your type 1 child is a lot like life in an earthquake zone. There are
continual rumbles as the tectonic plates shift – high blood sugars
making for raging battle out of the smallest question: “please, dear,
could you pick up your socks?”….and then when the smoke clears, you
rub where your eyebrows once were and think to yourself, “hmmmm, I
wonder if her sugars are a little high right now…”
adolescent years between ages 12 to 16, you’ve experienced these
moments with just the benefit of regular roller-coaster hormonal
levels. Insulin is another hormone and it’s like adding a healthy
amount of jet fuel and lit match to the mix when everything else is
already out of whack.
stomps off, keep that smile firmly plastered in p ace as you ask, “so,
sweetie, did you do a poke recently?” dodging any objects or words or
glares hurled in your direction. Wait 5 minutes and you’ll hear the
sound of the glucometer being pulled out, the click of the lancet and
beep of the test strip…”12″ Ah. Just a tad high.
A word here of the difference between the US and Canada in blood sugar
measurements. The American measurement has a few more zeros so any
diabetic south of the border is now in a panic thinking my child is on
the verge of a terminal low blood sugar. Here normal is 5-7. 3 is low
normal and 10 is time for an insulin adjustment or 5 minutes with a
skipping rope. Here’s a converter from DiabeticGourmet.com to convert between US readings & metric (aka the rest of the world) http://tinyurl.com/owd4n.
And like life in an earthquake zone, all the tremors and rehearsals
still don’t prepare you for when the big one strikes. A friend of ours
just spent three days at his daughter’s bedside in pediatric ICU
because her sugars went so high she developed ketoacidosis. That means
because she was unable to metabolize sugar normally, her body started
to break down proteins at a cellular in an attempt to get some energy.
This process throws off ketones which change the actual ph level of the
blood. It is the condition that usually brings a child into the
hospital for the initial diagnosis and it’s one of those things that
can bring a Type 1 child back again and again and again. And, as a
parent, you never get used to it. l
We’ve been so very lucky with our daughter: since being diagnosed she has managed to stay out of the hospital. But it still makes for tremors in our lives because we’re all in the same zone.