Scary

Parents and care takers of children with Type 1 know how scary this disease can be.  The common theme of the majority of the posts that I read on Facebook have to do with how unpredictable and frustrating this is. We have been fortunate to have not had too many roller coaster days.  But when they do hit, they are very scary.

A couple of weeks ago, we made some changes to Nathanael's settings.  He started to see an endocrinologist.  We never got established with one because there wasn't one in our town.  I asked his doctor and his diabetic educator what an endocrinologist would do that we weren't doing already.  So I was comfortable with the level of care we were receiving.  We were fortunate to get one to come to town.  His specialty is Type 1. Nathanael and I went to a talk that he was doing about Type 1.  I wanted Nathanael's opinion about the doctor.  He really enjoyed the talk so I made an appointment.  The doctor's philosophy is to not change too many things at once.  He likes to make one change at a time and see what happens. The first thing that he noticed was that Nathanael's basal settings were too low.  He wasn't getting enough insulin throughout the day.  That causes him to take more insulin at meal times.  The other problem that I have with Nathanael is that every time he checks his blood sugar, he will do a correction, even if he still has active insulin.  By doing that, he is building up the insulin, then at night when it all wears off, he crashes.  So the first step was to increase his basal rates and we also change his carb ratio.  At first, he ran higher than he had been.  Now it seems that he is adjusting.

The other night, his numbers were running pretty good.  He went to bed his number was 120.  He had no active insulin on board.  Then 45 minutes later, he comes upstairs to the kitchen because he couldn't sleep.  Normally he goes right to sleep.  He checked his number and he was 53.  Where in the world did that come from?  He took 3 glucose tablets and rechecked a few minutes later.  Now he was 46!  He was on a fast drop and had he gone to sleep, who knows what cold have happened.  I normally check him at 11:30 and 1:30.  It took a liquid glucose shot, a roll of smarties, and shutting his pump off for a bit before he started to rise.  I asked him when he was coherent again if that scares him.  He said yes.  We have been very fortunate that Nathanael hasn't had any complications from diabetes.  He has never been in the hospital and has never had DKA.  He has been very lucky.

One thing we don't do is dwell on the whys.  He actually never asks.  I do question why in the world did he all of a sudden drop.  I ask him if he did anything different that would have caused it.  He did change his reservoir earlier in the evening.  He does go down with fresh insulin so that could be it.  I have chosen to not dwell on the whys for too long.  We have been dealt Type 1 for some reason and now we need to just live with it and move on.  Yes my husband would say that I'm obsessed with it.   And obsessed with trying to keep Nathanael safe.  And he is right.  I am obsessed.  I worry when he goes to bed.  I worry when he goes to school.  I worry when I don't hear from him when he is home alone.  I worry when he is at a friend's house.  Will he set his alarm and wake up to check in the middle of the night?  I'm just a mom worried about the safety of my child.  I don't know too many parents who do not take their children's safety seriously.  I also don't know too many moms who wouldn't bend over backwards to keep their kids safe.