Rolling with The Punches..... :/

I must first apologize for not blogging in a very very long time! I guess I might say that every day life got quite chaotic over the past 8 months. The kids r doing well. With my oldest daughter, Macy finishing up her first year of college. Yay!! How can that even have happened? My daughter Kalee's Junior year of High School is winding down.. Complete with SAT's, which she took last weekend. I almost forgot the pressure of Junior Year, along with the excitement of Junior Prom and College Shopping! I certainly cannot leave out my youngest boy, Michael, who will be 14 next month!  He is finishing up 8th grade and will be entering the high school.. Now that does not even seem possible. My daughter Kalee and son Michael have had many ups and downs (highs and lows) over the past school year with dealing with their health and Type1 Diabetes. It hasn't been easy and as a mom of two kids with Type1 I have to admit.I think I have reached my breaking point, 100 x's over! My mom had been in and out of the hospital over the winter months. Spending days with her and going back evenings caused me to rely more on my husband and the kids to keep the household running. They did a very good job, proving that I may not be as invincible as I think of myself :/. Well the flu struck me at the end of February...ugh! By March, the stomach virus hit and when it attacked our Kalee, it ended with her having 24 hours of low, low, low blood sugars. It did not matter what we did to increase her blood sugar level that poor girl would not rise... We had blood sugars as low as 22 and the highest we would see were 57. We fed her every type of fast acting sugar to slow acting carb that that she could take in.. Finally we went to the dreaded glucagon... Not Once, Not Twice but Three Times!!! With Kalee's blood sugar only increasing to 69, the Dr. suggested we take her to the E.R in the middle of the night for a glucose drip. I begged the Dr. to offer another suggestion (as we have had many experiences with the E.R, not really knowing how to care for kids with Type 1). Dr. Said if I wanted to continue to stay awake with her throughout the night to give her sugar and test her gluose levels she would meet me in the office first thing in the morning.. Well I took that suggestion and stared at Kalee most of the night when I was not waking her to give her juice or a peanut butter cracker. We drove with heavy eyes to the Dr.s office early the next morning. Dr. Suggested doing a blood test to check for Addison's disease which causes unexplained low's.. Ok... Just hearing Addisons Disease brought me to my knees and I wanted to fall on the floor.. How could we handle one more thing?.. This was all that was going go through my mind. We stayed for the hour of blood tests one at the initial check in then two more a half an hour apart after they injected Kalee with a hormone to see how her body reacted to it. We went home and the wait began. We waited through the weekend and the next week, until the following Friday. In the mean time, Kalees blood sugar was back to her "normal" range (anywhere between 75 to 250) depending upon the day, the weather, her mood, her diet.. Virtually everything in the world seems to affect blood sugar levels..! Well Friday came and I received a text, simple and to the point. "Kalees labs were Perfect".. No Addison's disease, and nothing out of the ordinary! Well Thank God for that! I really did not feel that I was strong enough to handle one more thing. Now Kalee on the other hand was taking it all stride. I wish that I as a parent had the resilience of my children.. It seems that life in general brings trials.. More than many of us feel that we overcome ... I cannot tell you how often I feel as if I am "Hanging by a thread." Kalee is doing well... Blood sugars are back to normal..(U know, up and down as usual). Over the past few months she as well as my other two children have taught me a very valuable lesson.. To accept the thing that are out of our control. This is something that I have always had difficulty with but they are great examples for me, and I am still learning every day to try to "Roll with the punches." <3 <3 <3

Taking Type 1 on Vacation... Wish we could leave it home!

It has been far too long since my last post. We have had so many changes over the past few months. Our oldest daughter Macy graduated from high school and is currently attending the NYS University of Albany... She is majoring in political science and is loving every minute of the college experience! Kalee,16, is now beginning her Junior year of high school. She is starting to show signs of, "school itus"... You know that chronic need to be finished with the drama of high school. Unfortunately, this usually does not hit until closer to Senior year so.... She has quite some time left to go. :(. As for , Michael, age 13 now... He is plugging away at his last year of Middle  School. He reminds me every day that he would much rather stay home and play.. (play referring to his iPod and electronic gadgets)  than attend school.... Academics do not seem to be the top of his priority list these days. Kalee and Michael had a pretty uneventful summer when it came to their blood sugars right up until our first full day of vacation in Florida... Typical right? We took our annual 22 hour drive to sunny Florida in August to visit with some family and spend a week in Disney with our adorable friend Mickey Mouse!  Our first evening after a lovely dinner we headed back to our resort to get some sleep before heading to the Magic Kingdom the next morning. At about 9 p.m Kalee mentioned that her stomach was not feeling well. Her blood sugar read in the lower 60's so I gave her some crackers and juice.... Yikes! Big mistake... It took all of two minutes for the juice and crackers to come right back up thus beginning the viscous cycle of every half an hour vomiting throughout the night. Now a stomach virus to the non diabetics of the world is bad enough but having type 1 with this virus puts a whole new spin on it. We struggled to keep Kalee's blood sugars up because she could not keep anything down. Finally having to give her a micro dosage of glucagon to raise her glucose level to a safe number. Then, as many of you know.... Here come the ketones. As much as Kalee tried to drink water to flush those nasty ketones out of her system, it was close to impossible to keep the water down for more than five minutes. By 8 a.m the next morning my concern turned to worry. I contacted Kalee's physician here in NY who felt that if we could not get the vomiting to stop and fluids into her we would need to take her to Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando. My heart sank. Just what this poor girl wanted right... to spend her vacation visiting Arnold instead of Mickey :(. Not to mention the thought of bringing my daughter to an out of state hospital with doctors that we did not know terrified me. I began trying small drops of water on Kalee's tongue.... She finally started dozing off after a full night of vomiting and I would wake her each hour to give her sips of water through a straw. Thankfully by late afternoon.... Kalee's fever had broken, she was keeping fluids down and her ketones had decreased to a trace. By the next day we were in the parks doing what families are supposed to be doing in Walt Disney World.... Having a Magical Time! Our vacation which started out on not such a magical note turned into one of our very best Disney experiences!  Type 1 sure does trip us up from time to time but we try our very best to not let it knock us down!

A New Year.... Bring it on 2014!

        Happy 2014!  Is it really a New year? Where did the time go? Well the holidays came
 and went. I would love to say that they came and went without a hitch but... life is not as uneventful as we wish for here in the Waddingham household.  Just before Thanksgiving our Kalee had a day of seriously unexplained low blood sugars. By midnight we turned Kalee's insulin pump right off after hours of doing just about anything that we could think of to get her blood sugar to rise above 60.... Unlimited glasses of orange juice... sugar tablets... peanut butter and crackers... These attempts were doing nothing more than contributing to the nausea that poor Kalee was feeling.  I went into a "Diabetic Mom" panic...  U moms know what I am referring to...the half smile, no worries, consoling words and silly jokes all for the sake of keeping your sweet diabetic (no pun intended) calm.. Holding back the flood of tears that are on the brink of overflowing. After a returned telephone call from the endocrinologist... it was determined that we would have to administer glucagon in hopes of breaking this hypoglycemic cycle. My hands trembling uncontrollably as I pulled the glass vial with powder substance and barbaric needle out of the dreaded red glucagon case. As I mixed the elements together, I said a silent prayer, hoping desperately that this would work.  While sticking that ridiculously thick, extremely long, inhumane needle into Kalee's leg, my heart felt as if it would beat right out of my chest. I quickly pulled it out of her thigh and waited... We waited and waited in hopes that Kalees blood sugar would rise quickly. After about ten minutes Kalee's glucose meter read 90... She was rising but it was not exactly the number that I had hoped for.. I was looking for a 150 to 170 and eventually after about an hour she made it to 154. When the Dr.'s office opened I took Kalee right in to be evaluated. The endocrinologist had no explanation as to why this happened. They have seen unexplained lows before but it is quite rare not to be able to get the blood sugar to rise.  The theory was delayed reaction to insulin and exercise... The only other explanation would be an adrenal condition and I am not ready to  deal with one more diagnosis right now so.... we will go with the delayed reaction theory.  After working closely with the endocrinologist for weeks we have made a number of adjustments which seem to be working for now. So we got through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years with lots and lots of carb. counting and measuring serving sizes.  Kalee turned "Sweet Sixteen"... a few days after her return to school from the holiday break.  We are now, embarking on an entirely new experience of driving.....!  She passed her drivers permit test the day of her birthday and is anxious to get out there behind the wheel.  I am certain that there will be lots to blog about when Kalee is actually stepping on the gas, but for now we will take that issue nice and slowly....  So, Happy New Year to all of you wonderful families out there.  If life with diabetes has been going smoothly for your family, then you are truly blessed, and I wish for all of you that things continue to work out that way.  If life, however, is a bit more topsy turvey and up and down like what we are experiencing in our house,  please know that you are not alone and I am walking through it with you.  My wish for 2014 is a Healthy Year for all of us, with hopes and prayers for embarking on one year closer to a cure.. xoxoxo!

Wishes for a Happy and Safe Halloween.. :D Uneventful in the world of Type 1 is always good too... ;)

Wow.. October came and went, in the blink of an eye.  How can it be that Halloween is actually tomorrow?  November is on the horizon which means the holidays are coming fast!!!  September was a month of trying to get back into the swing of things.  The dreadful routine of waking up at 5:30 a.m.  Packing lunches (slipping the carb. counts into the lunch bags) and trying to figure out how those crazy blood sugars are going to react to the school activities of the day.  October has been a very busy month... With sports winding down, we may be able to catch our breath before things get crazy again.  Kalee, my 15 year old has had diabetes for nine and a half years now.  In those almost ten years, I have never had to use a glucagon emergency injection.. (I guess there is a first time for everything).  About three weeks ago, following a vigorous soccer practice Kalee came home feeling low.  Her blood sugar was in the 60's so we gave her some sugar..  waited until she seemed to feel better, then she quickly jumped into the shower.  She came out feeling low again, so I immediately gave her orange juice.  She didn't look right as I held the cup to her mouth while she swallowed..  Kalee's eyes became glassy as I tested her blood sugar again.. The meter read 22.  As, I tried with all of my strength not to allow panic to set in, I quickly realized that Kalee was now unable to swallow any juice.  As I stirred about my kitchen fumbling for the cabinet where I keep the glucagon, I pleaded out loud...  "Please God, Please God, Please God". I had never used the glucagon before and as I tried to mix the liquid solution with the powdered substance my hands trembled like never before.  Thankfully,  after seconds of fumbling (which seemed like minutes).  I was able to get the solution into the vial and stick it into Kalee's thigh.  I was so shaken and praying that it would take effect immediately.  She began speaking within minutes but, I now could hardly speak.  Trying to pretend that I am fine with all of this is not easy and sometimes my acting skills go right out the window.  I closed my bedroom door and buried my head into my pillow for a ten minute sob...  I sobbed until my pillowcase was stained with black mascara then opened my bedroom door to retest Kalee's blood sugar.  She was a whopping 72... Not the number that I was hoping for but it was do-able.  I spoke with her Dr.'s who had us come in the next morning.  They were so calm and full of comforting words like, "You did the right thing,"  "Your doing a great job, " but I felt like a complete fail.  My head knew that this incident was not fault but my heart could not stop blaming myself.  Isn't that what we mom's are great at... blaming ourselves for things that are out of our control?  Needless to say, the Dr.'s helped me make some insulin/pump adjustments and although things are no where near perfect, we, thankfully, have not yet had any other scary incidences.  As a matter of fact, Kalee seemed perfectly fine, hours after, but I am still not quite right, weeks later.  As we get ready for Halloween, I am trying to focus on the positive.  This holiday can be tricky for families with Type 1 but somehow it always turns into a fun time.  We did our pumpkin carving last night and as always the pumpkin seeds are a favorite treat for the kiddo's to munch on.  I would like to wish all of my Type 1 Diabetes Families out there a Happy and Safe Halloween.  Try to find the joy and fun in the holiday even though all of those yummy/sweet carbs. can cause some parent anxiety...  ;)

Pumpkin Carving Pics:   FYI -  1/2 c of cooked pumpkins seeds = 7 carbs!!!  :)

Back to School... !

OMG...  It has been quite some time since I have posted. Not for lack of excitement in this house, but because we never seem to be able to sit long enough to catch our breath these days.  The kids headed back to school a week and a half ago.  At first the quiet was deafening but, as most parents know, that does not last very long.  (maybe an hour or two) LOL!  The week before school always brings on a bit of anxiety, as I meet with Kalee and Michael's teachers, to go over their diabetes care plans.  Most of the teachers are very open to taking the time to briefly go over the medical needs of the kids.  Then you get a few of the teachers that look at you as if you have ten heads.  Regardless...  as a mom, with two type 1 diabetics, I have learned to not be phased by the teachers that act as if I am wasting their time.  You develop a thick skin, really quickly, when it comes to your children's well-being....  So off to school they went as I said my silent prayer for an uneventful day (when it comes to the blood sugars.)  Thankfully, this year we did not have any first day of school omni-pods beeping with occlusions or unexplained hypo/hyperglycemic episodes..  That was all saved for the second day... ugh!!!  Oh well...  This is our life.  To many families, it may seem absurd but to ours this is the norm.  My hope for all of Type 1 families out there, is that "Back to School" was a smooth transition.  I know the worries over all the little things that can occur in Type 1 life can take it's toll on the parents. Yet somehow we survive!  ;)

                                                          
                                                                 Ready for school!!

How low can you go????

Last night, beginning at around 9 p.m Kalee began experiencing some unusual low blood sugars.  We could not pin point the reason..  There was no over bolusing, and she was doing some swimming and running earlier in the day, but nothing that would drop the blood sugar to 43 and keep it there for five hours.  I am not exaggerating, at all, when I say that we gave Kalee almost half a bottle of sugar tablets, 2 granola bars, crackers with peanut butter and jelly on them, 2 baggies of fruit snacks and 2 cups of orange juice (which my husband ran out at 1 a.m to purchase.) This was over a 4 hour time frame and her blood sugar would not go above 54.  I turned the insulin completely off (which I hate to do) and when she was still dropping, I pulled the pump right off of her, in fear that it had possibly malfunctioned and was still delivering.  It was not until about 2 a.m that she began to rise (only to 87)...  I continued checking her blood sugar throughout the night (or should I say, wee hours of the morning).  When she finally reached 100, I put another pod on her at the lowest basal of .05 and she still woke up in the 100 range??  I have absolutely no explanation for this.  Just when I think that I have experienced pretty much everything there is in the world of Type 1, something else gets thrown our way.  I will keep a close watch on Kalee throughout the day.  I was trying not to show my fear, but my anxiety was increasing with each blood sugar test that was not showing improvement.  I would like to say that I roll with the punches but some days (and nights) I would rather just punch something instead of actually rolling with them. ;)  Hope everyone has a nice weekend and any thoughts on what may have caused Kalee's outrageous lows are always welcome!

Happy Summer :)

Well....  It has been some time since I have posted last.  June was a bit of a whirlwind with final exams and end of the school year activities!  I welcome summer vacation, for sure.  No 5:30 a.m alarm clocks going off or teenage girls banging on the bathroom door to hurry each other up so everyones hair can be perfect...  (It's all about the hair in the morning, with the girls..lol).  Michael went to a Sugar Free Gang Camp (camp for children with diabetes)...  the last week in June.  He loves it and looks forward to going every year.  Kalee had gone for many years, as a matter of fact this was the first year that she opted out....  her explanation was, "I live diabetes every day, so I do not need one extra week in the summer to be reminded of it."  Sounds like a typical fifteen year old attitude to me... but, I do get where she is coming from ;)  Kalee has beeen keeping busy with soccer clinics, which seem to make her the most happy in the summer.  I would love to say that her blood sugars have been leveling off but....  NOT!!  The numbers go up and down like a roller coaster.  Our main problem is the actual omnipod itself.. It does not seem to be a great fit for her, with lots of occlusions or just plain falling off but since it is still the only wireless insulin pump out there, that is what she wants to stick with.  Michael is using it, as well, without many problems for the time being.... you all know how that goes :)  Kalee just got the new Dexcom continuous glucose meter....  it seems much more accurate than the original Dexcom 7 and it comes in funky colors, the shape of the i-pod nano, so it is slim and sleek enough to fit nicely into a pocket.  So far so good with it although Kalee is still not big on having more than one gadget stuck into her....  and I can't say that I blame her. So that currently brings you all up to date as to where we are this summer.  Our plans are to head on down to Disney in August.  I am hesitant about the drive with the issue's that I still have with my back but....  I know for sure, that a vacation is definitley welcome for our family.  This may be the last year that we can do the August Disney Vacation because, our oldest daughter, Macy, will be starting college in 2014.  Senior year in the high school begins for her this coming September, which is just wild to me....  So I hope that everyone is having a safe and happy summer with little to no issue's in the world of Type 1D.  xoxo <3

Michael (blue shirt)- Holding up 1 word puzzle pieces showing how Type1 makes them feel.