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

Thoughts from my crazy mind

thoughts from my crazy mind:
 I find it incredibly tough to ever turn my mind off these days... constantly thinking about joey, how she's feeling, what the high blood sugars are doing to her little body in the long run, what the low blood sugars can do to her in the short run... what could happen if i ever sleep though my alarms in the middle of the night and miss taking her sugar when she's having a low blood glucose.  what if she doesn't wake up? it's enough to make a momma crazy... then my mind goes to the very real risk that S & C have of also eventually having Type 1 Diabetes... ugh...I know my mom would say that i shouldn't worry, but seriously, how can i not worry.

Joey at the JDRF walk with her "faces of Diabetes" sign...one month after diagnosis

joey with her boyfriends/supporters.  we LOVE us some Jacob and Dylan!

So as I said on my last post I have decided that running the Shamrock Marathon in March is the best way to put all my efforts and energy into raising funds for those with Type 1 Diabetes.  My sweet little Joey girl depends on ground breaking research that the JDRF funds.  Can you believe that less than 85 years ago, those diagnosed with type 1 diabetes died within a year or so... Basically their bodies starved to death because they lacked the functioning beta cells to produce the insulin that moves the glucose into the cells that gives us energy to do anything and everything we do... like breathe.

another day, another run in the triple jogging stroller... we have to bring her whole diabetes kit... glucometer, insulin, glucagon, emergency sugar supplements, snacks, water, carb free snacks, and even more.... everytime we go out the door

Running a marathon is tough work, but fighting every second of every day against the horrible disease of Type 1 diabetes is even more difficult.
Maybe one day she won't have to wake up multiple times at night to have her blood glucose taken, to have to eat food or get insulin...
Maybe one day she'll be able to have a bite to eat without thinking of how many carbs are in it and how much insulin she needs to have in order to counteract the effect of the sugar....
Maybe one day she won't have to have over 10 pricks and shots a day just to keep her alive...

my little thug princess showing off her "full sleeve" of princess tattoos

 but until then, i'll work my butt off to raise all the money i can, all the awareness i can, and all the support i can, because my sweet girl's life depends on it. 

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

Did you know that a sibling of someone with T1D has a 1/10-1/20 chance of developing T1D!  This is up from the 1/400 chance that everyone has...  Think about giving a donation as a Christmas gift, birthday gift, tax free end of the year donation, anything you can think of, because truly, this means EVERYTHING to my family. 

sweet joey so excited to be leaving the hospital after spending 3 days there after her diagnosis with type 1 diabetes

Attempting to restart blogging, and taking a whole new spin on things...

So, life has taken a crazy turn since the last time i wrote here over 2 years ago.  This blog is going to emphasize healthy living, of course, but it's also going to focus on caring for and living with a child with type 1 diabetes...

the day joey was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.  all she wanted to eat was grapes and we couldn't let her until we got her blood sugar down.... so grape tomatoes had to suffice....

I am currently raising money for the JDRF (juvenille Diabetes research foundation)

which supplies BY FAR the most amount of money for research to prevent, treat and one day cure Type 1 Diabetes.

this is how we train for the shamrock marathon, although i don't really make joey push the triple stroller too often

 I will be running the Shamrock Marathon in March for team JDRF.    This organization is like a lifeline that I can pour my efforts and energy into and really know that I am doing the best I can to help improve the health of my child.  I have put the link for my fundraising page on here..

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

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

 take a look if you have time.  And know that if you donate to the JDRF, either through my link/team page, or in another manner, your money is going to an amazing cause that is basically a lifeline for thousands of people like my sweet little girl.  thanks for taking time to read this, and i'll be updating it more often than once every 2 years :)
here is a great article that and i thought it was very inspirational, sad, and informational.  regardless of whether Type 1 diabetes effects you, you really have to have respect for those that live with it and are effected by it.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/05/31/man-celebrates-85-years-living-diabetes/

breaks my heart that diabetes causes so many health effects, especially glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.  i can't imagine anything but perfection when i look at my sweet joey's eyes