overtime and mix ups

I was just praying for relief the other day. It's one thing to not have enough money, but then to have a diabetic child, and no sleep, and a husband working so much overtime, and not enough food in our cupboard, and Christmas around the corner...If only God could lift one burden. If we weren't so sleep deprived and so busy and not enough income and worrying about our daughter's wellbeing...we pray and pray.

God has sustained us this far.

My husband had atleast 20 hours overtime on this coming paycheck. He works full days and then returns to work after the kids are in bed and comes home sometime after midnite and starts all over again at 7 in the morning.

Last night he called me on the way home at midnight and tried to talk to me just to stay awake.

We went through an In n out by ourselves the other night to try to steal away for a few minutes and when we pulled up to the drive through window, I looked over and he had fallen asleep next to me.

we are worn out.

the other night I took my doctor's suggestion and place a simple rubber band around our sweetie's lantus bottle. I had never mixed them up before but she advised just in case. She even offered to give me a complimentary rubber band.

I put on one that evening, to appease the doctor. In case she came later to inspect my refrigerator where we keep her medicine.

that night, in a chaotic bedtime, I confused the bottles and gave our sweetie way too much novolog. I realized as soon as I did it. Thinking that "wait, that wasn't right?!" I quick grabbed my husband and we calculated how many carbs to give her to make up the difference. We watched her for two hours, checking her every 10 minutes and feeding her every 15 minutes. we ended the two hours at 101. I then gave her some milk and put her to bed.

I called the doctor for advice on giving the lantus that I did not. She said to wait a few hours and make sure she was okay then give it if she went high. several hours later, she did. so we gave her the lantus. The doctor advised not to giver her a correction shot to be safe.

so by 3 am, she was up and really high. over 450. an hour later she was vomiting in my room. we then called the doctor and asked "what do we do now?!"

The doctor advised to correct her now and check for ketones. prepare for a hospital visit if necessary.

thank goodness, no ketones. and she settled down on her sleeping bag at the foot of our bed.

we slept a bit, that night.

I went to the pharmacy the next day and asked to pick up the order that the doctor had sent in for a blood ketone meter. the "helpful" worker said that the order hadn't been put in, come back in a few days.

This was my breaking point. I was thinking, "I NEED this!, we were up all night trying to catch urine in a cup to test her. Her life depends on this meter! you have no idea what we have been through and that this is for a precious little four year old!!!"

I was wearing large sunglasses that hid my tears.

I walked out to my car with much heavier shoes. I thought, "imagine if diabetes were to go away, and we wouldn't need all of this paraphenalia anymore? imagine if we didn't have to worry anymore and she would just be okay?"

I now know why people fight for a cure and walk to raise money to find a cure. It COULD save a life, HER life, MANY lives.

It is such a daily disease that can easily go wrong.

doctor visit

we went to the pediatrician today. she had a fever on monday and slept all afternoon yesterday. then she developed a rash. her numbers have been high for several days and I was worried. Our pediatrician thoroughly checked her out. she determined that she has a virus that will eventually go away. her rash is due to a new bar of soap that I had put in the bathroom. and her numbers needed to be adjusted. She had me call our endocrynologist from her office. she was concerned that he glucose was too high in her urine. but when I checked her with her meter I knew she was high already. she was 313. so our endo made some adjustments to her ratios and long acting lantus to bring her down.

I came home relieved. I was worried she was going backwards. she had lost two pounds in the last two weeks.

fellow mothers of diabetic children were discussing the misconception that people have that someday we will have our child's diabetes under control. I have had this comment said to me several times. "Soon you will have her diabetes under control, right, and life will go back to normal?" "and you can sleep more? not worry as much? she can eat what she wants? "

Her life will always be managed. Right now at the very little age of four, we have the huge responsibility of balancing her scale daily, hourly, to try to keep her in the best health that we can. It will always be like this, just handed over to her at some point. but we will still worry.

If anyone feels so gracious as to help with a donation. we need another bracelet for her! The one that I finally purchased, broke. argh! so there is the first item on her christmas list. next item, a lalaloopsy doll!