Hannah has picked up whatever mess Caroline and Jack have had. As a result, her numbers have been IN-sane the last week, hard to bring down, and requiring a lot more insulin to keep them "controlled". She's home today so I can monitor her more closely, push fluids like a crazy person, and check for ketones when needed, plus she really just needs to rest so her body can get over this mess as quickly as possible.
Saturday was not a good day for me. Emotionally I was already struggling, and then we had a little oopsie with the tubing in Hannah's pump, and she climbed to almost 500 in a matter of an hour and a half just as she was getting ready to head to bed.
A moment of panic set in. I re-primed the insulin, got all the air bubbles taken care of, and then gave her a fairly large correction dose. She was extremely thirsty, ketones had started to creep up, and I was feeling the weight of all of it on my shoulders. I am reminded that 100 years ago, there was nothing a parent could do but sit there and watch their child drift away slowly and painfully, once a diagnosis of diabetes was established. No insulin? No life. The end. Not many parents have to sit here facing their own child's mortality day in and day out. For someone who struggles with anxiety and depression already, I feel like Hannah's diagnosis was the nail in the coffin for me to ever have a normal life again. My health has declined swiftly the last 2 years. I am dealing with my own health crisis right now, but it's important that I get my stress levels in check or it will only exasperate the situation for me. Proper sleep is also another biggie, but, I don't know that I will ever sleep well ever again. So, how do I take care of myself, and Hannah, and battle diabetes? I don't know. I just don't know. I am sure nobody else reading this has ever had to feel this way, but, I am pretty sure I should be the president of the Mean Mom Fan Club today. She's home because of the overnight trip she wasn't allowed to go on, and she didn't get to go BECAUSE there was nobody there to take care of her over night, and she's not old enough to take care of herself at this point.
Basically I feel like the worst mom ever today. I don't like that I have to make calls like I did; to not allow her to go be with her friends for an overnight class trip. I don't like that I have to remind her repeatedly to be kind to her brother, who is obnoxious as hell, because she's high and moody. I don't like that I have to make her check her blood sugar repeatedly because her CGM keeps buzzing at me that she's STILL over 250, and rising. I just don't want to do diabetes anymore. I really don't. I have no choice but to continue doing diabetes. I have to be the mean mom. See my dilemma? It's almost 11 a.m. and I looked down at my shirt. It's on backwards. I didn't bother to do anything about it. My brain is firing on -3 pistons. That's a NEGATIVE, 3. Some days this disease just takes it out of you mentally, emotionally, and physically. I have a Rx for anxiety medication BECAUSE of T1D. Yesterday was so exhausting for me. Jack (our non T1D) was acting really lethargic all morning. He fell asleep when we went to pick Hannah up from school, around 2:10 in the afternoon. He's basically my only kid that will sleep in the car, but we had only been IN the car all of 3 minutes when I looked back to see his eyes closing. I thought "great, he will get a 5 second nap, and we will pull into the garage and I will have to wake his bear ass up and deal with that." I tried to keep him awake but he literally fell asleep mid-sentence telling me how he couldn't stay awake. Odd, I thought. Even for him. Hannah got into the car and he didn't budge. Caroline was screeching her high pitched greeting to Hannah, and still he didn't flinch. We pulled into the drive way and I had Hannah grab Caroline and bring her in. I needed to grab the 34 pound 4 year old who would wake up and still want me to carry him inside...except he didn't wake up. I unbuckled him, picked him up, carried him inside, laid him down on the couch...and not once did he open his eyes. By this point I was feeling his forehead for signs of a fever, because he was acting sick. He wasn't warm. I left him on the couch and figured he'd wake up before it was time to go get Connor, which was about an hour away at that point. I went on about my day, doing lots of important things, like browsing Facebook, changing a poop diaper, browsing Facebook some more, cleaning splattered milk, those kinds of things. Before I knew it, I looked up, and it was time to get loaded back into the car, but Jack still hadn't woken up. I tickled his back and shook him a little, even tried sitting him up, making him go pee, SOMETHING to get the boy awake and moving. He refused. I had to carry him back to the car, where he stayed asleep, and I buckled him into his seat, while he still slept. NEVER, in the history of my 10 years as a parent, have I ever EVER had a child do this. How could he be this tired??? I was driving, thoughts racing. What was going on? Was he sick? Oh my gosh, it's cancer. A slow sickening feeling began to dawn......we were about 5 minutes from Connor's school where I could stop the car and have enough time to check his blood sugar. I had Hannah grab her meter and a test strip (she was down to 2, so I knew I only had ONE chance to get enough blood from him for this, so I could leave 1 for her until we got back to the house). She was confused, but, it isn't abnormal for me to do random blood sugar checks on my other kids. I think she could hear the urgency in my voice though, so she became slightly alarmed as she obeyed and handed me her meter. I poked him and he barely flinched. I waited 5 seconds. Agonizing. I immediately felt sick to my stomach as I looked down at the reading....Hannah froze, and slowly turned to stare at me.... That is NOT a normal blood sugar reading for a non diabetic 4 year old child. I knew it wasn't, and immediately called Hannah's pediatric endocrinologist. After sitting on hold for what felt like an hour, one of the nurses explained to me that my anxiety was warranted, but added that I needn't panic just yet. They want us to monitor him closely from here on out, doing blood sugar checks in the morning when he wakes, and just before bed. I hung up the phone and started to cry. I could not fathom what having more than one would be like......I couldn't wrap my mind around it, and yet, I KNOW other families that have 2 or 3 kids with it. I began to have a full on panic attack, but knew I needed to hold it together until I got home and could take some medication. I still had to drive, and I needed to drive safely, so I began to breathe deeply and tried my hardest to clear my mind and focus on nothing but getting Connor in the car. I knew I needed to get him home, wash his hands, and re-test.
My hands were shaking as we pulled into our garage and I turned the car off. I once again asked Hannah to help me with Caroline, and I walked around to Jack's side to get him out...I stared at him for a second. He was awake by this point and probably curious as to why his mother was standing there, NOT unbuckling him, but I was looking at his eyes trying to see if he had dark circles like Hannah had before she was diagnosed. Was he pale? Did he look thinner? I asked him if his belly hurt, and he said no. We came inside and I washed his hands. It wasn't until he saw the meter come out that he realized what was happening, and he wasn't happy with me. I again waited the agonizing 5 seconds......and the reading was 104. Completely normal for his age. I felt faint. I almost passed out right there. The anxiety started to subside almost immediately, but I still took some of my medication to help me calm down completely. I felt so drained. Luckily it was an early day for Shane, and he walked through the door shortly after. My emotions weren't done with me just yet, though. Around 6 pm I got an email from Hannah's teacher about a field trip they will be going to on Friday. The aid can't be there to take care of her, and I began to feel panicked once again. I immediately started feeling complete hatred towards this disease. I was angry. I HATE diabetes. I asked Hannah if she'd want to stay home and she said no. I am still trying to figure out who will be in charge of keeping her safe, and Shane might have to take off work if push comes to shove...I NEED someone there who knows how to use a Glucagon pen. Period. I want to ensure that my daughter will be taken care of in the event that she were to start seizing. I am still trying to work things out, so the issue has not been resolved just yet. We went to bed and I felt completely and utterly defeated. Diabetes doesn't care if you've had a long taxing day, though. It plays by it's own rules. I checked the CGM and noticed Hannah was in a good range for bed. I was glad. I didn't want to deal with the bastard anymore that day. Around 9:45 I checked the CGM as I was heading to bed and noticed a sharp climb in her numbers, for no reason. To make matters worse, there was an arrow going straight up, which meant she was not only going up, but she was going up fast. I did a correction to try and fix the issue, but I spent the rest of the night staring at 240s, 250s, etc. even after repeated corrections. The CGM kept alarming and waking me as I would doze off...I would roll back over and try and fall back asleep, only to have it go off again. My body was growing weary. Then, around 1 a.m., Caroline woke up. She's 14 months old and still wakes up at least once, sometimes twice a night. I had been up and down up to that point, and I was exhausted, so I started to feel myself losing control. Caroline went back down fairly easily, but I was completely fed up at this point and my body was basically wide awake. I came downstairs and started to sob. I had a complete meltdown of toddler proportions. Everything hit me ALL at once; Jack, the field trip, and Hannah's stubborn highs. I felt like a failure, I felt angry, I felt completely alone. I sat downstairs watching infomercials and bursting into sobs for about another hour. I decided to try and will myself back to sleep, but first I had to take more anxiety medication, so I did. I continued to toss and turn for another hour listening to Shane snore loudly right next to me. I considered just walking out the front door and disappearing forever. I considered smothering him with a pillow to make his snores cease. I considered eating an entire bag of Doritos, as my stomach was growling loudly. Shane is still breathing this morning, the bag of Doritos is untouched, but I am an absolute wreck. I have a stained shirt on inside out. I haven't walked or exercised at all this week, because quite honestly, I just don't give a fuck anymore. My health will never be better, because I deal with a disease that doesn't play by any rules. It doesn't allow a full night's sleep. It doesn't allow me to not stress. It doesn't allow me five seconds of NOT worrying about which one of my kids will be next (more on that another day). I am defeated today. It is what it is. Heather: 0 Diabetes: 1 I decided to start a website dedicated to the Type 1 warriors, like my own daughter. I have used a Tumblr for a while, but, figured this would be the best way to incorporate everything that I wanted to about Type 1 diabetes, including all my feelings and emotions on both the good AND the bad days. I am going to go through and add in my old posts from Tumblr, just so I have them all in one place.
I hope you can find hope and comfort here on my website. I am just a mom. That's it. My knowledge is limited to what I have learned these last (almost) 2 years. Welcome. |
Heather G.On September 25, 2013 our lives were forever changed. I consider myself a professional human pancreas now; try putting THAT on your resume. ArchivesCategories |