a support system

if there is one thing i've learned since joey was diagnosed with T1D, it's that the people you surround yourself with make all the difference... the support system you have, those people that step up to the plate with or even without being called upon can make an INCREDIBLE difference in small and huge ways !  that being said, i was glancing through my emails, looking for one back from medtronic for joey's pump/cgm stuff, and this is what i found instead!!!

Wow!  now i'm a little stressed about trying to find time to actually get a massage, but i know i will have forgotten all about that stress once i'm there :)  and by the way, i've only even gotten 2 massages before in my life!  Thank you again to whomever gave me this (laura, and others i don't know)  i'm so grateful!

the angry phase...

so i know grief has it's phases... and i am mourning and i am incredibly angry.... for joey, for me, for our family, for innocence lost, for pain gained, for scary highs and even scarier lows...

i am mourning the loss of a carefree childhood.  i am mourning the continuous pain i have to inflict upon my daughter in order to save her life....

and i am beyond pissed, and f-our letter word angry, and really confused as to why this happens to innocent sweet children.  i have tried to maintain a positive outlook, i still try to maintain one... but inside i'm absolutely livid.

that is me being real... and i'm sorry it's not coated in flowers and smiley faces, but i put a good face on most of the time, and today, tonite.... i am just being honest... and honest is angry

how it all started...

so, i think it's pretty important to know what the signs and symptoms of type 1 diabetes are, especially if you have no idea because not being able to catch it could mean disaster!!

(and my friend lindsay suggested this topic too !  thanks, linds :)

 the normal signs and symptoms (and these can come on FAST!)...

**increase in drinking (like drinking tons of water!  joey was downing like 130 oz/day for the couple days I counted)
**increase in urination, bedwetting in kids that don't normally bed-wet
**increased appetite with no weight gain and even weight loss
**irritability
-lethargy
-yeast infections (esp. in girls)
-complaints of belly aches
-complaints of something in the eyes
-fruity smelling breath/urine
- dry/hot skin
-flu like symptoms
-vomitting
-dehydration

** = the most common and the earliest... the others tend to come as things progress...

unfortunately these are all things that can be explained away too, especially in small children  who are whiney, getting rid of their naps, starting school, have new siblings, etc...
i'll further expound on these in another post, but just wanted to get them out there!
don't forget it's almost the end of the year and your donation to the JDRF is tax free!! take a minute and donate if that's something you feel compelled to do, our family would truly appreciate it!

joey and her awesome princess olivia backpack!

here's the link!!http://jdrfevents.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=15320

a meal in pictures

 A typical morning at our house:

our supply cabinet.... never mind the fridge full of insulin, and drawers and drawers of supplies in my dresser...

our favorite glucometer... b/c it's pink of course.  we take her blood sugar all night long too, not just before and a little after meals... this thing gets used!! test strips are in the canister, the lancet is in the back.  the yellow capped bottle is to test that a new batch of strips are working correctly

joey's 2 insulin pens.... just add insulin and a needle.  the one on the left is her long acting insulin- 1x day in the morning, the one on the right is her short acting insulin which she gets every meal, plus anytime she's high, plus anytime she snacks if it's more than 7 g carbs.  but you aren't supposed to give it within 3 hrs of the last time you gave it... this gets confusing.

our set up:  notebook, scale, calculator, and various foods. 

we've made it this far into the notebook in the past month.

whole foods peanut butter, labeled with carbs per gram so we don't forget

nutrition labels are our best friends. we either look at the serving size and pour into measuring cups (like for milk), or calculate out the carbs per gram of food (like for peanuts)

what a typical breakfast or lunch might look like.   all organic of course:  cheese, ham, strawberry, blueberries, avocado, apple and peanut butter and an almond flou/pumpkin "cookie".  every thing is precisely weighed out and calculated.  yes, i can estimate when we don't have the scale, and i do... but you can always estimate  wrong, and it's not that hard to get a wrong number, therefor potentially dosing with the wrong amount of insulin!

joey's plain organic greek yogurt... doctored up with a drop of vanilla and berries

how i add up everything.... then i have to subtract out what she doesn't eat to get a new total.  then i calculate how much insulin she gets when she eats this many carbs combined with her needs for insulin based on what her glucose level is before her meal.  she has a carb to insulin ratio that differs for each meal, and has a correction factor for what her blood sugar is before the meal... then i add the two together and get the amount of insulin i give...

and the grand total:  17.48 grams of carbs.  that's not even looking at the fat and protein, which i estimate too, since they effect the absorption of the carbs, so therefor effect what her body does and how the insulin works

joey and her new fairy princess bear "rufina", waiting for me to finish making her meal... 


 http://jdrfevents.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=15320

a little history of insulin

This link has a super interesting video about the History of Insulin that i thought y'all might want to take a look at.  It's quite eye opening, exciting, and sad all at the same time.

http://www.joslin.org/info/History_of_Insulin.html

it really breaks my heart to think that had we lived in pre insulin times, i would simply be watching my sweet little girl wasting away... starving to death and i wouldn't be able to do anything about it...it horrifies me....

               insulin is just a treatment though... and we need a cure

dairy free, gluten free, ?sugar free?!

This giant cupcake with an obscene amount of icing is what happens when this sugar deprived momma goes to the store by myself.... and then i start eating the icing in the car.... shameful.

So i got to go to the grocery store today, by myself!  we needed more cotton balls for finger/toe/injection site cleaning, and i NEEDED something ridiculously high in sugar to eat... we don't keep much in the house b/c i don't want joey seeing us eating things she shouldn't be having.  But i have a horrible sweet tooth, i mean it has historically been ridiculous.  Eating around my house has taken on a whole new meaning anyways.  I have to eat dairy free, mostly soy free and now we're eating gluten free too.  S & C can't tolerate dairy or soy if I eat it, and Joey and I (and the babies) have recently gone gluten free.... My poor husband is basically starving, or eating out, or eating whatever he can scrounge up. 
So what did I end up with today... That's right, this giant cupcake that i asked the bakery to put more icing on for me...i only eat the icing, so no flour and no dairy, impressively enough, also NO benefit to me nutritionally, but man, did that icing taste amazing!
I'm pretty sure this makes me a horrible mom, sneaking around to eat icing...
I'll work on being better.... when i'm done with the icing on this cupcake :)

http://jdrfevents.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=15320
go Team JDRF!!

document document document....

joey's blood sugar over the past week... not too bad, but not too good either.... lows are basically every morning and highs are every nite. 

so, i thought it'd be interesting for those out there who don't know what blood glucose ranges type 1 diabetics see on a regular basis, well, these  are the ones we see every day.  These are joey's numbers from the past week.  We check about 7-10 times a day.  When someone says "oh, they manage their diabetes well,"  this actually mean that their life is pretty much consumed by these numbers and trying to get them into the correct range.  Yep, that's our life... consumed by the numbers that pop up on our little glucometer screen.  If this was a graph of my blood glucoses, pretty much every one would be within the green range 80-110.  Well, as you can see, that's not quite the case with Type 1 diabetes, no matter how well you're managed... and like i said, this is a good week.

i am however, very grateful for this program, diabetes pilot, that lets me document everything on my phone and then i can sync it to my computer and email joey's doc all the info every week (glucoses, carbs/fat per meal, insulin given, exercise done, and more).... oh yes, so i must document EVERYTHING!!!  good thing i'm a nurse and have learned to document everything already... i just didn't think i'd be doing it in my everyday life.

go team Shamrock Marathon team JDRF !!

http://jdrfevents.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=15320