My wife has an expression she uses when our Daughters glucose numbers (blood sugar levels) go "out of whack".
"Just when you think you know everything, you still know nothing."
Immediately after you or some one you care for is diagnoses with type 1 diabetes you go thought the training with the diabetic team (in our case at the children's hospital), they give you lots of guild lines and scenarios to help you deal with activity level, illness and just everyday issues that can affect blood glucose levels. These helpful tidbits are relevant, but the most important lessons we have learned are that no one diabetic is the same.
Some diabetics manage their glucose levels during activity by taking extra carbohydrates based on how long and how vigorous their activity is going to be. We have learned that for our daughter that her levels raise during activity, and then fall for up to 24 hours after, so we are constantly monitoring her all that night, and the next day - reducing insulin level or increasing food intake.
When our daughter developed a flu shortly after being diagnosed, my wife was ready with her instruction on how much extra insulin to give to help keep her glucose numbers down - as typically illness like the flu cause extremely high blood sugars. Not for us! After the initial high sugars the day before she showed any symptoms, her blood sugar level began dropping dangerously low, we we could not deep her blood levels in a safe range. We had to take her to Emergency twice, and the second time they kept her overnight, in order to give her IV in order to raise her blood sugars to a safe number.
Over time you learn to deal with some of the quirks that her diabetes presents. Now throw in all the challenges that come with a thirteen year old, whether she is stressed at school, anxious about an upcoming track meet etc....the game starts all over again. Talking with other parents, it has always struck us how different each family seems to be in their approach and methods of dealing with diabetes, but other than personal parenting choices, diabetes demands an individual plan of attack.
As comfortable as we sometimes get with our Daughters regiment, there will always be something that puts the brakes on. Maybe it is her body's way of preventing us form getting to complacent. It seems that we will always be learning, adjusting and evaluating when it comes to diabetes, which I guess is a good thing. Knowledge in the case is power and research is the key.
We believe that the only long term solution is a cure, that is why we are focusing our efforts on funding a research project we believe very strongly in, to learn more about this project, what we are doing to help fund it and more about Type 1 Juvenile diabetes please visit our website at:
www.cycle4jdrf.com
No comments:
Post a Comment