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 :)

HIPpy Feeling

We had to do a site change early. Kacey played in the pool afterschool and her site started to peel off around the cannula. We didn't want to take any chances so we went on and changed it. She took her old site out and I was filling her cartridge when I noticed her inspecting her tummy. I asked her what she was looking at? She said she was trying to find the "perfect spot". She could see the little red marks left behind by previous sites. I finished filling the cartridge, installed it and filled the tubing. I watched as she continued to look for a spot and then I noticed her shift to her hip. She looked at me with a serious look and said, "Mom, I know Ms. Kristen said for me to try using my hip but I'm scared." I saw her tear up and I hugged her and explained that she didn't have to use her hip until she was ready. With tears quietly streaming down her face she said, "I think I'm ready but I'm scared." ***silently cries for her*** I smiled and told her how proud I was of her and how brave she was. She smiled through the tears as she inspected her hip. I told her I thought it would be easier if she hugged "Mellow" (her pump bear) while I searched for the perfect site. I found a place on her hip that I thought looked good and I pointed at it for her approval. With a nod of her head, I began to wipe it down. Nervous doesn't even begin to describe what I was feeling....I was FREAKIN SCARED!!! Could I let her see me like that? Noway! I put on my brave face and bit my lip while her head was turned. With a loud countdown...1.....2.....3...... I pushed my first Comfort Short in her hip. ***breathe*** I told her to hold very still while I took the needle out and peeled the tape off. Once it was in place, she literally fell into my arms on the couch and bursted into a full blown cry. We both wiped our tears as I praised her. Why were we crying? Because she's in completely new territory. No shots were ever given there and no site has ever been there. I've never practiced doing anything on her hip and we did it! Now she can give her tummy a rest and move around on those chunky little hips of hers ;)

As for the pool.... when we came home from school today, that's the first thing she wanted to do. It was 90F here again and she wanted to splash around. We agreed that she would only disconnect for an hour. Her blood sugar was 116 and we went out to splash. Within 30min she was a 75 so I think I should have made her eat one glucose tab before we went out. It was time for dinner anyway so we just came inside to eat. I had offered juice but she said she would get "sugar sick" if she drank that and it was hot outside. So we still have some work to do when it comes to the pool but we'll get there! :)

Water Day & A Few "Firsts"

It's a wonderful 90F here in Virginia! This is the first day we've been able to drag out all of the stuff to get wet.

We've also had a few more "firsts".
1. This is the first time we've had to deal with Herbie in the mix of a water day.
2. This is the first time we've used the "Disconnect" feature.
3. This is the first time we've dealt with swimming causing a low.

I had to refresh my brain from class about how to use the disconnect feature. When Kacey gets a bath, we just disconnect and she's only in the tub about 15min so we don't use that feature. Today, I knew we'd be outside for a little while so we set the pump to disconnect for 2 hours. After about an hour and a half of bouncing between swimming and running through the sprinkler, I told Kacey I thought she needed to test so we could be sure she wasn't going too high. Ummm..."Mommy Moronic Moment"...she won't go high because she is playing!! So she tests anyway ... 63 ....and she wasn't feeling a thing! So she stayed out of the water and we came inside to get something to eat. We decided to stay in and rest for a bit because once she was inside she started to feel the low. This is going to be a learning curve for us. It's going to take us some time to get used to dealing with Herbie & water days.

If any of you have any suggestions for water days, then I'd love them!

I thought Kacey would have a hard time dealing with being pulled away from the water but she did really well. She makes me so proud sometimes because during the times when she can't be "just a kid", she handles herself so mature. I did take a few minutes to smile because right after she disconnected, she took off running through the sprinkler and for once, diabetes didn't exist. Her BG was a 183, she had a smile on her face and she was being a kid! It's times like that that my heart feels so good :)

More Test Strip Pics

Kacey's little dish was full again and that means it's time to make more pics! :D

Kitty Cat

Tree

Lion

Can you tell what Kacey is studying in Math class? LOL!

Happy Face

Awwwwwww :)

This is my fav...LOL!

Wellsphere

Does anyone have any experience with Wellsphere?

I got an email today and I'm trying to figure out if it's a hoax or not? If it's not a hoax then I am extremely honored to have been selected to have my blog featured over there. I'm always so leary of things when I get them in email and this has come through as a legit email but I'm still keeping it in the red flag spot until I find out more about this website.

When I first began my blog last July, it was my way to vent. I had no intentions of anyone ever reading it. As I began to find more people going through what I was, I began to post to other blogs and before I knew it, I'd made friends to last a lifetime. I never in a million years thought I would be selected as a featured blogger and recognized as a Top Health Blogger. In my eyes, I'm not a Top Health Blogger, I'm just a Mom with a daughter living with diabetes, in search of other parents going through the same thing I am and seeking advice and support from other people living with diabetes. So you can imagine my shock when I received this long detailed email inviting me.

Does anyone have anything to say about the website, good or bad?

Thanks!

Blog Binding

I've been blogging for over 9 months now. Some days I like to sit and read just how far we've come in 9 months. I don't ever want to lose those memories that I've captured by journaling every day (almost every day and sometimes more than once a day). I took all of my posts from 2008 and copied them into a Word doc....198 pages (wow!) and I'm working on 2009 now. I've gone through and corrected all the spelling errors and now my goal is to have it printed and bound into a book for safe keeping and something that my girls can one day read. I'm trying to figure out the cheapest way to do this because eventually I am going to do this every year. My entries are copied just as they appear in the blog but in order (not backwards the way they post) from July08-Dec08 with the pictures. I did change the font to Times 12pt and I'm thinking of making some of the pics smaller but I don't want to leave the pics out because that is what will put the personal touch on my book. I'm excited about doing this because I can pick up the book and read back over our struggles and our happy moments without having to read backwards in my blog.

Has anyone done this and does anyone know a cheap way to do this?

School Spirit Low

Paw Pride (clap, clap clap)
Paw Pride (clap, clap, clap)
Paw Pride (clap, clap, clap)
We've got Paw Pride! (scream & clap)
(Kacey's school cheer)

School cheers and spirit assemblies bring back such wonderful memories for me. This afternoon, I had the chance to participate in the assembly as a teacher, not just a parent. I taught 1st grade today and we had so much fun. The kids were wonderful and they got all their work done (and then some!) We were already seated in the auditorium when Kacey's class came in. She waved and then sat down. I had no idea what her blood sugar was but I figured with all the excitement she was hovering high....WRONG! When everything was over, I went to get her and she sat down on the bench by the main office with this exhausted look on her face. "Kacey? Whats wrong?" She went on to tell me that she tested before they went in the assembly and she was an 80. She felt low during the assembly and she tested again and she was a 91. I took her hand and started walking to the car with her. She was dragging her feet and said she felt much lower than Herbie said she was. When we got to the car, I had her test again. She looks at me with a grumpy look and says "Herbie says I'm 85 but I feel lower Mom! I think Herbie is wrong this time." ***pause*** Ok, so could Herbie be wrong? Let's take Pink Flash out and see what she says? (Pink Flash is the extra Freestyle Flash meter she carries in her purse that has a pink skin) She tests with Pink Flash and she looks at me and says "I told you Herbie was wrong! Pink Flash says I am a 79!" So she has a snack to hold her over til we get home. Wow! I trusted Herbie to be dead on and he's off today. With this low came complete exhaustion and very tired. No sweats or shakies but she's got the urge to sleep. She's resting quietly in her bed with a movie for now.

I also have the date for my meeting set up. We will meet on May 7th at 2:30pm and the EC will be at the meeting :) I'll keep you all posted and help as much as I can with giving you info on what to include in your 504's.

Kacey Starts a Trend

Nope....not a trend in sugars this time! She's started a fashion trend at school :)



I've posted about her purse she carries and I've shared pics of this cute little polka dotted diabetes purse. Her teacher informed me that Kacey has started a trend in the classroom and a couple of the other girls in class have started bringing the same kind of across-the-shoulder purses. LOL! I asked Kacey about it this evening and she said the girls think it's cool that she carries a purse around school and so they brought theirs to school too.


So what exactly were in their purses?


Kacey's contains diabetes supplies.
Girl #1~ tissues and bandaids (just in case Kacey's finger bleeds too much)
Girl #2~ Lip gloss, tissues and a mirror


Both of these girls are Kacey's friends, one closer than the other. I thought it was really neat how they started doing this without anyone telling them to. Once again, it's proof that even if you feel like the "oddball", it only takes one person (in this case, two) to make you feel like you aren't so odd! And also proof that one "oddball" can start a trend and not even know they're doing it :)

504 Plan Revisited

I had the opportunity to speak with the EC from our Endo's office today. After 30 minutes on the phone with her, we've come to the conclusion that we need to have another meeting to make some changes to her current 504 Plan. When this plan was set in place back in October, Kacey was still seeking care at the nurse's office and she was on injections. Since she is now doing most of her care on her own in the classroom and she is on a pump, we need to make some changes. Many of these changes include new items that were not included before.

For those parents that have children in school or have children about to start school, that do not have a 504 Plan, make one! Even if they are only in Kindergarten, there are still things this plan should include. Anytime during the year you have the option to make changes to it as your child changes. Also, when they get into higher grades and they start taking those state tests, you are going to wish you had it! You can have the most gifted student in the world, and they still have problems when their blood sugars go haywire. As I stated before, Kacey went from A's to A's & B's to now having 2 C's and it's not anything she could control. The 504's help you with those needs your child will have.

A great way to start is to view some sample 504 Plans. I found a wonderful example ... HERE. You can look over it and then ask yourself, what part of that 504 Plan will my child need?

There are certain things that are a must like:
~ Unlimited bathroom breaks
~ Unlimited water breaks
~ Snacks available for lows
~ No physical activity if BG is over 300 with ketones
~ Escort to nurse if BG is low
~ No punishment for absences due to illness & doctor appts.
~ Treatment of highs/lows
~ Emergency protocol- Administer glucagon, call 911, call emergency contact #1 if #1 can't be reached, call #2

Other things like the following are questions you should ask yourself:
~ At what numbers should my child NOT take a test?
Our Endo suggests if she is below 80 or above 250 she should not be taking the test.

~When your child takes state tests, how will they be given? On the computer? On paper? Will your child be given more time to complete them? Will they be given over several days and broke up into a certain number of questions?
When we had our meeting, the counselor suggested Kacey be allowed to take the tests on paper. This would eliminate the computer and having to scroll to read. She could also use a highlighter to mark portions of the question or paragraph that she needed to remember. She's also be able to X out any answers she knew were not right to use "process of elimination" for the answer. There is no time limit for the test either. Also, her test will be broken down into parts. She will test her blood sugar before the first part. If she is high then she doesn't take the test. If she is in range, then she starts the test. Once she finishes, she has the option to test again before moving on. If she is high then she will not move on and I will come and get her from school and she will continue the next day with the next section. If she feels fine, then she moves on to the next section. This continues until she's completed the test. Her teacher said this is a great way for her to test and she won't be so overwhelmed. Hopefully things work out and she will stay in range and feel well enough to get through the testing.

~ When your child's pump alarms, what is the protocol?
We didn't have this set and when Kacey's pump alarmed the other day, she didn't know what to do. From now on, when it alarms and she doesn't know what it is, then she goes directly to the nurse (not running around the building to find me) and the nurse has a copy of all 50 alarms right out of the pump manual. So she can take care of the problem and call me on my cell in the meantime.

~ If your child doesn't complete classwork, should they miss recess?
I didn't realize that Kacey was missing recess as much as she was until I asked her about it. Her recess time is right after lunch. So she was leaving lunch and going to sit back down to do work she didn't complete in the morning. I have a problem with this because she NEEDS that recess to bring down those highs. She would go do the work and then by the time she completed it and got out to the playground, she'd have 5 min to run around or the class was lining up to come in. So this will need to be addressed as well. Work she doesn't complete in class can be sent home for homework instead of making her miss recess.

~ Who will go on fieldtrips with your child? You? The school nurse? Someone else?
This was something we decided at the beginning of the year. I go on all the trips when they leave school no matter what they are. I ride the bus and I'm with Kacey's group the entire time.

~ What level of self-care does your child do?
- Can they do their own BG tests?
- Can they do their own shots or dose themselves on the insulin pump?
- Can they figure their own doses?
- Can they carb count?
- Can they treat mild hyperglycemia with the pump or a shot?
- Can they treat mild hypoglycemia with a snack or glucose tabs/juice box?
- Can they check their own ketones and read the results?

~ Who will adminster the glucagon? Who will be trained to use it? Where will it be stored?
Right now, the school nurse & Kacey's teacher are trained to use it. I have one stored in the nurse and one in the classroom. But this got me thinking because if she is out on the playground when she passes out, what will they do? Her classroom and the nurses office are on the furthest side of the school. They would have to run in, grab the kit, run back out and administer it. Thats TOO much wasted time! So, either Kacey needs to carry it on her at all times in her purse or the teacher needs to take it out to recess when they go.

~ Where will the BG testing and dosing be done?
Originally Kacey was doing everything at the nurse. As she got the hang of how to do it all, we moved everything to the classroom because Kacey was missing 10-15min of class each time she went to test. If she is high or low, then she calls me from the teachers cell phone in the classroom and gets instruction for how to treat. Eventually, I will get her a cell phone that you buy minutes for that she can carry with her at all times and she will have permission to use that phone ONLY for diabetes emergencies. This is something I will probably get her before the start of school this fall. She will be in 4th grade and she will be changing classes again like she does now and I can't expect the teacher to let her use their personal phone each time she needs me.

~Where will the diabetes supplies be kept?
Once again, when Kacey was testing in the nurse's office, we kept everything in there. We moved her supplies to the classroom a few weeks before she started pumping. When she started her pump, I got her a small purse to carry with her anywhere in the school. In the purse is her test strips, an extra meter, lancet, alcohol pads, bandaid, spare battery & a quarter to open the battery cap, cartridge, infusion set, glucose tabs, 3 packs of Splenda, 4 foiled ketostix (with the chart to read them) and $3.00 (just in case she needs more water or snacks)

~ Will your child receive shorter assignments that cover the material that was taught?
While talking to the EC, she brought up an interesting point. Many times people think because a child is classified as "gifted", they should be able to do triple the workload of a normal child. Most of the time, they can but the whole purpose of being classified as gifted, is not to do triple the workload of the grade level. It is sopposed to be work designed to challenge their ability. So give them the workload of a normal class but above grade level. She said that if Kacey is gifted in Math, then instead of giving her a sheet of 50 problems, give her a sheet of 10. If she can do those 10 and get 100% then she can do 50 because she obviously knows the material. So you lessen the workload, test her and see that she knows the material and move on. She's so right!

I know more things will come up as we get into higher grade levels but this covers the basics. Your child may need other services that are not covered here or in the sample 504 Plans. Every child is different and they require different services but it is your responsibility to be an advocate for your child and be sure they get the services they need :) I'm looking forward to meeting the EC and meeting with everyone again to make these changes to the 504.

I also didn't go into detail about this before, but Kacey's CDE suggested that she wear a CGMS for a week. This would help them better understand what is happening during the day with her numbers. Her CDE recommended Dexcom. I didn't know much about any of the CGMS so I went on and read about them. I really think this would be useful in helping us determine what changes need to be made to keep her in range during school. When I mentioned it to Kacey, she immediately said "No!" but then after talking to her about it and explaining that this would help us get her numbers in better control and it would also help us show the right people that she is staying high while she is at school. She then smiled and asked if we could take pictures of it? LOL! She's so much like me sometimes ;) So stay tuned for our experince with the CGMS if it is approved by her Endo for her to wear it for a week.

Once again, thanks to everyone that has been on this bumpy rollercoaster with us and for those of you just getting on the ride....hold on tight! ;)

Earth Day

On Monday, Kacey's entire school planted pine trees into cups to bring home and plant in our yard. She was allowed to choose the tree and then she was given a cup to plant it in. She was so excited to tell me that the cup was made from corn and we could plant it right in the ground. Since Earth Day was today, we decided to save the tree for the special day.

Happy Earth Day!

iPod Challenge

I got this fun idea from Cara over at Every Day Every Hour Every Minute. She challenged all of us to share our music playlist when put on "random". I'm excited to see everyone else's selection of music ;)

Here is mine:


1. Poker Face- Lady GaGa
2. I Keep Coming Back- Josh Gracin
3. Why?- Jason Aldean
4. All American Girl- Carrie Underwood
5. Fearless- Taylor Swift
6. I Loved Her First- Heartland
7. This Is My Now- Jordin Sparks
8. My Life Would Suck Without You- Kelly Clarkson (My fav song right now!)
9. Angel- Shaggy
10. Goodbye My Lover- James Blunt
11. What About Now- Daughtry
12. In The Ayer- Flo Rida
13. Mad- Ne-Yo
14. Better In Time- Leona Lewis
15. Disturbia- Rhianna
16. Single Ladies- Beyonce
17. Right Now- Akon
18. Realize- Colbie Caillat
19. Forever My Friend- Ray LaMontagne
20. It Happens- Sugarland
21. Marry Me- Ed Cash
22. Better Together- Jack Johnson
23. Kiss A Girl- Keith Urban
24. Lips of an Angel- Hinder
25. Taste- Josh Abbott Band

I could go on but I'll stop at 25 LOL! This was fun Cara :) As you can see, my music taste ranges as well! (Btw, I do have NKOTB on my iPod but they never came up in the shuffle...hahaha!)

Tug at the Heart Strings

Today I had an incident that tugged at my heart strings and once again made diabetes ever so present.

I was substitute teaching today and during one part of my day, I monitor the kids that do something called "Walk & Talk". After lunch, the kids go outside and walk around the parking lot in a designated area and talk with their friends. During Walk & Talk today, a little girl in 2nd grade that knows Kacey came up to me and this is how the conversation went:

Little Girl: "Hi Mrs. West! How is Kacey feeling today?"
Me: "Kacey is having a good day and she's feeling good, thanks for asking!"
Little Girl: "So that means she doesn't have to wear her box anymore?"
***pause*** (Jill, don't cry...don't get choked up either) ***breathe***
Me: "No, (**smile**) That means she is having a good day and she isn't sick.
Little Girl: "But doesn't she wear the box because she is sick?"
(crap! how do you explain to a 2nd grader without going into detail)
Me: "No she wears her insulin pump to keep her from getting so sick"
Little Girl: (with a shocked face) "So she can never take it off?"
Me: "Yes she can take it off for a little while but then she connects it back on so she doesn't get sick. It helps her feel good."
Little Girl: "I'm glad she has a box to make her feel good. I don't have a box when I feel bad....my Mommy just tells me to lay down."
Me: "Well, you don't have diabetes and thats why Kacey wears the box."
Little Girl: "I don't want to wear a box."
Me: "I don't want you to have to wear a box either!"
****teacher calls***** LINE UP!

Whew! Saved by the teacher :) (instead of the bell)

It really made me think though and it tugged at my heart strings. Kids are so curious and when you answer in terms they can understand then it takes all of the curiosity out of it. The little girl now knows that Kacey wears her "box" so she can feel good....she doesn't wear it because she is "sick".

Great Meeting!

I feel like a ton of bricks have been lifted off my shoulders!

Today's meeting was a success. I met with Kacey's teacher, nurse, both principals and the school guidance counselor. As a group, we looked over Kacey's blood sugars and talked about her performance in the classroom. We also discussed the upcoming SOL tests and how we planned to help her though them as best as we could. I also talked about her pump and some of the alarms that need to be watched. Everyone was so caring and compassionate. I held my composure until I had to talk about how frustrating it is to manage diabetes. I ended up in tears trying to explain how I hate the fact that I can't know what she is feeling. They all agreed that we really don't know what Kacey is feeling but we CAN make the accomodations for her. The principal did bring up the fact that Kacey is in a gifted class because last year she was doing gifted work but all of this seems to have caught up with her and so I agreed that maybe her placement for next year should be in a slower pace class. This will take off some of the pressure that she is feeling to complete more work in a shorter amount of time.

She got her report card today....
Science .....A
Social Studies.....A
Writing.....B
Reading..... C
Math..... C

Not as bad as I thought it was but like her principal stated....those C's are in the gifted class.

So where do we go from here?
Our next step is calling the Educational Consulant for Kacey's Endo office. I gave them the card that was given to me at our last appointment. We will make an appointment for a meeting with the EC and she can give us suggestions on what we can do. This is a learning process for our school because Kacey is the first child with diabetes to come through there and need the help. There has only been one other boy with diabetes that was in our school and his parents managed his care, not the school. This is not something they are used to dealing with. So I have to be patient and I am confident they are going to look out for Kacey's best interest and help her get through this difficult time. They are going to make some special arrangements for her during the SOL testing. The first one being, she will NOT have to test on the computer. She will get her test on paper. This will allow her to highlight with a marker and write on the test instead of having to do everything in her head. She will be in with her teacher during the testing and her test will be broken up into parts. After each part, if she's not feeling well or her blood sugar is too high, then they will not move on to the next part. Her teacher also suggested that on testing days, once the test was over, I take her home. This way she can physically rest after the test and she won't have to do any other work the rest of the day.

She is going to be just fine and eventually we will get this whole diabetes thing under our belt and the teachers will be pro's at suspecting highs and lows. I really am lucky to have Kacey in a school that is willing to work with me, her doc office and anyone else that can shed light on how difficult diabetes can be for a child.

Weekend Numbers

We've had a very relaxing weekend and with that came some great numbers and some lows.

Sat- 134, 144, 145, 125, 75, 73, 98, 109, 88
The 75 and 73 she had made her very sweaty and she had dizzy spells. The feeling dizzy is what caused her to check and see if she was low.

Sun- 105, 135, 140, 53 (287 after 15min and 3 glucose tabs), 91, 161, 116, 182
The 53 that she has made her dizzy and she got very tired. She was out riding her bike and she felt dizzy and asked Kayleigh to help her in the house. She got the scared feeling and ended up eating 3 glucose tabs instead of 2. She bumped up to the 287 but quickly fell back to a 91 within the hour. Shes been in a great mood all day and that really makes things easy on all of us.

It's back to school tomorrow and with that comes the highs again. I've already emailed her logbook to her CDE so hopefully she'll take a look at those numbers and we can make some basal adjustments for the time she is at school. This is the first time I've used the Cozmo software for her logbook and it's wayyyyyyy cool! I got a little slack the last 2 days with logging because I knew I was going to try the logbook. The only hard part is getting used to viewing it backwards from the way I've been logging it the last 9 months. I ended up transferring all the numbers to one of the logsheets I've been using so I could see her numbers better. This also helps me when I'm circling the high's in red and highlighting the lows. It is one page vs. six pages. It's a great program though :) The best part about all of this....no calculator!!

My meeting is tomorrow and I'm a bit nervous. Not sure why? I'll update once I get home :)

Good Day....Finally!

Today was a good day for Kacey. She woke up with a 164 and a smile. She knew I would be helping out at school today so if she had anymore pump problems then she knew where to find me. Snacktime she was a 163...woohooo one point lower than waking up. I surprised her and met her in the cafeteria for lunch. She came running up and gave me a big bear hug and she had this smile that couldn't be wiped off her face. She looks at me grinning and says "Mommy my blood sugar was 135 and I'm SOOOOO happy!" Ahhhhhhhhhh :) We celebrated for a few minutes and her teacher walked by and said "I think it's because it's Friday!" LOL! Kacey ate her lunch and since she was having such a great day and she was feeling so good...we celebrated with an ice cream cup. Something she hasn't been able to buy at school since last year. I got her ice cream for her and she pulled her pump out with a smile and said "Mommy, I love Herbie so much!" I knew exactly what she was trying to say. Life before Herbie involved getting an additional shot if she wanted ice cream after lunch. She used to pass on the ice cream to keep from getting that shot. But not today...she had great numbers and she could pull Herbie out and dose herself. So then she looks over at me and says "Mom? You think about 18 carbs?" I smiled because she'd already been thinking about how many carbs were in what she was about to eat. "Ya know, let's do 20 carbs since it has the fudge ripples in it." We shared a high-five and I watched my little girl chat away with her friends as she ate her ice cream. One of the other little girls looked at Kacey with her mouth open wide and shockingly said "Oh my! Kacey are you spose to eat that?" Kacey looked at me and then she looked back at the little girl and she said "Yep I got my insulin for it!" ****proud Mommy moment**** The little girl smiled and then she hugged Kacey and said "I'm so happy you can have ice cream now!" (LOL...like she could never have it before!) It was a cute moment shared by her friends that were "looking out for her". Sooooooo two hours post lunch blood sugar.... (holds breath) .... 170!! YAHOOOOOOOOOO! We bolused right! When we came home, she told me she didn't feel too good. Uhoh! ***test*** 219! Hahaha dang it! I can't win here. So she said she wanted to go ride her bike. Good :D because when she came in for dinner about 30min later, she was an 80. While she was eating, I asked her how her day went? She told me that she was really happy her blood sugars were in range and her tummy didn't hurt. She went on to talk about what she learned and then she had a twinkle in her eyes as she said "My brain wasn't cloudy today and I learned alot!" I hugged her and I told her I was glad she didn't have those clouds. She's gone back outside to play with her sister.

Let's hope this is a great start for the weekend!

Meeting on Monday :)

School Info

I was just given some really great info that can help all of us parents understand how to approach the school systems. If you have a child in public school, take a moment to read the information below put out by the ADA. (Thanks Sheri!! You've been so helpful since you've been though this with your school aready!!)

(To read the full article)
http://www.diabetes.org/advocacy-and-legalresources/discrimination/school/idea.jsp

When are children with diabetes covered by IDEA?
To receive services under IDEA, a child with diabetes must show that he or she needs special education and related services in order to benefit from an education. An evaluation of the child must show that, because of the child's diabetes (or other qualifying disability) the child has limited strength, vitality, or alertness that adversely affects the child's educational performance. Simply put, the diabetes must make it more difficult for the child to learn.
For example, it is often difficult to learn when blood sugar levels are either too high or too low. If a child with diabetes is having difficulty controlling his or her blood sugar level, this may hurt how well the child does in school. Classwork might also suffer if a child with diabetes misses a significant amount of classroom instruction each day in order to test his or her blood sugar level.

What is the process for deciding whether a child qualifies under IDEA?
In order to decide if a child qualifies for services under IDEA, a full initial evaluation of the child is conducted by qualified professionals. The child must be assessed in all areas related to the suspected disability, including areas such as social and emotional status, general intelligence, academic performance, communicative status, and motor abilities. To start this evaluation process, contact your principal or the school district's coordinator for special education and disability issues. In some school districts when you request that your child be evaluated under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the school may automatically seek to evaluate the child under IDEA. However, parents must consent to evaluation under IDEA.
Parents have the right to an independent educational evaluation at public expense if they disagree with an evaluation obtained by their school district.

What help does a child receive under IDEA?
Special Education
To qualify under IDEA a child must be found to need "special education." Under IDEA, "special education" means a specially designed instruction program that meets the unique needs of a child with a disability. This means adapting what is taught and how it is taught in order to address the child's unique needs. The child must have access to the same general curriculum (or coursework) so that the child can meet the same educational standards (tests, and other measurements used to pass children from grade to grade) that apply to all children in that school district.
For example, a child with diabetes might need a tutor or a classroom aide to help the child catch up with missed schoolwork.
Related Services
In addition to special education, a child who qualifies for special education under IDEA is also entitled to "related services" if needed to help the child benefit from special education. Related services include such things as school health services, transportation, psychological services, therapeutic recreation, rehabilitation counseling, medical services for diagnostic or evaluation purposes, occupational therapy and physical therapy, social work services in schools, and parent counseling and training.
For example, a child with diabetes requires that there be trained staff available at all times who are knowledgeable about diabetes and the child's specific plan for diabetes care. Such staff must know how to recognize and treat high and low blood sugar levels. Younger children may require assistance in blood glucose testing and administering insulin. All of the child's health care needs should be put together into a document called a Health Care Plan which should be developed with input from the child's physician, parents and teachers and made a part of the child's IEP (see discussion below about IEPs).
Least Restrictive Environment
IDEA requires that children with disabilities be educated in the least restrictive environment (LRE). This means that, to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities are educated with children who are do not have disabilities. A question involving LRE could arise if a school district wanted to bus a child with diabetes to a specific school because that school had a full-time nurse.

What is an Individualized Education Program?
An Individualized Education Program or "IEP" is the document that sets out what the school is going to do to meet the child's individual educational needs. There are a lot of specific rules about developing an IEP, reviewing it (which must be done at least once a year), and what an IEP must contain.
Developing an IEP
The IEP must be developed with input from the child's parents; at least one regular education teacher; at least one of the child's special education teachers or providers; a representative of the school district who is qualified, knowledgeable, and authorized to commit the district to the delivery of resources to the child; a qualified professional who can interpret the evaluation of child; others at the discretion of the parent or the school district; and, where appropriate, the child with a disability. This is the child's IEP Team.
Contents of an IEP
An IEP must contain:
A statement of the child's present levels of performance, including how the child's disability affects involvement and progress in the general curriculum (for preschoolers, this would be how disability affects participation in appropriate activities);
A statement of measurable annual goals, including benchmarks or short-term objectives, geared toward enabling the child to be involved in and progress in the general curriculum and meeting each of the child's other educational needs that result from his or her disability;
A statement of the special education and related services and supplementary aids and services to be provided; and
A statement of program modifications or supports for school personnel that will be provided so that the child can:
Advance toward attaining his or her annual goals;
Be involved and progress in the general curriculum;
Participate in extracurricular and other nonacademic activities;
Be educated and participate with nondisabled children.
An explanation of the extent, if any, to which the child will not participate with nondisabled children;
A statement of any modifications needed for the child to participate in district-wide tests or other assessments;
A projected date for the beginning of services and the frequency, location and duration of services;
Beginning at age 14, a statement of the child's service needs for transition to adulthood; and
A statement of how the child's progress toward the annual goals will be measured and how parents will be regularly informed of progress toward goals.
See the American Diabetes Association's pamphlet "Your School and Your Rights" for examples of accommodations that might be needed by children with diabetes.
What are the parents' rights under IDEA?
One reason some parents like IDEA is that the law offers parents a lot of protections.
Parental Consent
Parents must give informed consent before their child is evaluated or reevaluated and before special education and related services can be started. The school district cannot proceed if the parents won't grant consent. Rather, the school district must request a due process hearing from the state education agency.
Parental Involvement
Parents of a student with a disability must be given the opportunity to inspect and review all of their child's education records and to participate in meetings about their child.
Parents have the right to request an IEP meeting at any time. The school district should grant any reasonable request by parents for an IEP meeting.
The school district must schedule the IEP meeting at a mutually agreed upon time and place. If neither parent can attend, the school district must use other methods to ensure parent participation, including individual or conference calls.
School districts are required to provide written notice to parents in advance of IEP meetings, and that notice must give the purpose of IEP meeting, the time and location of the meeting, and who will be there.
School districts are required to notify the parents of decisions and plans before the district puts the proposed actions into effect.
Notice must be provided in the native language of the parents, unless it is clearly not feasible to do so.

This document was prepared for the American Diabetes Association by Larisa Cummings, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, Inc., and Shereen Arent, Managing Director of Legal Advocacy, American Diabetes Association (March 2000)

Relief in Sight

I've had such a headache and sick stomach the last 24 hours. I've had some time to de-stress today. The principal asked me this morning if we could meet Monday at 2:30pm. Perfect! So the meeting is in place and we'll see what we can do to get Kacey back on track.

We had our first "alarm panic" today. Thankfully I was helping out at Kacey's school today. Her pump alarm went off and she'd never seen the alert before and she told her teacher because her pump continued to beep. Her teacher sent her on a wild goose chase after me. By the time she found me, she was frantic because she didn't know what was wrong with Herbie.

"Bolus programming not complete"

Yikes! I've never seen this either and I had no book to know what that meant. Using common sense, I gathered that it meant she didn't get the complete bolus. So how much did she get? Ugh! So since her snack only had 5 carbs, I just went on and did a correction and let it be to see what happened. I stuck around school the rest of the day, just in case she needed me. She did fine and Herbie didn't sound off the alarms.

As for her blood sugars at school today... 186 when she woke up....265 at snack....203 at lunch....and 197 at resource time. When she got home from school she was an 88! *sigh* They aren't as rough as yesterday but they still arent great.

I'll keep everyone updated as we go!

Site Success

The title says it all! Today was site change day...yep it's been 3 days already! Kacey had been telling me all day that she was doing her own site. I told her that it was fine for her to not do them but she kept insisting that "Today was the day!" and she was so right! After lunch she told me she was ready. We got all the supplies and she had the old site out before I could even fill the new cartridge. She had this smile on her face that couldn't be wiped off....or could it?

After I got everything filled, then she said she needed me to hold her hand while she pushed it in. Sure thing! So I held her hand....and this was the face she gave me.....
I asked her if she wanted me to do it? "NO! I wanna do this!", she shouted back at me. So I smiled and started chanting "Go Kacey! Go Kacey!" About 10 seconds later.....
SHE DID IT!!!!! And there were NO tears!!!! She was all smiles and we were all in near tears from the happiness. I am so proud of how well she's done with this. She set this goal with her CDE on March 20, 2008 when we went to pump training with Herbie and here we are not even one month later and she's done her first site...ALL BY HERSELF!

What have we learned with sites?
The first thing we learned is that Kacey does much better when she does the sites with a device. The manual insert sites are the ones I can do but she is much more relaxed with the automatic insert ones. We actually didn't have these recommended to us because when Kacey did her own injections, she used to put the needle in really slow. We were told that since she was a slow inserter then she wouldn't like the automatic insert sites. The Cleo is a combo of both. Kacey has control of the insert but it automatically retracts the needle for her. The only drawback we're having is the fact that they don't stay stuck to her for more than a day. We're using the clear IV stuff that goes overtop but when we do this, it means she can't disconnect so we're having to disconnect the CozMonitor so she can bathe or shower during those 3 days. The Comfort Shorts stay stuck (and then some! LOL!).

Another thing we were told was the straight in sets tend to kink more than the angled sets. Sure that may happen but it hasn't happened to us yet. I must say, the Cleo sets have given her nearly perfect blood sugars, whereas the Comfort Shorts she was bouncing around a bit. I wonder if it had anything to do with the angle it was in? I'll certainly ask when we go back to the Endo!

We go back to the Endo next month for a check up and I'm going to ask for some samples of some other sets. I think it's only fair to Kacey to let her explore the other sets out there and then decide on the one she really likes rather than limiting herself.

So....don't let anyone tell you that a 9 year old child CANNOT care for their diabetes because Kacey is now proof! She has the desire to be independant and the determination to do it and I must say....I couldn't be more proud of her than I am right at this moment!

This pic made me cry. Here is Kayleigh sharing one of the proudest moments in Kacey's life and praising her for a job well done. They hugged for about 5 minutes after this and Kayleigh kept telling her how brave she was. What a wonderful big sister to show the support that Kacey needs.

As for Kacey....she looked at me afterward and said "I told you I could do it!"

She sure did! :)

Happy Easter

HaPpY EaStEr!
The girls had a great Easter this year. We woke up around 8am and the girls were excited to see what "Easter Bunny" had left. Kacey got another piece to her play-doh set...The Spaghetti Factory. She's really gotten into being breative with play-doh and making stuff. Kayleigh got an iTunes gift card and they both got some chocolate treats sprinkled by the Easter Bunny. We got dressed and went to visit Frankie's Granny. She is having surgery this week to remove a cancerous tumor from her kidney that is the size of an apple. The surgeon is taking her entire kidney out so you can imagine how worried we are since she's 86! She looked great and is still getting along well and the girls enjoyed their time down there with her. After that, we came back home and got things ready for the evening. My Mom & Brian came over and the girls had their Easter egg hunt. Yeah, I thought they were too old and we didn't do one last year but for some reason they asked for one this year but wanted us to make it hard to find the eggs. So thats what we did ! ;) The laughed and had a wonderful time. Then they got some Easter goodies from Mom & Brian. Kacey got 5 more pump packs :) We cooked out on the grill for dinner but we had to bring it inside because the wind was so cold. It really was a great day!

Kacey with her new pump packs

You're never too big for an egg hunt...especially when they are filled with money!

More hunting.... Miley even got in on the fun and was guarding 2 eggs!

258 eggs later..... Kayleigh collected $27.17 and Kacey collected $23.00!

One more day of Spring Break :( I'm not looking forward to the girls going back. For the last 3 days, Kacey's blood sugars have been PERFECT! Nothing below 69 and nothing above 180!! The site we did held up well with the clear IV dressing overtop of it. Tomorrow is site change day ...ugh! :( She is insisting that she wants to do it herself so we'll see what kind of drama unfolds!

I hope everyone had a very blessed day!

Egg-stra Special

The girls took advantage of the rain, and decided to dye Easter eggs this afternoon.

Be careful not to squeeze the eggs...haha...the look on Kacey's face was priceless when she squeezed too hard and it split!

Spring

Spring is my favorite season! I love when all my flowers come up and each year I add more bulbs to my collection. Here are a few pics of how things are growing in my neck of the woods!

My tulips are up and several have bloomed already. I love the excitement of not knowing what color they are going to be until they finally bloom!

I bought these tulips and planted them for Kayleigh last year.

Red & Gold...of course...it's her school colors!!! GO DUKES!

These are the blossoms on my apple trees.

More blossoms!

The last of my daffodils blooming.

Happy Easter in VA!

Kacey writing in the dirt....hmmmm what does it say?

Awwwwww :) The exclamation point at the end has a smiley face in the circle...LOL!

We were having some nice weather this morning. I woke up around 6am and tested Kacey's BG...151 (perfect!) so I let her sleep, made myself a cup of coffee and went out to sit on the deck and enjoy the morning. It was a little chilly but the smell of the crisp air was invigorating! Once the girls woke up, we spent the morning potting some more flowers and then the rain came in and we've been inside for the afternoon. It gave them a chance to dye the Easter eggs that were waiting :) (More pics to come!)

Site Change Drama

My heart was breaking for Kacey as she cried and begged me to let her go one more day with her "comfy site". I explained that it wasn't safe to let her go longer than 3 days and with every change we are steps closer to every site being a "comfy" one. After more tears, she disconnected and peeled away the "comfy site". She looked at me with a pouty lip as I filled the new cartridge. She then got the idea that she wanted to try doing the Cleo site herself. As shocked as I was, I couldn't tell her no because our goal is to get to the point that she is trying the sites herself. She proudly opened the tubing and connected it to the cartridge. And then the meltdown began! She was teetering on the "I want to do it myself!" and "I need Mommy to do it!". As she held the Cleo against her tummy, she cried so hard and I didn't know what to do for her. When I offered to do it, then she screamed that she wanted to and when I told her to do it then she cried and said she couldn't. Kayleigh was standing by with the camera in hand to capture the moment she did her first site by herself. This went on for about 5 minutes (seemed longer) and I just had to tell her "I'll do it!" and as she screamed louder, I pushed the Cleo against her tummy. Once it clicked, she immediately went silent. Staring at me with tears running down her face, she said "That didn't hurt!" LOL...ugh! The rough part was when I tried to pull the Cleo away, the sticky wasn't sticking to the "new territory" ....yep thats right.....MORE new territory! She decided to try the front of her tummy (a fist away from her belly button). She never even did injections there so this was a big deal. So we decided to use one of the IV tape stickys and put it over the whole thing. I don't know how long this will last but at least the tears have stopped and even if it lasts a day then we can try again later. I won't post the heartbreaking pics that Kayleigh took since Kacey had tears streaming down her face. I'll wait and post the pics when she's doing the site on her own with a smile :) We're close though! We're very close! Ultimately...I made it all better with ice cream sundaes and we're all smiling.

Comfy Site

Have you ever had that one perfect site that you just don't want to change when the alert tells you it's time to because it's so comfortable?

The site that Kacey put in new territory three days ago has been so comfortable for her and when her alert went off earlier, she came to me with tears and said "Mommy I love this site and don't want to change it because it feels so good!" Ugh! I had to explain to her that we could push "snooze" on the alarm since it was at 4pm but the change HAD to be done this evening since it's the 3rd day. She insisted I give her an answer as to WHY it had to be changed in 3 days? Why couldn't it be changed in 4 days? LOL! She eventually agreed to the few more hours I've given her but I know more tears are headed our way. She said she liked how this site didn't hurt at all and she didn't even know it was there. The last 3 days have gone so fast!

I don't know where we're going to try this time, but I'm hoping it's more new territory :)

Fundraising & Yard Work

LOL...How's that for a random title?

I've been a little MIA the last 2 days because the weather here has been nice and I had to take advantage of it. I completely cleaned out my car yesterday. It was in desperate need of being cleaned and vacuumed. I tend to "live" out of my car and every so often I have to deep clean it. The girls decided to pitch in and they were such a big help. After about 2 hours of cleaning, I'd worked into "full clean mode" and since the sun was shining, I got my rake out and started cleaning out my flower beds and pulling weeds to prepare for mulching. As the sun began to set, it brought on some chilly weather and a low for Kacey. She'd worked herself down to a 65! It was time for dinner anyway so we came on inside...got showers...ate dinner...and called it an early night.

I let the girls sleep in this morning but I knew we had a gorgeous say in store for us. Around 9am, I got them up and we started the busy day! I got the grass cut and Frankie went and picked up a huge load of mulch. His best friend helped us and we got all the flower beds mulched. It looks so nice out there :) I even have some new space to plant some flower bulbs! YAY! It's something about fresh cut grass, the smell of new mulch and flowers peeking through the ground that make me feel so fresh and happy! I love spring! :)

Now for the fundraising....

It's that time again, we're fundraising for our JDRF Walk that will be taking place in October. I have so many really cool ideas swirling through my head and I know I can't put them all in place at once so I have to take baby steps. The first one we're going to put into place was an idea that was given to me by my friend, Carey, that I've known since middle school. We graduated together and then we lost touch over the years. After finding one another on Facebook, she's been so supportive and very willing to help with anything needed for this upcoming walk. She said she wanted to tell me about an idea she had that she was doing with her son. Everyday she gives him her pennies from the day and he puts them in a can. The can is for...Kacey!! When the can gets full, she takes it to the bank and changes the pennies for the cash. So far, she's filled 2 cans for her and she said she had $21.00!! Amazinggggg :) She's planning on donating it when we do the walk, so she will be collecting pennies all summer! So then she said that she had seen a really cool idea where you give someone a water bottle and you tell them to drink the water and then refill the water bottle with change and give it back to be donated to our team's walk donations. WOWWW! So the wheels in my head started turning and we've decided to make labels for the water bottles with Kacey's team name on them. We're going to be handing out the water bottles to family & friends soon. Once we get the bottle back, if it has more than $25 worth of change in it then they will get a team shirt from us. I think this is going to be a wonderful idea and I'm excited to get it going!

We're also going to have a few car washes and while we are there we will be selling JDRF paper sneakers. I'm also going to be doing my jewelry sales again for 100% profit to JDRF and putting together an Applebee's dinner night (they donate 10% of every meal ticket to our charity) Kayleigh will be holding a bake sale with her friends to help as well. Frankie is holding a fundraiser with his hunting buddies and they have some fun things going like 50/50 raffles and giveaways. So fundraising is in full swing here. Does anyone have any other neat ideas they do to raise money for their walk teams?

I'm going to be mailing out our JDRF letter soon :)

Wednesday Funnies

On a usual Wednesday, I'd normally post a funny joke or email that I received during the week, but not today. Today I got an email that touched me close to the heart and I remember doing this same activity when I was in high school as a class project......


Too Busy for a Friend or Family?

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.

Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.

It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.

On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. 'Really?' she heard whispered. 'I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!' and, 'I didn't know others liked me so much,' were most of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again.. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.
Several years later, one of the students was killed in Viet Nam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature.

The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin.

As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. 'Were you Mark's math teacher?' he asked. She nodded: 'yes.' Then he said: 'Mark talked about you a lot.'

After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher.

'We want to show you something,' his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket 'They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.'

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him.

'Thank you so much for doing that,' Mark's mother said. 'As you can see, Mark treasured it.' All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, 'I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home.' Chuck's wife said, 'Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album.' 'I have mine too,' Marilyn said. 'It's in my diary' Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. 'I carry this with me at all times,' Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: 'I think we all saved our lists'

That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.

The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be.

So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late.

If you're 'too busy' to take those few minutes right now to forward this message on, would this be the VERY first time you didn't do that little thing that would make a difference in your relationships? The more people that you send this to, the better you'll be at reaching out to those you care about.

Remember, you reap what you sow. What you put into the lives of others comes back into your own.

May Your Day Be Blessed As Special As You Are

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Steph (the person I got this email from), I love you and miss you tons! Our March 2000 Babies brought us together and even though we may not talk as much as we used to, you'll always be someone near and dear to my heart!

To Everyone that read and supports me on here.... Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being such a wonderful group and saying the nicest things to me! I'm so blessed to call you...FRIENDS!
To all the D~Mommies....You all are my rock! You know exactly how I'm feeling most days and it's nice to be able to turn to you all for support!
To all my D~Blogger friends....You all ROCK! I have confidence that Kacey will grow up and admire you all just as much as I do. Every single one of you is a HERO and a wonderful role model for my daughter. I look forward to the day that she blogs right along side of all of you!
To all the Non-D Friends/Readers....Thanks for being here for me! Your kind words are the encouragement I need as a parent to keep striving to control the D-Monster.

YOU ALL ARE THE BEST!!!

As for my paper....
Do I still have my paper? I sure do! It's in an envelope in my box with my stuff from my senior year of high school.
Have I looked at it over the years? I sure have! And I've often wondered where all those people are that wrote such nice things about me?

New Territory

I'm so pleased with Kacey! Last night around 9pm, she tested before bed at she was a 443 (yikes!) After careful inspection, it looked as if her cannula had wiggled it's way close to coming out. (Yep, Herbie went bungee jumping twice yesterday) Her numbers were in the 200+ range all day and then when she hopped up to the 400's, I thought it was best to just go on and do a site change and bring those numbers back down. She took the old site out and then we went on a search mission to find the "perfect" spot. She has this fear of hitting a vein since I've done that twice already :( and so she takes a close look and looks up at me with sad blue eyes and says "Mommy I don't know where to put it?" So I pretended to put on my spy glasses and searched around for the right spot (LOL! Sometimes some pretend play is the perfect way to go!) I suggested trying a spot further back. She instantly said "NO!" and welled up with tears. I reminded her of the goal we set when we went to pump training. GOAL 1: Do a site on the hip. We haven't made it there yet! After about 5min, Herbie beeped at us to remind us he was waiting to be reconnected...LOL! Then she blurts out... "I'm a big girl! Just do it!" (haha made me think of the Nike commercial and if I ever run across a shirt with "Just Do It" on it then I'm buying it for her!) SOOOOOOOOO..... we're in new territory!!! I was so proud of her :) She never even shed a tear when I did it. It burned a little bit more and as for the numbers....well it took a few corrections to get her back down into range and at lunchtime today she was sitting pretty at 163 (better than a 400)!

We went shopping with my Mom today. The girls are on Spring Break and the weather is crappy. It's too cold and windy to do anything. The plans of going to Busch Gardens and Putt Putt Golf were tossed out the window and we replaced them with shopping :D Our main goal today was to get the girls new sneakers. Kacey has been complaining of her feet hurting and the sneakers she had were pretty worn out. She's so hard to take shopping for shoes because everything "makes her feet hurt". We went out to Williamsburg to the Reebok outlet store. (I love that place!) I had her fitted for shoes this time. Instead of walking around and trying on different ones to see what fit, we knew what size to choose from. My Mom found a cute pink & white pair and Kacey tried them on.....BINGO! Perfect fit! She walked around, twirled, jumped, hopped and then smiled and said "I love them!" Noway?!?! Could this be?!?! The first pair she tried on fit great. They fit so good that she didn't want to take them off and she walked out with them on her feet. Wow! That was easy! From now on, we're going right to Reebok and having her fitted before she gets new sneakers each time. As for Kayleigh, she also needed new running shoes. She's going to be working out and training with my brother while she is in Hawaii for 8 weeks. She's working on getting those 6pk abs (which she's not too far from having)! She's such a fitness buff and I'm glad she loves to stay in shape. So I had to get her a pair of sneakers that would hold up through the workouts. She tried on a few pair until she found the right one. She's in between sizes right now so we got her some running socks as well and hopefully she won't have to worry about her feet sliding. (Thanks Nae-Nae for getting them new sneakers!) Since we were at the outlet mall, the trip wouldn't be complete unless we ducked into Aeropostle. We always hit good sales in there for Kayleigh since she's still so skinny and usually what's left on the clearance racks are the small things. She got 5 new shirts for $3-$5 each! :) I'll take her back out there before she leaves to get her some new shorts for her trip. She's worn the same size for about 4 years now...LOL!

After all of that, we still had grocery shopping to do (ugh!) I hate grocery shopping but this time I was so thrilled with myself because I had $65 in coupons!! I used to do coupons when Frankie and I first got married and through the years it was easier to run in and get what I needed and run out (unless some pretty good coupons caught my eye in the paper) Because we are on a tighter budget now, I decided it was time to get back to clipping those coupons and actually putting them to use because it was like throwing money away! I'm so glad I did :) Plus I actually got a pretty good deal this time. I had 4 coupons-- 2 for (up to) $30 off glucose machines and 2 for (up to ) $20 off the strips. We don't need another glucose machine but these coupons were too hard to pass up considering it made everything FREE! I had a wonderful idea of how to put them to use. I'm in the process of setting up a T1 Diabetes support group in my area since there isn't one near us and we know of several children diagnosed recently. So I thought when we meet for the support group, we could have little give-away's each meeting. I'm gonna save these glucose machines for that :) Each child that attends will put their name on a ticket and at the end of the meeting then we will draw out for the prize! So I'm going to start a box full of goodies that they can choose from and every little card I get in the mail for free diabetes stuff I will fill out and add to the box.

LOL so after all of that, we worked up an appetite and so we stopped and had lunch at Subway with my Mom. Then it was time to go home and put away a month worth of groceries!!

It was a great day!