439

How ironic that today, 4 years ago, we wake up and Betsey is in the same predicament she was that day!

I was putsing around upstairs getting the morning going, Betsey's oldest sister calls me from the bathroom, "Mommy, there's something wrong with Betsey! She's shaking!"

I sprint all 3 ft to the bathroom, ask her if she's low, to which she replies, "No, I'm high." I grab her pump and start to try and go through the numbers, but she warns me, there is no battery. UGH! Into crisis mode we go.

I race downstairs, grab the insulin, a needle, battery, a quarter, ketone strips, paper cup, new infusion set and time stops. It's so odd how when these situations happen, no matter what else is going on, everything else takes a back seat, the other children fall into this holding pattern and they just pick up the slack - it's amazing. I don't ask them to do anything, they just kind of fall into "crisis routine" - one child reaches out to another, another makes sure the littles are ok, and everything just kind of hums along in the background amidst the familiar scent of insulin.

I test Betsey, she is sitting on the toilet, frozen. 439! (An ideal number range is between 80-130 mg/dl) Ouch! No wonder she's not feeling well... no battery probably all night. She went to bed with a good bed number-159-and I didn't get up in the night to test her.

So we change the battery, I give her a double dose of insulin with a needle in her arm, change her infusion set in case of a blockage, put a temporary rate on (you can increase or decrease the amount of insulin she receives for her basal rate as needed. In this case, I doubled the rate for 2 hours) and I remind her that she has got to drink water and that in about 30 minutes that insulin should kick in and help out a bit.

That doesn't get through to her because all she knows is the tremendous urge to throw up. It takes over her. She must have been high for hours.

Within minutes, she's crying, panting, starting to shake and she's scared. It's a violent thing to throw up with high blood sugars. Like nothing I've ever seen any of my kids do even with the worst throw up bug.

Round one of throwing up and she feels slightly better, but not out of the woods. A quick blood sugar check in a half an hour, 401. Down, but certainly not where we need to be. On these kind of mornings, they used to happen frequently before we got the CGMS (Continous Glucose Monitoring System) it takes a good 3 hours to flush the ketones out, bring her number down and get her of to school good as new.

I recently came across another blog from a woman who has type 1 and she wrote something so fitting in one of her posts. One of her friends had said to her, "Diabetes doesn't define you, it helps explain you." And I thought, Wow, that is so true about Betsey. 4 years ago today Betsey was diagnosed. Has she changed because of the diagnosis? Sure. Is she different because of the diabetes? Absolutely. But, it doesn't define her either, it helps explain her as well. I loved that quote.