Keeping it Between the Lines

I read a super article this week, written by a 60 year old woman who was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes 42 years ago.  She did an incredible job of describing what it is like to live with T1D and how she is always 'walking a tightrope' of keeping her blood sugars between the two lines (going to high or going too low).  I hope that all of my family and friends will take a few minutes to read the article as she eloquently describes what her daily life looks like living with T1D.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riva-greenberg/type-1-diabetes_b_4869238.html

The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur.  Our family had our first follow up appointment with one of the diabetes nurses and a dietician at the Children's Hospital.  They took Marvin and I through some more teaching...the extreme lows, calculating recipes, and so on.  Charlie came with us on this trip and the two of them together made short work of ACH.  Nothing was spared...the trays in the food court, the gorgeous fish in the salt water tank, the little girl curled up in the waiting room for the respiratory clinic or the custodian who was trying to mop the hallways.  Charlie and Carter owned that place and ACH will never be the same again.  I wouldn't be surprised if there is a photo of the two of them at the main entrance for the next time we go..."banned from ACH."

I also went back to work this week.  I am sooooo happy that I took the two weeks off after we came home from the hospital.  It gave us the opportunity to wrap our heads around this new way of life and allowed me some time to grief.  Carter's lucky, he's going to be able to manage his disease, but it doesn't make it any less devastating as a parent when your child is diagnosed with a serious illness.

One of the kindergarten teachers, Jane, had students create a gorgeous paper chain of get well wishes that was hung all around my office...what an awesome thing to do.  We also received an awesome Firetruck book that the boys have had us read about 50 times, homemade meatballs (mmmm), toys, and many, many positive thoughts, prayers, and well wishes.  A mama couldn't ask for much more than that from her co-workers :-).

Carter received his Rufus the Bear With Diabetes.  Rufus is a gift from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.  Rufus has areas that he can receive insulin injections and also wears a medic alert bracelet.

We hit another milestone today.  Since arriving home from the hospital, we have had to call into the endocrinologist on call to give Carter's blood glucose testing results from the previous 24 hours.  The doctor will then adjust his insulin based on patterns that she is seeing in his numbers.  Today, our endo, Dr. Ho said we didn't need to call unless his numbers are low or too high, so he seems to have settled into a pattern.

Baby steps, right?