A tale of 2 BG’s

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Tim

I don’t really remember the exact date of that night, but I remember the event, I remember the smells, the hot sticky night and I remember the emotion. It was another night in the 2 D-Kid house, a few months into this tide of change and it was time to check BG’s before the girls went to bed. This night would introduce us to another facet of the D-life, BG’s heading in radically different direction.

The new routine was still taking form, but one thing was cemented right from the start, BG checks before bed, we had done it for 2 years with our older daughter. My wife handed me one meter and I beckoned for the my older D-kid. I check her BG and BAM, low BG. Darn I thought, that is kind of low, checked Dexcom CGM, aka Dexi, to see the trend arrow, crap, single arrow down. “What”, I said out loud, my mind went to dinner and what we did after, it was a laid back evening, no extra activity. My wife interrupted my thoughts and said “she was swimming that afternoon, she always tanks later in the day when she swims”. Once again the word crap came to mind.

Once again, I was interrupted by my wife when the BG results came up for new D-Kid, high, and arrow heading straight up. Now the details of that night I can’t remember all that vivid, the whole summer melted together in a flow of diabetes related trials, learning and adjustments. The thing I do remember was the laugh of disillusionment we both had. This was going to be a relaxing Friday night after the kids were in bed. That was not to be. I fixed the low for our older (CWD) daughter with a few glucose tablets and waited to recheck. Now my attention turned to the younger d-kid with the high. I looked at my wife still pondering what to do. I don’t really remember the whole conversation but we both realized she would be high for a long time. Correction dose time, that would mean a couple of check through the night since the insulin would be active for 4 hours, so that meant it could over correct and drive her low.

I don’t remember the outcome in detail, but I do remember the low was fixed and the high came down without a crash. The thing I do remember was another Friday night with my wife that was not relaxing, not fun, and was us talking about diabetes, nodding off and getting woke up by the alarm clock on our phones. That followed by a day of crabbiness, cranky kids, hot weather, more swimming and another fragmented weekend we could not really enjoy. Some of my friends wonder why I give them the look like I want to rip their spine out when they tell me the detail of their “fun weekend”. Sorry, I get cranky on a lack of sleep, my wife gets less than me, she fights through it, we both do. We have to, our kids health rely on us, Juvenile Diabetes is a 24/7 job for a parent.

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Pouring concrete on a Saturday afternoon

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Tim

Most of you will ask what does concrete have to do with children’s health. I will tell how, with a story about my friend. It includes a yard of concrete, a circa 1948 cement mixer, a few shovels, some other miscellaneous tools and a Ford 150. I needed some help with this project so I ask my friend, he has a sick child, a 3 year old little boy, and both families have a few things in common.

My friend and I work in the same industry, his company supplies mine with needed material to finish our products. We have both worked in this line of work for many years, working hard and having major set backs in our careers due to the local economy changing. We are both young and have a lot of experience in what we do, and we use to work for competing companies before we met. The thing we both have in common that has the strongest tie is we both have children with autoimmune diseases. My two girls have Juvenile Diabetes and his little boy has ITP, an autoimmune disease where the antibodies attack the blood platelets (see links for more information). Being that Juvenile Diabetes ( or Type 1) is an autoimmune disease we have a lot to talk about, and we learn a great deal from each other.

Maybe the important thing we provide each other is someone that will listen with an ear of understanding. I can’t remember the author but it was said “ideology divides us, but tragedy brings us together”. Some of you will assert that neither of our families have gone through tragedy, maybe so. But I will tell you that children suffering from any autoimmune disease puts a lot of stress on families, Mothers, Fathers and siblings. Having a compassionate ear and taking time to listen might be the most important thing someone can do for one of these families. Taking time to read a few articles and familiarize your self with details about the disease and reading stories can not be far behind. Taking time to care takes effort, compassion and understanding. No one expects you to be an expert, but families with sick children need support and understanding.

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