Fitness Lows

Kacey woke up with a beautiful 144 and a smile on her face this morning. By snacktime she was a 154 but then fell to a 78 for lunch. She had P.E. this afternoon and with that came a smack of lows. She had to run a mile today and it was still very warm outside. When she came inside, it looked like she dumped her water bottle over her head. I asked her why she'd do that? She was very cranky and said it was sweat. SWEAT?!?! Yikes! She was soaked!! I asked her what her last BG was and it was a 139 before she went to P.E. ....uhoh! I made her test right then to make sure she wasn't having a low that she wasn't feeling. BG...83 and falling with an hour left of school. On the way home from school, I asked her what she did different today since her numbers were excellent? Her reply, "Mommy, I didn't have to rush to finish my work today and we had Mrs. H as a substitute." LOL...ok! So there you have it.... no rushing = excellent numbers (in Kacey's mind) By the time we got home, she had the "glazed look" ...test again... 66! She ate one glucose tab and asked to take a bath since she was still really sweaty (not to mention...she was sporting the smelly odor!). I figured the glucose tab would bring her up enough to get a bath and wash the sweat off and then she could have dinner a little early. Only 10 minutes later, I retested her after a quick bath because she still didn't feel well...64! So she went on and had dinner. She did her homework after she ate and she sat down to watch a movie and said she felt lightheaded. I figured it was just her blood sugar going back up since she was low earlier. She asked to test again. Good thing she did! Her BG was a 49 with Herbie! YOWSER LOW NUMBERS! She immediately started to cry and asked for juice instead of glucose tabs. She said she didn't care if the juice made her sugar sick because she didn't want to drop lower. Something about seeing that number on the screen scared the beejeezus out of her. I had to once again explain to her that even though it said 49, she was still talking and only felt lightheaded. She asked to test with Pink Flash to be sure it was 49.....sure we can! So we got Pink Flash as she sucked her juice box......46! Her eyes welled up with tears as she realized that was the lowest number she'd ever seen for a low. I hugged her and reminded her that she was fine and Herbie would beep in 15 minutes to tell us to recheck. We sat quietly for those 15 minutes and sure enough...he beeped! She retested and she was only up to a 72. I reassured her that the juice was doing it's job and we'd test again in 15 more minutes to prove that. We waited 15 more minutes and when she tested again she was a nice 149! We sat and talked about what all that running did to her numbers and how it waited until a few hours after the activity to bite her in the butt....LOL! She giggled and now she's just fine! But, speaking of butts.... she is loving the hip site and she actually showed it off to her school nurse today. She has already said when we do the next change she is doing it on the other side. So that's working out great and it isn't interfering with pulling her pants up and down, which is what I was afraid of. Two thumbs up for hip sites!

Now... a really neat story to share....
Today I worked half a day in Kindergarten and then the second half of the day was spent volunteering at RIF. RIF stands for Reading Is Fundamental and it is a program our school has a few times a year. Every child in the school gets a free book of their choice. It's a great time for kids that don't have access to many books to get a chance to choose a book to keep and take home and read. This was my first time ever helping out with RIF because each year when it comes around, I've always had something going on and couldn't volunteer.

While I was in the library, I was sitting at a table with other Mom's that were also helping out. While the kids were choosing their books, one of the Mom's had to take a cell phone call from her son. I heard her say "Ok, well give yourself 5.5". Now to anyone else, that wouldn't mean anything but something about those words rang close to home for me. That language that only a parent of a diabetic child would understand. I wasn't about to ask because it would have been rude. I figured if her son had diabetes, then it would be mentioned during conversation while we all talked about our kids. So we're sitting there and I ended up getting a call to work a few more sub jobs and I was putting them into my calendar and color coding everything. One of the other Moms mentioned my days and I said "I have to keep them straight with colors because my daughter had doctor's appts too." Mrs. W's ears perked up and she said "Does she have a lot of appts?" I said "Well no, but she's got type 1 diabetes and we have a few coming up." It was like fireworks going off! She immediately bursted and said "My son has diabetes too! Thats who I was talking to!" I can't even begin to explain the joy I felt having someone sitting in front of me with a son going through the same thing. There was am immediate connection and it felt wonderful being able to speak the "diabetes language" that so many others don't understand. Her son, DW, is 12 now and was diagnosed at 8 (just like Kacey!) and he is still on shots. We exchanged information and we are definately going to get together and have lunch! I love the D-OC but it was something really cool about sitting face to face with another Mommy that KNOWS how difficult this disease is. They haven't gotten to the pump stage yet but you know how God puts you where you need to be at just the right times? Could Kacey be DW's encouragement to show him that pumps are not scary and they are much easier than shots? Could D be the "big brother" type to Kacey? I was so excited and I've been smiling all afternoon to finally be connected with another Mom that I can talk to. I know he is 3 years older than Kacey but I really do believe that when kids like this are put together they can learn so much from one another. I immediately thought about my other nurse friend with the son that is 13 and T1. He'd be a great role model for DW and they are about the same age. One more reason for me to really push this support group off the ground and I'm hoping that I found a partner to do that with! Anyway, I had to share this story because I was so happy about meeting her :)