Sticky Removal

After several site changes, we're now starting to face the sticky mess that is left behind from the sites. What do you use to remove this mess?

I've tried simple alcohol but after wiping til the skin was red, we gave up!
Next try.... GOO GONE! It might be something used for getting sticky stuff off of glass and other surfaces, but it worked magic on her skin. I followed the cleanup with a wipe down of alcohol and it was clean without any red marks.

Is there something else that is made to take off the sticky glue? Any home remedies that you use and would like to share with us?

Average Fingersticks?

On average, how many fingersticks are you/your child doing a day?

When Kacey was on shots, she used a Freestyle Lite meter and tested between 7-10 times a day. Now that she is on the pump, she is using the Freestyle meter connected to her Cozmo but she is testing about 12-15 times a day. Most of those are because of lows and retests in 15 min or because she "feels weird". Plus we're doing middle of the night checks EVERY night.

When she was using the Freestyle Lite meter, her Endo wrote the prescription for 300 strips a month. We used every bit of those and by the time it was time for a refill, she was ready for more! When her Endo wrote the prescription for the Freestyle strips, he wrote it for 200 a month. HUH?!? I questioned it when we were there and her CDE said for us to let her know if we needed more than that. We do! I have to fax a note over to her and let her know that 200 isn't going to get us through the month if she's testing as much as she is.

Is it normal to test this much when you're on the pump?

Quote

I've been meaning to share this quote. My girls usually fight like normal siblings do but there will be one day among the fighting that they get particularly close and share a bond that can never be broken. On one of those days, diabetes was their topic of conversation and this quote was developed....

"Somewhere over the rainbow is a pot of cures for every diagnosis in the whole wide world and someday soon they will climb over that rainbow and grab those cures!" ~Kayleigh & Kacey West

HOPE... thats what we hold onto every single day! One day I hope to be able to say "Kacey used to have diabetes!"

More Pump Packs

Since my Mom had her surgery, she's been busy making Kacey more pump packs because she's not allowed to do much of anything while she's healing. She also bought her a case to keep all of them in! Kacey was so excited! She's got several leftover pieces and she is going to be making some extras for me to offer in "Special Give-Aways" so keep watching for the offer!

Mommy's DO Get Sick!

Ever since I can remember, my Mom always used to tell me "Mommys don't get sick!" and up until about the age of 15-16yrs old, I really believed that. Then my Mom got strep throat and she was VERY sick and I remember crying and telling her "Mommys dont get sick so she can't be sick."

When I had my girls the phrase turned to "Mommys aren't allowed to be sick!" because really we can't be! We have to carry on a household and still manage daily life whether we have a cold or not. It doesn't matter if we haven't slept a wink because we still have to put on a smile and act like we care. This leads me to why I haven't been able to update after the lows. It seems that the lack of sleep and the unwanted stress lately caused my immune system to crash. I got hit with a stomach bug not long after I posted in those wee morning hours. Stomach bug... yes the one that leaves you running back and fourth to the bathroom alternating between sitting on the toilet and bending over it. Between those bathroom visits, I felt like someone had hit me with a bat (or maybe I was wishing they would to put me out of my misery). My whole body was hurting and I started to shake from the chills. Thats how I spent my Saturday...in bed under several layers of covers...and forbidding the kids to get anywhere close to me! Around 2am this morning, my fever broke and I was drenched in sweat. My sick stomach was gone but I could still feel the gurgling. I changed clothes and went back to sleep. Around 5am, I woke up and felt well enough to go check on Kacey. It's a good thing I did! Her site had pulled out!!! She was only a 197 so it must not have been out too long. So here we are at 5am, doing a new site. Thankfully everything went smooth and she went on back to sleep (and so did I!) By around 10am, I was starting to feel like I could eat something so I had some plain toast. So far, so good. I've kept it down but I've got a really bad headache now. I've been in bed almost all day because my body is just physically exhausted. And I think a bit dehydrated (the skin pinch test says I am) so I'm drinking since I can keep it down and I'm just resting the rest of the day (and spraying the Lysol to kill the germs!).

As for Kacey's lows.... She had 2 more yesterday when I was down & out. She dropped to a 51 but came up to a 130 with 2 glucose tabs and then she dropped to a 63 about 2 hours later and she ate 2 more glucose tabs. After that, the lows were gone and she did pretty good through the night and throughout the day today. Since they were getting a bit stir crazy in the house, Frankie decided to take them on a walk. When they came back, this is what they brought me....

I love fresh picked flowers from the yard. Our daffodils are at the end of blooming season but there were a few stragglers out there that Kacey decided to pick LOL! A bit shriveled, yes! But a wonderful thought :)

Fun Day- Low Night

I'm looking down at the clock on my little blue tool bar and it's reading 1:04am. Why am I up, you ask? Because we're battling our first middle-of-the-night lows with Kacey. Of course, she's sleeping through most of it! Why is she dropping, you ask? Well...it all started with a day full of fun and roller coasters at Busch Gardens.

Today was Frankie's day off and it was also the first day that Sesame Street rides opened at Busch Gardens. We tried to time our visit around meals because the prices for food have gone up so much! We got up around 7:30am and had breakfast. The girls layed around watching TV and then they packed a lunch to take on the drive over. We left at 11am and they ate on the way. Kacey tested and was a 193. Ahhh gotta love the excitement! So by the time we got in the park, it was around 11:45am and Kacey was ready to ride the rides. Our first stop was the Sesame Street Forest of Fun.I'm so glad Busch Gardens finally made a place in the park for the kids that are between the kiddie rides and adult rides. The day was blessed with amazing weather and NO lines! A perfect day at an amusement park is one you can get off a roller coaster and run right back on for a second time. It was like that all day long!

Shortly after we got there, we met up with Kayleigh's best friend, Emily. She's been friends with Emily since the 6th grade. They met going into middle school and stayed very close friends through 8th grade. Then we got the sad news that Emily was moving to Portugal. Her family is military and this was really hard on Kayleigh. We had a going away party for her last June. Over the last year, it's been an interesting year for Kayleigh starting high school and her best friend being so far away. They have only had communication through MySpace because Emily had such a difficult time leaving and every time she picked up the phone to call Kayleigh, she'd get choked up and couldn't call. Well last Saturday, Emily and her family decided to surprise everyone and flew back to VA! Last weekend, Kayleigh got to spend time visiting with Emily and they got to spend the whole day at Busch Gardens today. They leave to go back to Portugal on Tuesday and I know it's going to be a day of tears!

The day went really good and then around 3:30pm, Kacey started saying she didn't feel too well. She'd just gotten off one of the big roller coasters and I thought maybe that was what stirred her up. I tested her and she was a 370! Wow! So we got her some water and walked around. By 4pm, she was really looking exhausted and she said she felt low. I checked her and she was a 117. Geesh that was a BIG drop! So we decided she had done enough for the day and we'd gone though the whole park. We had one more stop over at Sesame Street to find Elmo! Kayleigh finally got her picture with him. By the time we got out to the car, Kacey was dragging. She got in and we got out of the parking lot and she says "I think I'm really low this time!" So she tests... 48!!! Yikes! So she ate 4 glucose tabs and waited 15min... 422!! Holy high numbers! We can't win today :( I told her not to correct and we'd see what happened by the time we got home. It's only a 30min drive and I knew we'd be having dinner soon. So we got home, got dinner thrown together and she tested... 63! Ughhhhhh...she's back down again! Instead of bolusing for the 65 carbs, I made her bolus for 55 carbs and told her we'd see what happened. An hour later, she tells me she feels sick. Ok...real sick or diabetes sick? Her head is hurting, feet are hurting, and she looks like she's exhausted! She tells me it's diabetes sick so we test...328! Dang it! She's ping ponging off the walls. By 8pm, she was down to a 221. I decided to check her at 10pm since I was going to bed... 149. Hmmm, Frankie agreed to do the 2am check but I was scared to go that long since I knew she was falling. At 12am, he woke me up (Good thing he did because I was dreaming that I had just been diagnosed with diabetes and they were giving me a pump but it was the size of the 1st insulin pump ever made, back pack size, and I was telling the nurse it was too heavy ...haha! Gotta love those brains!) So Frankie got up to test her and he came back in... it's a 77, now what? I'd started to doze and I sprung up out of the bed... 77?!?! It's 12am and shes a 77!! Crap! So instead of trying to wake her up for glucose tabs, I just got a juice box. She drank it and made faces the whole time...but she was half asleep. Wait 15min....restest.... 70!! Grrrrrr how can she drink juice and drop 7? So now it's time to give her those glucose tabs. I wake her enough to get her to chew.... 2 tabs (dont want her hitting 400 again)...wait 15min....retest... 111. Well thats a little better. So here I am, wide awake and I've gotten up from here twice to check on her. I just did another check and shes a 153 so I guess I can lay back down and bypass the 2am check. It's 1:45am and I guess I'll get back up at 3am to check.

This is really scary! I kept thinking...what if we hadn't of gotten up at 12am? What if we'd waited til 2am and she had no juice and was falling as fast as she did? Those thoughts were flooding my head and it has me so scared that I don't want to go back to sleep! It's times like this where I can honestly see where CGM's come in handy. I'm gonna go lay down and turn the TV on and maybe catch an hour sleep before the next check.

More update in a little while....

Banana Split Party

Today was the last day of school before Spring Break (Yayyyyy!) and Kacey's class had their big Banana Split Party. This wasn't just any party! For the last 2 months, the entire 3rd grade has been learning their multiplication facts through 12. The incentive to learn them was awesome! Each child was given a picture of a banana split. It was hung in the hallway and for each level they passed, they got to color in that part of the picture.

So... If you passed

0's and 1's - Ice cream bowl

2's- Spoon

3's- Banana

4's- 1 scoop of ice cream

5's- another scoop of ice cream

6's- another scoop of ice cream

7's- chocolate syrup

8's- caramel syrup

9's- strawberry syrup
10's- whipped cream

11's- sprinkles

12's- cherry

As you can see this was an excellent way to get the kids to learn their multiplication facts. Every day they were given a sheet of multiplication problems and they had one minute to complete them and get them all right. I made Kacey flash cards and we used those to practice every night. When she got the flu a few weeks ago, she got behind but she quickly caught up and then she got stuck on her 12's. She's been pushing hard to pass them and as of yesterday, she hadn't passed them. She was sick on Mon & Tues and didn't go to school and then when she went back to school yesterday, she still wasn't feeling well so I didn't think she'd pass them. When I met her at lunchtime, she was thrilled to tell me "I PASSED MY 12's!" (**sigh**) Why do I sigh? Well as much as I was thrilled she passed the tests, I knew that the reward was going to be a challenge! She would be getting a banana split with EVERYTHING! So how do you bolus for something like that? Ummmm guess? Thats exactly what I did. I looked at the carbs for everything she was getting on her ice cream and then I had to guess at the amount of carbs she actually had. She sat down on the grass with her ice cream and discreetly checked her blood sugar while the rest of her friends dove into their bowls. She looked up at me with a grumpy face, which I knew wasn't good. She handed Herbie to me for me to see that icky 336 staring at me with "Check ketones" right under it. I winked at her and told her I'd take care of it :) I bolused for 60 carbs and gave her a correction and then it was a waiting game with lots of prayers hoping I was right. I didn't go too far, just in case she bottomed out. Three hours later...test....wowwwwwww 133! I did it! I got it right! YAHOOOOOOOOOO! I just love days when I guess right and things work out the way they are sopposed to :) She enjoyed the ice cream and I dosed her right...what a great start to Spring Break! She was so happy she got to participate in the party and we're even more thankful Herbie was there to bring her sugar down. We never could have dosed right with shots!

The boy in the background is the son of some friends of ours. Him & Kacey were best friends when they were toddlers and through preschool.

LOL...melted mush in a bowl!

Nae~Nae's Pump Packs

Who is Nae~Nae? My Mom! When I was pregnant with Kayleigh, my Mom didn't want to be called "Grandma" or "Granny" because she said that made her feel old (LOL!) and so we came up with Nae~Nae and thats what the girls have always called her.

Last weekend, she bought some material to make Kacey a few different pump packs. Kacey followed in her sisters footsteps when it comes to loving Vera Bradley (Kayleigh has several Vera things). When Mom saw this material, she thought it would be cool to make Kacey some pump packs that are "Vera Look-alikes". She made her 2 different ones that can be hooked on her belt. She's got about 6 more material patterns for her! I have a feeling that she's just created a pump pack monster...haha! Kacey is gonna want packs to match all her outfits! Now it's time for me to learn how to sew ;)