme tiredness, sudden weight loss. We were to weigh her every week at the same time and told NOT to check her blood sugar unless we felt something was off. And we were to alert him immediately if she lost more than 5 pounds in one month or more than 1 in a single week.

So we followed his rules. Except for the no checking the blood sugar one. We did that quite a bit. But not as often as we wanted. :o)  Since I know that you are wondering, I'll just say that they were always high during the day after she ate and always normal first thing in the morning before breakfast. Ack!

About 3 weeks after her failed ER visit, she had lost 2 pounds in one week. So I called Dr. Jensen. And he quickly pulled some strings to get her into the lab for some more testing. He wanted her in now.

 I quickly gave her a snack and packed some in my purse to make sure that her blood sugar didn't drop in the event of another endless wait. (They aren't getting me like that the second time.)

Dr. Jensen had said that he wouldn't get to read the A1C results until the next day. But in any event his plan was to start her on Lantus, which is a long acting insulin that lasts (in theory) 24 hours. He was not going to put her on Novolog (quick acting insulin that you would use to cover the food you eat) just yet, since her pancreas was still spitting out some insulin. (As evidenced by her normal numbers in the mornings.)  She was to bum supplies off of her sister until after the holiday. (This was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.) And off we went to the hospital.

Thankfully the lab is quicker than the ER so we, much to Kayleigh's dismay, didn't have to wait long. They quickly got her into a chair to draw blood for a glucose test and an A1C. (That's the average blood sugar over 3 months.) She was not happy at all and we had to bribe her with a trip to Build-a-Bear to get her to sit without screaming.

But we were out in under ten minutes and back on our way home. We were figuring on Kayleigh enjoying her last holiday meal without having to count carbs or administer shots.

So imagine our surprise when my phone rang and I saw that it was a military number. I answered it and it was Dr. Jensen. We weren't even home yet. I believe that when he announced who was calling that I might have said, "You already?" Boy was he quick on the result reading that day.

He told us that he had read the blood sugar results already and that hers was 700. (Normal is between 70-150). He was declaring her type 1 now, without waiting for the A1C results. Now this news wasn't a surprise to us. We knew in our gut that she was T1D when we saw the 331 on the meter weeks ago. But even so, it hit us like a ton of bricks. Knowing it in your heart and hearing it out loud by a medical professional are vastly different. Even having another sweet one already didn't soften the blow

The next thing you know he's spouting off numbers to us. Her insulin to carb ratio, her target number, her correction factor. Whoa!!! Back up the truck mister. What happened to just Lantus? What happened was a 700 blood glucose reading. His was putting her on the Novolog and the works.

It still surprises us with how stunned we were by that conversation. It still blows our minds that 100% of our offspring have type 1 diabetes. What are the odds? (3%-5%)

This is slightly off topic, but I just have to take a moment to brag about our endocrinologist because he is quite amazing. He is the best. He is generally the one who answers the emergency pager when you call it. I think he just likes to talk diabetes so he always volunteers. But he was actually giving it up for the Thanksgiving holiday because he was going out of town to run a 10k. Who does that when you could be gorging on pie? I'm just saying...

Anyhow, he was giving up the pager but he wanted me to have his personal cell phone number so I could call him since he already knows us and Mackenzie and he's familiar with Kayleigh's case. So the man told me to call him for any reason anytime we wanted and don't worry about what I was interrupting.  If he doesn't answer and it's an emergency we were to call the emergency pager. If not, he'd call us back as soon as he could. I told you he was awesome!!

I vowed not to call him even though I was tempted to call during the race just to see if he'd answer. I've had many conversations with him while he was doing his nightly runs. He just runs and talks like it's nothing. But we didn't have any emergencies or questions so I never did.

So we went home and broke the news, which were all expecting. And yet we were still all stunned. Mackenzie was crushed. Our good friends, who also have a T1D, were stunned.

So after we calmed the masses down, we regrouped. The girls were all going to Build-a-Bear. The boys were going to a paint ball store. We'd meet for dinner at Chick Fil A.

Now here's the part of the story that shows just how NOT quick we can be. What kind of idiots take their newly diagnosed, 4 year old diabetic to Chick Fil A on the very day they are diagnosed? We do.

Why is that dumb? Because we had to give her her very first shot of insulin in the middle of the mall. She did not like it. She was loud. We were holding her down waving needles like maniacs. We are King and Queen Ding Bat.

It must of have been a sight to see. Besides screaming Kayleigh, the masses also got to watch us shoot up Mackenzie and Connor after their dinner. What must have people have thought when they watched 3 out of 4 kids get shots?  Sigh... we were quite the spectacle.

Ah well, live and learn. :o)

P is for...Phone

I had a few ideas of what to write about for my P post. In the end, here I am writing about my phone. Cuz I love it. It does so many nice things for me. I should throw it a party for being so incredibly awesome.

13 Things I Love About My Phone

13) I can talk to people on it if I choose. But really I'm more of a texting type of girl. I feel like my sarcastic wit shows more in a text. ;) But at least I have options.

12) I can listen to my jams on it.

11) Nobody else has a phone cover like mine. Sorry about your luck. Not only is it a one-of-a-kind cover, it's also an exercise device because it weighs like a pound. I lift this weight all day long.

10) It has a camera that I can use in a pinch if I don't feel like lugging around my 
real, and totally awesome, camera.  As long as I'm outdoors with plenty of light any way. Not mention that Instagram is tons of fun. When I remember that I have it. lol

9) It synchs, oh so conveniently, to everything else I own. Like my Mac Book, our Mac, the iPad, iTunes, and my iTouch that I don't really use much since I got the phone. (Kayleigh claimed the iTouch as her own.)

 8) It entertains me when I am sitting at the pharmacy bored out of my mind.  My favorite games: Bejewled Blitz, Bag It!, and Where's My Water? The apps for Apple products can't be beat. I know. I had a Droid previously. (The maps on the Droid are superior though. Don't use the GPS on you iPhone. lol)


 7) I can check myself in on Facebook so you all know what I'm up to. I know how much you care.

 6) I can check the weather, well, every where!! It makes me happy to know that the weather is nice here and snowy in Michigan.

 5) FaceTime is the bomb. Superior video calling device. As a military wife, I've used every video chat known to man and FaceTime is the clearest with the least issues. Even all the way to Iraq. And I hear that you might be able to load it on to a PC these days but that might be a rumor. But worth a looksie if you are in need of video chatting.

 4) I've been wearing out the calculator ever since I both of my kids got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.


 3) Texting, I love it. Not only can conversations with more than one of my besties at the same time, I can't be accused of not having said something because I have it in print. Ha!! (Of course, sometimes that works to my disadvantage too. lol)  Plus I can send pictures. And my throat doesn't get sore from too much talking. I need to save my voice for all of the reading I do in my homeschool. We are Sonlighters you know.

 2) It is an integral part of my diabetes management plan when I'm on the go.

1) The calendar feature is my brain. If it's not in my phone, I'm probably not going to do it. Writing things down on a calendar is useless to me. I'll write it and then never, ever, ever, ever (thank you taylor swift) ever look at it again. But my phone beeps at me. Loudly. And so does my Mac Book and the iPad. The beeping means there's at 70-75% chance that I'll actually get stuff accomplished. Woot!! And it reminds my daughter to do her chores, which she hates. Double win!!


And yes, I had to add in my daughters' nightly insulin injections because sometimes I forget. Not anymore baby!!!

So yeah, I really like my phone.  And as long as I'm still on P... I'm really Proud of myself for getting this post up before the linky went up. You know, instead of on the last day. =o)

O is for... Odd

Every time we leave the pharmacy, people look at us with an Odd expression on their face. And we go Often.  Maybe this is why?

We even get a few looks on the light trips.

I guess not everybody leaves with a haul that size. lol

N is for... The New Normal

If there is such a thing in diabetes? Or life in general?

With two kids with Type 1 diabetes, I've learned one thing for certain, the T1P (type 1 parents) phrase "YDMV" (your diabetes may very) is a true story. No kidding. There are very few similarities with my girls diabetes, other than they both have it. They could eat the exact same thing and the results will be totally different.

Honestly, I've been so busy managing their diabetes (because the reality is you cannot control it) that there is little time for anything else. Which is why my blog has been so very quiet this month. Well with the help of Christmas preparations and such.

So what is the New Normal for our life with two type 1 diabetics???  Darned if I know.  But here is a glimpse at some of the things that are consistent. Sort of.

Mountains of Supplies

I'm not kidding. We could almost open my own pharmacy with all the stuff now in my house. Good thing that we moved to a bigger house.

In our huge bathroom closet there is an entire shelf of extra supplies. It's a big shelf and it's filled. Extra lancets, ketone strips, blood glucose strips, urine ketone strips, needles of various sizes, alcohols swabs, extra meters. I also have a plastic "bug out box" with quite a bit of supplies in case we need to leave in a hurry. I have to keep track of two meters and make sure that they don't get mixed up. They each have their own (different) lancing device. We call them prickers. We have tons of insulin in my fridge. And a kitchen cupboard filled with supplies that we use daily. (Which we refill as needed from the massive hoard in the bathroom.) We have red glucagon pens all over the house for emergency lows. Tons of 15 carb juice boxes for dealing with low numbers. How sad is it that they can't just have juice because they are thirsty? Only if they are low. The poor dears.

We even keep supplies in our bedroom. We have to check the kids in the middle of the night and sometimes they are low and need a sugar boost to keep them alive and kicking. So we have a stash of juice boxes and crackers to treat lows. Not to mention the glucagon for serious lows.

A large part of type 1 diabetes management revolves around carbohydrates. Carbohydrates help provide energy for the body and without insulin they will also raise your blood sugar to a dangerously high level. For those with a faulty pancreas, that makes carb counting of vital importance. If our kids eat it, we need to know how many carbs are in it so we can determine how much insulin we need to give them.

If you look in our pantry, almost everything is marked with a carb count. It makes my life easier because counting carbs is time consuming. Some things are packaged in single serving sizes and those are relatively easy to deal with. Generally they are already marked.

Other things are in bulk. That requires measuring cups, I have two sets, or a scale. The scale is way more accurate. We have a fancy one and it really helps us be more accurate with their carb counts. It's also a lot more time consuming. Figuring out their carbs for meals often leads to a cold dinner.

My time for cooking a meal from scratch has greatly increased. I have to weigh each ingredient to figure the carbs. I have to add them all up. I have to weigh the pan that I'm going to cook them in. Then weigh it again with the food in it. Then I subtract the pan weight from the ingredients. Now I can finally figure out how many carbs per ounce of food.  Why? So that I can weigh it all out again when I portion out their food.

Sounds like fun right? But we can't give them insulin unless we know how many carbs they have eaten. And if they don't get the insulin they could get very sick and, well, die. That's the reality.

If we want to leave my house, we have a bag for that too. Meters, needles, syringes, test strips, insulin, glucagon pen, stuff to treat lows, and sustaining snacks all have to go wherever we go. It's like having a diaper bag again.

Holy Record Keeping Batman

Now that I figured out all the carbs I have to write it all down. Why? Well for one, it helps me spot trends. Two, it helps me communicate with the doctor.

What do I write down? Everything. I write down every one of their blood glucose levels. I check that at least 4 times a day. Usually more, especially for Kayleigh, who tends to go low. I write down the amount of carbs they have for each meal and the amount of insulin I gave them to cover the carbs. I write down everything that they eat. I write down where I give them their injections. You have to rotate sites on the body so that each site gets a 3-day break. Otherwise they could develop scar tissue.

I have all of their stuff color-coded so that it's a little easier to not mix up their paperwork. I decided that reading in our sleep-deprived state was too hard and colors would be easier. lol

I write down when stuff expires and when I need to order refills. I have written down a whole lot of phone numbers for our diabetes care team. We have a list of all our our prescription numbers for each child. It's a long list.

Math... Lots and Lots of Math

TIPs are often exhausted. I'm not entirely certain that it's because of the interrupted sleep required to check blood sugars at night. It might be because there is a lot of numbers and math involved. Math is exhausting. I hate math. And diabetes. And I don't really like numbers much anymore either.

Of course there is the math involved in prepping the food. There's also a lot of math involved in figuring out their insulin. And it's different math for each child.  Because they each have different carb ratios. A carb ratio tells me how many units of insulin they get for a set amount of carbs. And not only  are they different for each child, each child can have more than one carb ratio. Like the ratio for each meal can be different.

For example...

Mackenzie has two different ratios. At breakfast she gets one unit of insulin for every 12 grams of carbs she eats.  It's one to 13 for the rest of the day.

Kayleigh also has two different ratios. She is 1:45 at breakfast and 1:50 for the rest of the day.

And these numbers are not set in stone. They can, and will, change often.

So lets say Mackenzie ate 62 carbs at breakfast.

I would divide the 62 by 12. Giving me 5.2 . Which one could assume meant she'd get 5 units of insulin.

Uh, maybe. It really depends on what her blood sugar was. We check that before they eat every meal.  And if it's higher than their "target" number, I have more math to do.

Mackenzie's target is 120. It's just a dream number that her endocrinologist would like her to be at all the time. (Which he knows won't happen.) So if she wakes up and is 256, I would then subtract 120 from 256. Which is 136.  Then I take the 136 and divide that by her correction factor which is 80. I have no idea how the doctor decides that number but he said it's 80 and I believe him.

So when I divide 136 by 80, I get 1.7 .  I will then add that 1.7 to the 5.2 from her food. Which gives me 6.9 units of insulin that I will round up to 7. And so she will get 7 units to cover her 62 grams of carbs and the blood sugar that was 136 over her target.

Then I do it all over again for Kayleigh. Except Kayleigh is almost always low which opens up a totally different can of worms.  Some nights it can take us an hour to get her numbers high enough to put her to bed. Totally different.

Because diabetes is never the same for anyone. And it can change for the same person from day to day. The carb ratio that works this week might not be the one that works next week. Anything can cause a change in what works. A growth spurt. Stress. Hormones. A change in sleep patterns.  It's just a never-ending educated guessing game.

So to Sum Up the New Normal

Be prepared because anything goes in the unpredictable world of diabetes.


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