I’m racking my brains and it’s not all that fun. Much of life right now is busy, with a flurry of change, stress, and anxiety. Topping it off, diabetes has decided it must be extra complicated during already difficult time in our lives.

I don’t want you to get the impression things are all bad, they’re not. I have a new job and career. It is great. However, being that I work on commission there’s natural stress and anxiety, but I love what I do. I am an insurance agent now. Many things fell into place for me to end up in a new career.

I guess that started a couple of years back when I returned to college to finally get my bachelor’s degree. I nearly have it done, and that really helped me get my new job and pass the ever so daunting state licensing exam. Four classes to go, and I will be done. That is a large reason to lack of posts the last year a half.

In the middle of all this, diabetes, the main driving force behind starting this blog, has risen up in an all-out attack. Or that’s how it seems. I don’t like to see my girls in pain, or not feeling well from poor blog sugars, and that has been an issue of late.

The follow-up to this post will tell the tale of terror while we were leaving Florida after FFL. So stay tuned for that post.

My girls are 9 and 10 and a half now, both have battled diabetes for 5 plus, and 7 plus years. The journey seems like a sea voyage in the old world with many rainy nights and few stars to guide our way. This stretch just might be the worst. And the hardest part, I’m tied up so much with school and my new career, the bulk of burden falls on my wife.

The main problem is the girls are far enough into this disease, they know a lot. They can do everything, except change out cartridges on their T-Slim insulin pumps. They can check blood sugars, change sites, dose themselves with our direction. Clearing alarms and not tell my wife and I is a huge problem.

When it is time for bed, we find out that one of the pumps has a low battery or low insulin. We try to keep the girls pump changes on the same day, but sometimes it gets out of sequence. Sometimes a Dexcom sensor is coming out and they forgot to tell us, because they are little girls. Maybe, just maybe, they deal with a little bit more than other kids their age. I forget things too, and I’m 43.

Perhaps the most perplexing of the rigors right now is the forgetting to check, and forgetting to bolus. After they went on their Tslim’s, we started to hand over a little responsibility to them. So far, the results are crap. A1c has gone from sub seven to the 8 and 9 range.

Initially, the T-Slim gave huge returns, that is when the A1c dropped in the sixes. But with the ease use of the T=Slim and the girls really liking them, it was easy to hand over some responsibility.

Now it seems like every week, they are a few missed breakfast boluses resulting in high blood sugars, follow by frustration from d-daughter and d-parent. A few times it has resulted in ketones and a sick kid. Then the battle ensues to get the blood sugar down and keep them out of the ER.

Maybe we handed too much over too soon. We don’t ask that much, or it seems like it: check your BG, ask us what the carbs are, and bolus. But with the confusion of a little boy wanting his meal, figuring out who goes where after dinner, what bills are due, who called, what assignment, or state license am I studying for, being cramped in a half torn up house from an epic remodel disaster from overzealous nutjobs sticking their noses in our business after the 2^nd diagnosis, letting our new puppy in or out, counting carbs, seeing if Rissa threw her dinner in the trash, and one could see how meal boluses get missed.

It all wraps together in a mess and in the middle of all of this I missed the big picture. Totally missed it. I don’t give a crap what the endo thinks of their A1C. I know it’s her job, but next visit, I think I will do a little explaining.

What did I miss? I missed the fact my little girls at times, feel a little out of place, they are beginning to hide their diabetes devices. Perhaps protecting their fragile self-image and not getting mad over missed bloused and making them feel like the disease is their fault. Perhaps it is time for a new plan. Now, I don’t know what the hell it is, but I’ll figure it out.

One of Rissa’s favorite songs is Scar Tissue by RHCP. Maybe I just need to listen to the girls. Sometimes I forget I have lived a bit more life then they have; I’ve read Plato to Bacon, heard more well-dressed lies, poorly spoken words of truth; but I need to harken back to when I was their age and do the one things I’ve failed at lately, relate to them on their level and listen. Maybe I won’t miss the “scare tissue that I wished you saw”.

I’m a diabetes dad too!

Godspeed

Tim