we can eat anywhere.....

I love when Hannah is on break from school. We do special things together and I realize how much I really miss her when she is at school. This morning we went to Mcdonalds for breakfast. This is an extremely rare treat for us. Even before diabetes, Hannah may have eaten there maybe 5 times in her entire life. As with everything, planning is involved. We researched the carb counts for everything. She had a fruit and yogurt parfait and a hash brown with chocolate milk.  With humalog in tow, we ventured off.

Counting carbs for lunch

Mistakes will be made.....

So this morning started out as a normal morning.... Hannah woke up happy as can be, although not quite amused that the tooth fairy only left her $5.... say what?? I only got a quarter as a kid. I guess last week when the tooth fairy "forgot" to come, she had to make it up the following day with Target dollar store goodies... (note to self...no money only target dollar bin merchandise for future teeth lost)... so I go to the kitchen to start making her lunch for school and Martin makes her breakfast. I go to calculate her carbs and insulin needed for her correction factor and...... OMG we forgot to check her blood sugar before breakfast.. Great... Lesson learned.. we will not be perfect in this journey.We will make mistakes

A Day in the life of a type 1 diabetic

To get an idea of our daily schedule.... here it is (this is a "normal" day)

730 am-Hannah wakes up for school and we check her blood sugar
745 am-Hannah eats her breakfast after counting every gram of carbohydrates in her meal
8:00 am-Hannah gets her insulin dose
9:00 school starts

while at school she gets her blood sugar checked at 11:45am before lunch. Eats her lunch, then back to the nurses office to calculate her carbs and gets her insulin.
She gets her blood sugar checked every day before and after gym class and before dismissal at the end of the day

3:30pm- Blood sugar checked when she gets home from school. Hannah has a 15 Gram carbohydrate snack
5:00pm blood sugar checked
515 pm eats dinner, calculating carbs
545 Insulin yet again
730pm check blood sugar
745 pm 15 Gram carb snack before bed

830pm bedtime insulin injection

2am-blood sugar checked, often she is low so we are up for 2 hours some nights trying to get her blood sugar to come up.. lots of juice boxes and cheese sticks in our refridgerator


*one day last week i got a call from the school nurse, Hannah's blood sugar was 42. Very scary for me.. I thank God everyday she has the nurse she has at school. She takes excellent care of Hannah

Here is a picture of our medication/diabetes supplies drawer

The day reality hit

Its been 55 days since Hannah was diagnosed with type 1 Diabetes. February 12, 2014 was the day our world turned upside down (or so it seemed) and what we knew as "normal" was no longer that.  It was a very scary time seeing my beautiful precious child so sick and laying in a hospital bed. That is the last place any parent wants to see their child. I felt helpless and all I wanted to do was to take away her pain and fear. Since that day there have been a lot of ups and downs. A lot of friends and family have asked how Hannah is doing. Each time is a different answer. Some days are better than others, sometimes it is dependent on each hour. She has adjusted incredibly well, but she is only 7 and still has lots of moments where she is scared. Shes just a little girl who never asked for this. Quite honestly, it makes me angry that she developed this. As a nurse I know that there was nothing we could have done to prevent her getting diabetes. As a mom, I try to reason with myself as to how we could have prevented it. It just happened. Somehow she inherited a gene that gave her the disposition to get this. Regardless, it still makes me mad. I have moments when I am alone where i just cry. I cry because my baby has to endure pain at a minimum of 4 times a day in order to get her insulin... insulin that keeps her alive. Add finger sticks to that number and its a minimum of 10-15 times a day she has to get stuck. About a week ago, it was time for her bedtime injection. She just started to cry. I put down the insulin pen and just held her and we both cried together. She said to me "you just don't understand what its like to have 4 shots a day.". No, i do not know what its like. I think the hardest part of this whole thing is the emotional part. I have dealt with a lot of ignorance over the past few weeks regarding type 1 diabetes.. A lot of people think its type 2.. Its not.. She didn't get this from eating too much fat and sugar.. she didn't get this because she is overweight. Her little body just stopped making insulin. People say to me "oh she can eat sugar?" Yes she can eat sugar, in fact she can eat anything she ate before. I have just come to the understanding that I, and she, will be dealing with this ignorance for the rest of her life. We can't just leave the house like we used to. We have to carry a snack kit, emergency glucagon kit, Blood sugar meter and insulin. We have to time meals in accordance with her insulin. We can't just leave Hannah with anyone. I can't take her to a play date and leave her and she can't ride home with a friend after school. Most people do not know how to care for a child with type 1 diabetes.  With all that being said.... Today is a good day, so far. 3:00 may be a different story but in our house we take it one hour at a time. 

night in the E.D  2/12/2014 Blood sugar 492

Feeling much better 2/14/2014

Going home 2/14/2014

Back to school.smiling once again