Happy 2 Year D-Aversary!

For Kortnie's 2 Year D-Aversary, you already know I was in a funk, but I let the kids have a celebration anyways.

Kortnie and her sister had coupons for a free Personal Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut from the Book It program, so we let them use their coupons and we bought a 3rd PPPizza for our son. I also happened to have a coupon for a free 8inch single layer cake from Basha's bakery, so we went and got our free cake and bought a thing of ice cream. Kortnie picked out a marble cake with chocolate frosting and strawberry ice cream.

We brought it all home and they had a fine feast, then we played a game of pool.

Also, on Kortnie's 2nd D-aversary, Brian took me into town and bought me a new truck! A 2003 Ford Expedition, Eddie Bauer, a red one. We traded in my van for it. He'd been thinking of getting it for a week or so, and since he works for the car dealership people he got a fairly good deal. (He works as a mechanic at Show Low Motorsports which is owned by the same Hatch's that own Hatch Toyota). Later that evening when I posted a picture on Facebook of my new truck, quite a few people thought he had gotten it for me as a D-Aversary present because I'm such a good D-Mom. LOL...I don't think that's why he got it, but I guess I'll let my friends think that. (I had posted earlier in the day how I was all pissed off and depressed and in a bad mood because I hate Kortnie's diabetes, so they thought that's why he got me the new truck) Yeah, so now everyone thinks that he's an awesome husband or something. Well, I guess he's alright, I'll keep him. :-) And the other thing that happened on Kork's D-aversary weekend was that our dog got some kind of puncture wound, the best we can tell is that he got it climbing around on the wood pile outside, he was just not acting himself and not eating or drinking so we took him to the Vet, after we got home from buying the new truck but before the D-aversary pizza dinner. It was hard for our kids to see our dog all sick, but the Vet gave him some antibiotics and made sure there wasn't anything stuck in the puncture wound and he's all better now.

All in all the day turned out to be okay, I was mad and sad, I got a new car, the dog had to go to the vet but the kids learned a lesson about taking care of their dog, we had pizza, cake and ice cream for dessert, and played a few games of pool.

Oh, and we had pretty great BG's all day
4:50am 104
7:00am 105
11:00am 117
3:00pm 112
4:00pm 170
5:00pm 145 (dinner, Pizza, Cake, Ice Cream, turned on a temp basal +20% for 4 hours)
6:00pm 115
8:00pm 134 (going to bed, turned off the temp basal)
10:00pm 323 (dang junk food at dinner and I didn't leave the temp basal on long enough, I admit I got nervous when she went to bed and I thought she had too much IOB, I'm still working on my temp basal confidence)
2:32am 220 (still coming down and she's always high at 2ish AM, been working on tweaking this basal)
6:45am 113 (a great waking up number if I do say so myself!)

2011 JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes

Last Saturday, November 5th, the girls and I participated in the annual JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes. It was held at Tempe Town Lake in Tempe, AZ. This years theme was Blast off For a Cure. This was our 2nd year participating as a family team. It seems that I participated in this walk something like 8 years ago with a friend of mine who's husband was with the Ford Motors company team. (I mentioned this last year when I posted about the 2010 walk, but ironically, at this JDRF walk 8 years ago, is when I first annouced to my friends that I was pregnant with Kortnie).

Our family walk team is called Kortnie's Krusaders. This year we have raised a total of $1049. We got online donations from family and friends, the girls went door to door and sold some of the JDRF paper shoes and they made over $100 that way. My friend Becca Martin donated a Photo Session and we raffled that off, we made around $215 with that.

This year, my husband just wasn't able to get off of work to come with us, so we asked his mom to watch our son, and my girls and I went down for the walk and made it into a girls weekend. We left Friday afternoon after school to drive down. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive for us. We got to the Valley and did some shopping at the craft store and Trader Joe's, then we went to our hotel, we got some dinner and sat in bed and watched Wizard of Oz. Saturday morning the day of the walk was pretty cold for the Phoenix area. It was in the 40's, cloudy, a bit windy, and dark. Definitly not the sunny warm day we were hoping for, but the rain stayed away so that was great. We opted to do the 1.5 mile Family Fun Walk rather than the 3 mile. Kortnie really wanted to do the 3 mile walk, but about 1/2 a mile into the shorter walk she was already tired of walking, so it's a good thing we did the shorter walk.

There were tons booths and fun things to do. Before the walk we saw some local news and radio guys on the stage, we did a Zumba warm up and we visited a few vendor tables both before and after, afterwards the girls were able to paint pumpkins and get their faces painted. Kortnie got some sticker/skins for her Accu-Check, she got matching pink skins for her pump/remote. Also two skins for her At the Coke Zero booth you were supposed to answer a question and then drop a ball into a "plinko" like game to get a prize, but they LOVED Kortnie's Diet Coke earrings so they only had her answer one question and then they gave all 3 of us both prizes, a anniversary glass bottle of Coke and a pick from a bucket of other prizes. She actually got tons of compliments on her Diet Coke earrings.

The walk this year happened to be 2 days before Kortnie's 2nd D-aversary (anniversary of diagnosis). I had felt this 2 year mark looming since Halloween. I was kind of feeling in a funk about everything, I even mentioned on Thursday afternoon that I didn't even really want to go to the walk, but we'd planned a girls weekend, my girls did such hard work fundraising, going door to door and selling raffle tickets, that I felt like even though I didn't want to go, that they deserved to go. I'm glad that we went, it was uplifting, the girls had fun, and even though I walked around with tears in my eyes most of the morning, they were good tears and ones that needed to be shed.

After the walk, we did some more shopping and went out for a late lunch before heading home. Walking around Mesa and Gilbert with all 3 of us in matching walk t-shirts and the girls faces painted, we got quite a few questions about where we had been and what we had done that morning and it gave us the oppourtunity to educate and advocate. The cashier at Sam's Club told us his fiance has had Type 1 since she was 4 years old and he even asked Kortnie if she had a pump and then told her it was the same one as his fiance. (the Animas rep also had a Pink Ping, Kortnie loves to see people with the same pump as her, one time at the grocery store here in town, she saw a girl with a green one, and one time at Disneyland we met a girl with a pink one).

So, it was a good day, we were able to raise some money, we had a good time just us girls and my spirits were uplifted some.

2 Years

It's been 2 long years since Kortnie was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. I'm not in a happy feely kind of place about it, not like I was last year on the 1 year D-Aversary. I'm kind of pissed off, I'm kind of like, "why me, why her, why us". Diabetes SUCKS! It's a fickel nasty Bitch.

Kortnie is okay with it, I guess, she just wants to eat a bunch of junkfood, I think last year we had Pizza and Root Beer Floats. I told her yesterday that Diabetes Sucks and she said, "no", I said, "well is it fun, do you like having it?" she says "no, I guess it kind of sucks". I feel like I put those negative feelings into her head and now I feel bad for that too.

My son had these scrapes on his back last week, right along the backbone, like scabs. I pointed them out to my husband and told him that Kortnie used to get those too, bruises and scabs along her backbone and I wondered out loud if Graham would develop Diabetes too. (I'm pretty sure these scabs are from them being so skinny and the way the bones rub on their skin, but since Kortnie was dx'd her bruises and cuts have come way down, I always wonder what the correlation between pre-diabetes and her bruises was). Anyways, my son heard us talking, the next day he told me (he's 4) "I know that little boys don't get blood sugar", "I know that little boys don't have to do site changes". Well, son, sorry to say that yep, little boys do get blood sugar and site changes. Great....Now I've put some negative thougts into his head too.

We did the JDRF walk this past weekend, November 5th. It was a great time, the girls and I went by ourselves. They really enjoyed themselves, Kortnie scored some cool pump and meter skins. She was high off the walk excitement when I put those negative Diabetes Sucks thoughts into her head. I had a good time too, but I did walk around crying most of the time, people were looking at me with symapthy in their eyes, but I think they probably mostly understood my tears. More on the walk later.

I think I'm really going to try to post more often, I have lots to say, lots that I think about and I love reading everybody elses' posts. I'm trying to comment more often, but I never think I say what I want to say the right way, I'm not an eloquent writer. I feel like I'm more just a string of babble. Well, I just wanted to aknowledge 2 YEARS here in the DOC. Even though I'm kind of pissed and sad or whatever, I want you DOC'ers to know I'm thankful for all of you.

How I spend my Sunday afternoon

As everyone in the DOC knows, we as parents of T1's generally weigh or measure all of the food that our kids eat. Weighing/Measuring the food is hard for me. I love to cook and to feed my family but I'm not a measurer, I like to just throw in a little of this and a little of that. However for snacks and etc, I don't mind the weighing and measuring. When Kortnie was first diagnosed with Type 1, I would buy pre-measured packs of things, you know, like they market for school lunches and such, BUT those pre-measured packs are more expensive, and you can't just give those snacks to just your T1 kid because all the kids want what the other one is getting. So, I've found a system that works for us.

On Sunday afternoon, I spend an hour or two with the snacks. I have 3 kids, both my daughters take their lunches to school every day and I generally have extra kids after school and on weekends. So we go through a lot of snacks here at our house. Every 2 or 3 months we go over to Flagstaff or down to Phoenix and we shop at Sam's Club or Costco. The kids are usually with us, so we let them have a say in what we pick to buy. Sometimes I do still buy pre-packaged things like Granola bars, (they love the Nature Valley, chewy Peanut Butter bar things), sometimes those Handi-Snacks things with the spreadable cheese and crackers, Slim Jim's, and Fruit Snacks. We also get the bigger packages and jars of things like Goldfish, Applesauce, crackers (Ritz, Butter crackers, Triscuts, Wheat Thins), Peanuts, Pistachio's, Yogurt. We've also done things like pretzels, grapes, popcorn, and chips. On Sunday afternoon's, I divy up those bigger packages of snacks into small snack size ziplock bags and small containers. I weigh them out and put them in the containers and write the amount of carbs on the bag. Most of the time I do 1/2 servings. I do around 10-15 little baggies of each snack for my 3 kids and put them in a basket in the pantry, I tell them that's all they get for the week, so not to eat them all right away. Here is the finished product, this day, I did Ritz crackers, Strawberry Yogurt, Vanilla Yogurt, Applesauce, Goldfish, Pistachios, Peanuts, and small containers of Jif Peanut Butter.

Goldfish 15g is 10gc. I but a big box of Goldfish at Sam's Club, there are 3 1# bags in each box, when I open up a bag, I pour it into a #10can so they stay fresh and it's easy to scoop some of the fish out to weigh. (one serving is 30g Goldfish~20gc, I do 1/2 serving of this one)
With my Sharpie, I write the number of carbs on the outside of the baggie, this way, my kids, babysitter, husband, and I know how many carbs are in the snack already.

Peanuts, 10g is 5gc. Most of the time, Kortnie can have 10g peanuts as a "free snack", meaning she doesn't need to have insulin to cover it.

I buy these larger sized containers of Strawberry and Vanilla Yogurt and repackage it into these smaller containers. I do 112g yogurt is 18gc. This is another one that I half, the container says 225g (1 cup) yogurt is 36gc carbs. I don't think my little ones need a full cup of yogurt.

Applesauce 126g is 22gc. I buy this at Sam's Club too. For the yogurt and applesauce I bought these small Ziplock brand containers (they had Box Tops on them, were small enough, and reasonably priced). I put a piece of tape on top of the lid and use a Sharpie marker to write the number of carbs on the tape.

The girls take their lunches to school, after school, they come home do their homework and pack their lunches for the next day. I always stay at the kitchen counter with them and help them with homework and watch them pack their lunches, for Kortnie I write on a piece of paper the things that Kortnie puts in her lunch, the amount of carbs in each thing and then put down a total number as well, that way the Nurse and Kortnie don't have to add it all up when she's doing her bolus. Usually they'll take something a "main dish" type of something, (cheese, crackers, and meat, a sandwich, or a thermos of soup or leftovers. Then they get to pick one or two other snacks to go with. For instance today Kortnie took a thermos with Chicken Noodle Soup, Vanilla Yogurt and 9gc worth of Chocolate Chips to mix into the Yogurt. She took 5gc worth of Peanuts for her Recess snack.

Invisible Illness Week, Our 30

It's invisible illness week, I haven't updated this blog or our personal family blog in quite awhile. I keep meaning to, but then something else comes up. I'm still reading all the other D-Blogs out there though! The past day or two people have been posting their answers to 30 questions in honor of supporting "Invisible Illness Week". Kortnie's Type 1 Diabetes is very much an invisible illness. That's a blessing and sometimes a curse as well. Read on to see what I have to say about it.

1. The Illness I live with is: Type 1 Diabetes, I don't live with it the way Kortnie LIVES with it, but her illness is a family affair. I believe it always will be.

2. She was diagnosed with it: November 7th, 2009, we're fast approaching the 2 year mark, I'm not sure what to feel about that.

3. But she had symptoms since: The best I can figure it when I look back is that she started showing symptoms about 7 months prior to diagnosis. We had gone on a family vacation in March of 2009 to a family wedding, on the way home we had a long 2 day drive, I swear on that first day, she cried for us to stop and let her use the bathroom every 30 minutes and she was so thirsty, I didn't want her to drink any more water because of all the bathroom stops, but she was crying and so thirsty and so tired too. I figured she had a bladder infection from all the swimming or something, I made her drink Cranberry juice and eat some yogurt, when I look back I think she was probably having a bad pre-Diabetes day, something about that trip was the turning point for her slowly dying pancreas.

4. The biggest adjustment I've had to make is: It's hard to name just one thing, I'd like to say everything, but that really isn't an answer. If I have to narrow it down, I'm gonna say, the biggest thing we changed was that I quit my job, Kortnie was in 1/2 day Kindergarten when she was diagnosed, she was sad and scared, she didn't want anyone to give her shots but me, not even her dad. There was no way I was going to be able to send her to a babysitter and have the babysitter literally hold my little girl's life in her hands.

5. Most people assume: That we know what we are doing, they don't realize the thought that I put into everything Kortnie does, what time she eats, what she's eating, what she's going to be doing, is she growing, is she getting sick, will it be cold, will it be hot, is she going to be excited, it goes on and on, Everything she does or doesn't do will ultimatly affect her Blood Sugar somehow.

6. The hardest part about morning is: Getting Kortnie up early enough for her to check her BG, have breakfast and re-check again before leaving for school. Making sure her lunch is packed, her carbs in the lunch are written down properly for the school nurse and making sure she has enough battery life in her gadgets, insulin in her pump and test strips for her meter.

7. My favorite medical TV show is: Um, we don't have TV, but we do have Netflix, I recently watched all of the Grey's Anatomy episodes, I liked them, I used to love ER, but it's been off the air for awhile now.

8. A gadget I couldn't live without is: Kortnie couldn't live without her meter or insulin pump, I suppose she could live without the pump if she was on shots, but her meter, yep she needs that. Me, I couldn't live with out the alarm clock on my cell phone, I'd never be able to sleep if I was afraid I wouldn't remember to get up for a middle of the night check.

9. The hardest part about nights is: Worrying and not sleeping. I check Kortnie's BG at 8pm when she goes to bed, 10:30pm when I go to bed, 2:30am and then again at 5:30 or 6 when I wake up. Some nights it's hard to roll out of bed at 2:30am, especially if I am extra tired or feeling sick myself, my husband pretty much never does the 2:30am check, he sleeps right through the alarm. It makes me a little angry and bitter sometimes, but even if he did get up and do the check for me, I'd still wake up and want to know what her number was, what her IOB (Insulin On Board, the insulin she still has in her system) was, how much insulin did he give or not give. Sometimes it's hard for me to stay up untill 10:30 for that check, my husband does help me with that one quite a bit though, and for that I am grateful.

10. Each day I take _ pills and _ vitamins. Kortnie takes a vitamin C and a multi-vitamin every morning at breakfast

11. Regarding alternative treatments: There are no alternative treatments for Type 1 Diabetes Kortnie's pancreas does not make insulin, you need insulin to live, so she takes insulin. I suppose there are 2 treatments for Type 1, MDI (Multiple Daiy Injections) or Insulin Pumping. They both involve insulin though, Kortnie is an Insulin Pumper, she has a tube inserted into her abdomen every 3 days and the tube is hooked to an insulin pump she recieves insulin every 3 minutes 24/7/365. Before becoming a pumper, she was on MDI and she took 5-7 shots of insulin every day.

People are always telling me about new things that can reduce her insulin dependancy or even cure her Type 1. For the most part these people I know are just trying to be helpful they are under educated in Type 1. I still look into these "helps" even though I know they won't work. Most of the time I try to educate them and tell them why it won't work for us, sometimes I don't. Shame on me, but sometimes I'm just too tired, my brain hurts.

12. If I had to choose between invisible illness or visible I would choose: This is a tough one, how about if I choose NO ILLNESS! I'm glad that Kortnie can do so many things, everything really, and that she doesn't have to look "weird" or whatever. After Kortnie was first diagnosed I took a 3 month LOA from my job at Walmart. I tried to go back to work Part-Time, my first day back they put me at cashier training, I went and covered a lunch break for a door greeter though, quite a few of my friends from work walked up there to talk to me. I was having a bad day and feeling sorry for myself and feeling sorry for my Kortnie, when in walked a mom and her child. Her child was older, maybe pre-teen or teen, and in a wheelchair, severly handicapped, and I thought to myself, "I'm glad that's not me, my situation could be alot worse" I used to think the Lord sent that lady and her kid to my door to help me somehow not feel so sorry for myself, and maybe He did, but I also wonder sometimes, if that lady would look at my situation and think that I am worse off than her. I guess I'm glad that Kortnie's illness is invisible, that way we aren't stared at and judged as much. It's all about perspective....

13. Regarding work and career: I always wanted to be a stay at home wife and mother, I didn't really love my job at Walmart and I wasn't that sad about having to leave it, my family could use the money if I went to work but what I was making there only left me about $50 a month after I paid for gas and babysitting. I might go back to work again after my youngest starts all day school (2 years from now), but we live in rural AZ and I'd want to find a job in Snowflake where we live rather then 20 miles away in Show Low. Even though I expect Kortnie will have more independance by then, she'll be going through puberty soon and I hear that is HELL on Type 1 girls, probably boys too, I'll still feel like I need to be within a couple minutes of her if she needs me.

14. People would be suprised to know That I never feel in control and that most of the time I still don't know what I'm doing. I'm scared all of the time too.

15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been: That we can't really be carefree or spontaneous anymore. We can't just jump in the car and go on an adventure, find a new place to hike or go fishing. We have to think, plan and pack all the stuff that Kortnie needs. Even something as simple as a family bike ride takes thought.

16. The one thing I never thought I could do because of my illness but did do was: Kortnie can do anything she wants to do, except go without her insulin. She tries to avoid shots and site changes and finger pokes though. I'm glad that she can still do anything, but I'm sad that she has to think about it so much, it's like part of her childhood is gone.

17. The commercials about my illness: UGH, there aren't many about Type 1, the Type 2 commercials can be scary though especially for a 5-7 year old, I remember her asking me once if her leg was going to get amputated, what do you tell a little kid? I just told her "No, probably not"

18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed: Telling her to just go find a snack or sleeping all night long.

19. It was really hard to have to give up: Sleep, you know how when you have a new baby and you get up in the middle of the night to feed it and cuddle it and you think it's not that bad most nights because eventually your baby will sleep through the night? Well, just the other week I asked my husband if he thought that when Kortnie was a teenager would I still be doing the middle of the night checks and he said yep, and when she's grown up you'll probably call her at 2am and see what her BG is. Yeah, I think it's going to be another 10-12 years before I can sleep all night long.

20. A new hobby I've developed since diagnosis is: Um, I already had a blog, but I did start this DOC blog. I don't do it very often though, I have been more crafty and thrifty since her diagnosis though, probably because I'm not working.

21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would: First I would sleep 8 hours in a row at night, then I would take the kids and go somewhere fun, the lake, Phoenix, I don't know somewhere, and we'd have fun all day and I wouldn't have to think about Diabetes or how that cotton candy is going to make her BG skyrocket or how many juice boxes to pack, and I wouldn't have to stop and tell her to check her Blood Sugar. She hates that when she's having so much fun running around and I have to tell her to stop and poke her finger and eat or poke her finger and bolus.

22. My illness has taught me: Kortnie's illness has taught me that I am stronger than I thought and that all people are stronger than they think and I think it has helped me in my compassion skills as wel.

23. Want to know a secret? One thing that people say that gets under my skin is: "I don't know how you do it!" or "I could never do what you do!" Well, guess what, I don't know how we do it either, but we do and you could too. This is my kid, I will always do whatever it takes to keep her alive, I'll always do whatever it takes to keep all of my kids alive, I knew this before Kortnie was diagnosed of course, it's in the core of any parent.

24. But I love when people: Tell Kortnie how brave she is or how proud of her they are, I love when people ask me questions and they are willing to learn. (sometimes I might come off short but I still love when you want to know, it's just that sometimes D is such a broad thing that I'm still having a hard time coming up with answers that aren't too overwhelming for the non-D folks out there) I love that when Kortnie's 2nd grade teacher read a book about Type 1 to the kids this year and then let Kortnie show off her pump and test her BG that all the boys thought she was SO COOL!

25. My favortie motto or Scripture is: As the father hath loved me, so I have loved you: continue ye in my love John 15:9

26. When someone is diagnosed I'd like to tell them. "I know it's alot and you are scared to take your baby home and do this by yourself, but you can do it and there are lots of people out there that will help you, don't be afraid to ask for help" then I would hand them a list of DOC websites and blogs, I so wish I would have known about the DOC before I went home not 6 months later

27. Something that has suprised me about living with an illness is: Even though our lives have changed A LOT, in someways our lives have changed for the better. I am able to stay at home with our kids, our kids have more compassion, we eat a bit healthier, Kortnie is a whiz at math I think from all the carb counting. I thought our lives were doomed and "life as we knew it was over" and I guess in a lot of ways our old way of life is over, but this new way of life, it's not doomed like I thought it was going to be.

28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn't feeling well was: When we brought Kortnie home from the hospital there was a huge banner hanging on our front window that said "Welcome Home Kortnie!"" I still don't know who put it up, but it was a nice thing to see. Our hospital was 4 hours away from our home so nobody could really feasibly come visit her at the hospital, but she did have vistors after she got home and that was good to see too that everyone who loved her came to see her and didn't really treat her any differently.

29. I'm involved with Invisible Illness week because: I liked reading everyone else's responses and I thought this would be a good first blog post back after I haven't blogged all summer long.

30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: Blessed to have you in our lives, whether you are our family, our friend, part of the DOC family, or just a random reader.

Sometimes I'm Happy, Sometime's I'm frustrated

School got out on May 28th and we've been on the go since then. Memorial Day weekend we took off to Phoenix, we spent Saturday-Monday down there. We took it easy, shopped at the mall, swam at the pool, visited my husband's sister, did some more shopping and visiting, we went down with a group of family including our family there were 12 of us. It was enjoyable, even though we battled high BG's most of the weekend. Long car trips, fun and excitement, too much junk food, that will all put Kortnie way up high. Since Memorial Day weekend, we've been home working on various things. I got the kids signed up for a few different activities this summer, Ballet, Zubatomic, Swim Team, they are still playing baseball for the next 2 weeks also. We've been working on "spring cleaning" our home and getting our extra bedroom ready for guests in a few weeks. My MIL is getting married and we are putting on a good sized family BBQ at our park, so we've been preparing for that as well. (We're planning on 55-60 people). Also of course we had Kortnie's 7th birthday party, her 2nd birthday with T1.

So, of course of the past few weeks I've been putting together some posts in my head, for now I'll summarize...

Things that make me Smile

1. (1st picture) Getting 900 test strips in the mail, I spent something like $322 on Ebay for them, which is way better than what I would have paid at the store usuing our crappy insurance.
2. (2nd and 3rd pictures) Kortnie's birthday party, 2 great numbers for Kortnie and another T1 (Libby Lou from http://dimplesanddiabetes.blogspot.com/) at the start of the party, and the next picture of Kortnie and all of her friends.
3. Getting an invitation to an ADA event in the mail on the last day of school. "Safety & Fairness for Children with Diabetes" For School Administrators/Health Personnel and Parents of CWD's. I got it a little before it was time to pick the kids up from school, I quickly made photocopies and gave invitations to the Principal, the School Nurse, and Kortnie's teacher for next year. The school nurse and teacher were pretty positive and told me they would plan on coming! Yay, I sure hope I see them there. I also gave some websites from JDRF and Animas to next years teacher and asked if she had time over the summer to check out some of the training modules. She was really interested and said she'd do her "homework" over the summer.
4. My roses are blooming!
5. Spending more time with the kids and other family members.
6. Signing up for the Virtula 5k, for more info go here... http://www.mommysarunner.blogspot.com/ basically you sign up, pay $10, and run or walk your 5K (3.1miles) anytime, anywhere the weekend of 6/24-6/27. I plan on doing mine the morning of 6/24. That happens to be the week of my MIL's wedding and I'm doing the family BBQ and all that, but I'm still gonna do this, Kortnie can't quit her diabetes, so there's no way I'm going to say I'm too busy to do this. Go sign up, you should do it too!
7. One year Pumpaversary was at the end of May, so thankful for this technology!
8. Preparing for our vacation, we are going to drive to Provo, UT and spend a few days with Brian's brother and his wife, see Temple Square in Salt Lake City, do the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake and see some museums at BYU. Then we are headed down for a weekend of camping with my family, a mini family reunion type thing. My parents, my brother and all of his family, and all of my family. Plus some aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents of mine. This will be the first time my parents will have both their kids with both spouses and all of their grandkids together since 2005. It will be my first time seeing my neice who is turning 2 this summer!

Things that make me Frustrated

1. Working so hard to fight High BG's and when I tell Kortnie, "no you can't have that right now, let's wait a little while" somebody coming along behind me and saying, 'oh just let her have it' or 'oh I feel so sorry for you', etc., etc., etc. You've all been there, you know what I'm talking about. But here's the icing on the cake...We were at the hotel, went to the complimentary breakfast which is a FREAKIN' CARBFEST, Kortnie checks her BG and it's kind of high in the 270's way higher than it should be in the morning. She wants, toast with Nutella, a bagel, an orange, and a blueberry muffin for breakfast. I told her, "Sorry kid, no way you can have one of those a yogurt and a hardboiled egg and we can take the orange and have it as a snack later" She starts crying, she's tired, her BG is high, I'm sure she feels kind of crappy and her I am telling her no. So I say go sit down at that table over there, you have a couple of minutes to figure out what you want while I get the other kids their stuff. So she goes to sit down, I get the othe kids their stuff, get my stuff, (I had the toast with Nutella, yogurt and egg just like I told her to have), come ask her if she knows what she wants, she says no and just sits there crying. Well, by now I know it's a lost cause and she's pissed and won't eat at all now, I give her a correction bolus for the high and I start eating. My husband now shows up I tell him what's going on so he takes her back to the room for a shower, after me and the kids eat I go back to the room and start doing other stuff, husband takes her back to the breakfast thing and comes back with....get this, a friggin bagel (69 carbs), a blueberry muffin (47 carbs) and a huge orange. Oh brother! No protein, just a bunch of "not very good for you" carbs. I was so pissed, but he already told her she could have it, so whatever, I'm not gonna argue, I'll let him battle the highs all day. He starts asking me "how many carbs is in this?" and all that, I tell him figure it out for yourself and I continue packing up the car. Oh man, I was really mad, like this one incident just pushed me over the edge. Am I crazy or what? I'm over it now it all turned out okay, but I think to myself, how can I encourage the kids to eat more healthier if he's just going to turn around and let them have whatever they want. (I could go on and on and rant and rave, but I'll save it for another post I think, this is a big issue with me)
2. Re-setting Basal rates for summer, there's been no scheduale our meal times are erratic, some days there is lots of activity, some days not so much, the kids have been staying up late and sleeping in. I've been trying to re-tweak some basal rates, but it's not going very smoothly. We got the pump on the 2nd to last day of school last year, so we spent the summer learning how to effectivly use the pump, I feel like we're doing that all over again.
3. Middle of the night checks, those will frustrate me forever I think, but also I think they are getting easier on both me and Kortnie. Not so much fighting, and we're getting them down to a good quick, poke, check, bolus (or juice or nothing) and back to sleep.
4. Questions, Questions, Questions....It's good that people ask and want to know, but I'm tired of explaining, explaining, explaining....I'm burnt out, I need a rest, I'll advocate and explain later.
5. Preparing for our vacation. While it makes me smile, it also frustrates me, gotta pay bills before I go, gotta make lists of stuff to pack, gotta go over food stuff with my mom who is bringing most of the food for camping. We like to say that Kortnie is the same as everyone else, but she's really not. She needs free snacks, she needs diet hot chocolate, she needs a supply of juice boxes and other sugar. My mom buys white bread, and I have 2 types of whole wheat bread that I buy for my family. Kortnie also has a minor milk allergy so she only drinks Almond Milk. (She had Lactose problems as a baby and toddler, I think she's pretty much grown out of them, but she won't drink cows milk, only Almond or Soy milk) I prefer to use premeausred oatmeal packets, I have to bring the scale, make sure mom has measuring cups and spoons in her camper, etc.
6. Another super frustrating thing right now is that there is a huge wildfire burning not too far from us, its affecting family, friends and distant neighbors (neighboring towns that is), people we know have been evacuated from their homes, our communites are stepping up to help house animals and people, to give donations. Our mountain is on fire and it's sad. My kids are concerned, there is smoke in the air, it's a sad time for our community.

Here's the quick update that turned into a long post, sorry for going on and on.....

A D-Mom Meet Up

Kortnie and Libby Lou

Recently we have connected with another D family here in town. Our Kortnie has a friend in her class, Kaydence, one day while I was visiting in Kortnie's class this Kaydence tells me, "my sister has Diabetes too, just like Kortnie". Kaydence mom and I were able to connect through facebook a little while ago. We schedualed a play date for Kortnie and Kaydence today.

So, when Mimi came over to drop of Kaydence she brought all of her girls and we all had a fun visit together. Kortnie got to meet 3 year old Libby Lou. I got to visit with Mimi and it was good for me to have someone to talk to about D-stuff and I think it was good for her to have that as well. Libby is getting a pump soon and so we showed Kortnie's pump to Libby and then Mimi and I were able to talk about them some as well. I showed her the "site" and kind of how it works. I'm glad to have made a new friend for me and for my girls.

Meet Libby Lou, her mom Mimi and her sisters over here at http://www.dimplesanddiabetes.blogspot.com/ let's give them a big old DOC Welcome.

Free Facebook Friday win from Pumpwear

Here's Korky sporting her new Hello Kitty pump pouch, we won it on Pumpwear's Free Facebook Friday. Every Friday, Pumpwear posts a video on their facebook page of items they are giving away and all you have to do is watch the video and leave a comment saying "I want it". Then they pick the winners, notify you and ask for your address and send it to you! All they ask is that you post a picture of you or your kid wearing the item on their FBook page when you recieve it. Anyways, about 2 weeks ago we won, we love Korky's new pouch, it's cute, its comfortable and sturdy.

Pumpwear also has lots of other items pump packs, pump bands, meter cases, purses, pump shorts, walk tshirts, car magnets, braclets and other jewelry, waterproof cases, gift ideas, gift certificates and much more. Also, Pumpwear INC is a supporter of Candy Hearts Life for a Child Campaign, 10% of the proceeds from the Candy Hearts collection are donated to the Life for a Child Campaign which provides children with life saving insulin.

Check them out at http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pumpwear or http://www.pumpwearinc.com/

the link for the Candy Hearts Life For a Child Campaign items is http://www.pumpwearinc.com/pumpshop/index.php?l=product_list&c=146

and find info on the Candy Hearts Life For a Child Campaign here http://www.candyheartsblog.com/p/life-for-child.html

Insurance and Ebay

Insurance and Ebay, oh yes I found a way to put them together, maybe you have too. Let me explain, we used to be on AHCCS (Arizona Health Cost Containment System) for our insurance. It was the state version of medicaid and it ended up being pretty good insurance. I never saw a bill or paid one dime for any of Kortnie's needs, the ER up here, helicopter ride to Phoenix, a day in the PICU at Phoenix Children's Hospital followed by 4 days on the D-floor when she was diagnosed. Never paid anything for DR visits or labwork. We never even had a copay for insulin, needles, glucagon, test strips, or lancets. When we got on a pump we never paid a dime for the pump, training or pump supplies. I know I had mentioned before that when we were on AHCCS they limited us to only 150 strips per month and anything extra we had to pay out of pocket, oh and we had to buy our own ketone strips as well. I NEVER KNEW HOW GOOD WE HAD IT! We got put off of our AHCCS at the end of December 2010. They said we make too much money now, we are only like $100 over the limit. Ever since then I've been searching high and low for new insurance. I found some that was pretty reasonable, $279 a month for our family of 5, I quickly signed up while intending to keep reasearching more options. My husband has insurance through his work, but it's a whopping $940/month! I'm still researching new insurances, meanwhile when we were on AHCCCS I always every month filled our perscriptions and got as much "stuff" as we were allowed each month. By doing that and proper rotation, I've managed to build up about a 8 month supply of extra "stuff" except for test strips. Well, our new insurance started on March 1st, and guess what, it doesn't cover any of Kortnie's items, she's covered for doctor visits and labwork, with a copay of course, but there are no discounts on any of her medications, strips, or supplies! I've been scrambling to figure out what to do, and I've been relying on my stockpile of supplies and insulin, but I'm getting worried! I did buy a vial of insulin last payday and paid $118 for it! Yikes! And I've continued buying test strips, right now American Diabetes Wholesale is running a special, 200 strips and 1 meter (with a thing of 10 strips) for $101.99. So I bought 2 sets of those. Then I thought, why don't I look on EBAY? And sure enough, you can get all kinds of test strips on EBAY. You have to be a pretty proactive bidder to get them though. Today, for the first time I purchased some strips off of ebay, 3 transactions later and I've gotten myself 500 test strips for $166.95 (that includes shipping) and comes out to a total of .339cents per strip! I am pretty excited, but also nervous, as I always am when I buy stuff off of ebay. Has anyone else ever gotten D supplies off of EBAY? (if you do go look at D-supplies on Ebay, remember to look for listings that have the expiration date in the description, or pictures of the exp date on the packages.) Also, on ebay we found a cute little ebay store called Pump'N In-Syle a lady makes cute little pump pouches, great prices too, most of hers are in the $10-$15 range. Check out her store if you like http://stores.ebay.com/PUMPN-IN-STYLE

JDRF Awards

Kortnie receiving her certificate from JDRF volunteer Ashley.

Kortnie and her Certificate.

Having a snack before the awards started, fruit plate and a spluge of Diet Coke.

Last fall we did our first ever JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes. We registered as a family team, the 5 of us and 1 of Kortnie's friends. We raised about $1300.00! A few weeks ago we got an email that said we were invited to the Family Walk Awards. It just happened that we were planning on being in the Valley that day (the Valley=Phoenix area) (we live about 3.5 hours away), so we RSVP'd yes we'd love to come. We went down Friday afternoon, I took the kids out of school at lunchtime and we drove down. Friday afternoon we did some shopping, Desseret Book and Costco, we checked into the hotel then headed over to the mall. We walked around the mall and had dinner at the food court. Afterwards we went back to the hotel it was about 7:30 p.m. the kids wanted to swim, the pool was heated so I thought why not, let them have some fun! It was a great day and the dreaded D actually behaved itself! The BG's stayed in range between 103 and 174 the whole day! I did notice that walking around the mall and swimming (swimming with the pump disconnected) did make her BG's go down about 15-20 points.

Saturday morning we got up, went to the Continental breakfast at our hotel, a total carb fest of course! Then we checked out and had some time to kill so we went over to Walmart to treat ourselves to new flip flops. We found the place where the JDRF awards were going to be held and signed in. They also had a breakfast set up so we went to see what kind of goodies they had. They had a fruit bar, danishs, donuts, bagels, cereals, sodas, juice, water, and coffee. They actually had alot more junk than I would have expected. Since we had had breakfast only an hour or so earlier I let the kids all get some fruit and a soda. The awards thing was nice, we got to talk with some other D families, Kortnie got a certificate of achievement and we picked up some tips for fundraising for next years walk. We also learned more about the School Walk to Cure Diabetes and I think we'll take part in that this fall. The awards thing ended at about 11:35am, perfect timing, because the main reason we were down in the Valley was to pick up my husband from the airport, his flight was schedualed to land at 11:45, the awards thing was like a 6 minute drive from the airport, we got to the terminal right as his plane pulled up to the gate. Love it when things work out that way! My husband and I both used to work at the Phoenix airport, I worked at Continental Airlines which he was flying in on so I got to see some of my old co-workers that was a really nice treat as well! After we picked up we headed home, doing some more shopping on the way. We went back to the mall and got new phones, then to Sam's Club and out to dinner at Old Country Buffett. As always buffetts give me a D-Headache, Kortnie picks out pretty much all carbs at these, rolls, cinnamon rolls, mac and cheese, mashed potatos, pizza, ice cream with sprinkles, you get the idea. Again, it was supposed to be a fun weekend so we let her get what she wanted. Her BG was 135 before dinner, we did a combo bolus for a whopping 100 carbs, one hour after we finished eating she was a 275, another bolus, 1 hour later down to 237, another bolus, 1 hour later she was back in range (kind of) at 175, another little bolus and by the time we were home she was 118. Midnight check of 116 and, 4 am 123. Not too shabby. It was a great weekend, and Ihave to say I felt like I conqured the D-Mountain!

Bunk Beds/ 2 am BG checks

This is Korky in her bed, we put these bunk beds up before the big D came into our lives. I am 5'2" and I hate when it's my turn to do middle of the night checks. (I do those 2 or 3 am checks way more often than Daddy does since he has to get up and acutally leave the house to work) Korky is the younger sister and she loves being on the top bunk, the older sister loves being in her cave on the bottom bunk, there's no convincing them to switch. Notice the step stool, really it's an old broken chair, I pull it over to the bed when I have to do checks. See the shelf in the top right corner of the picture? It was orginally put up to hold stuffed animals, but if you look close you can see a stash of Juicy Juice and Smarties as well.

Here's another picture, a bit more up close, you can see the water bottle she keeps handy in this one so I put it in, not to mention she's just so pretty and cute.

And this last picture shows the "low" stash, some Juicey Juice boxes, Smarties, and a box of chocolates that she got for Christmas.


Now, here's my question. How do you do the middle of the night checks? I read your blogs and nobody really mentions anything about the kid waking up when you go to check their BG unless they wake up first because they are feeling low or high on their own. I have to say that 99% of the time I go to check Kortnie she wakes up, I almost always try to check her without waking her, but she always seems to sense it and pulls her hand away. I've tried doing her toes but usually I can't get to them and if I can she'll still wake up. I've read where some parents can even do site changes while their kid is sleeping. So, tell me what am I doing wrong? I go in and open the case, I can get the poker ready, get the strip in the machine and grab her hand then it seems as soon as just the poker touches her finger she's jerking her hand away. Then I calmly tell her, "it's time for a check". Some nights she'll get up and just poke her finger and let me collect the blood on the stirp, then she'll lay back down and go right back to sleep. On those kind of nights she's usually "normal" or maybe a little on the "low" side. But then those other nights, she fights me, she's in a sleep haze and doesn't actually get her finger poked, no blood will come out, you try to help her and she gets mad, it's a fight and by the time it's over I'm wide awake and can't get back to sleep. Usually these nights she's high. Then there are the nights when I can go in and poke her finger and she never even wakes up at all. These nights I like because I don't have to wake her up, and I don't have to fight her, but they also scare me because I'm afraid she's low and that's why she doesn't wake up. Usually on one of these nights she is either low or super tired from a busy/fun/long day. Then there's dealing with the lows, sometimes its super hard to get her to drink down a juice box, other times she coherent enough that she can even decide if she wants juice or smarties. Dealing with the highs isn't bad, I can just use the remote to give a bolus, but if I end up having to get her up for a site change, that's not so fun.

So I guess what I'm looking for is some tips on how to do these middle of the night checks, maybe we can make it a blog topic, everyone plan a blog about tips for these middle of the night checks, or if you've done one already send me the link to it. I'm curious! Any tips you want to give, how do you deal with bunk beds? How do you deal with fights? How do you not wake up the other kids in the room? How do you do the check with out waking up the D-Kid? How do you deal with the lows? (Acutally I've read about dealing with lows in the middle of the night quite a bit, doesn't look like it's much fun for anyone) Please and Thanks!

Now one more thing, for my readers who aren't D-moms but maybe family or friends. I don't check her every night (GASP!) I know! However, I do have a way of deciding if I'm going to do the check, depending on lots of factors, what she ate for dinner and bedtime snack, how her numbers have been running the past few days, if the site is new or how long has she had it on, how old her bottle of insulin is, things like that. On a normal evening we'll check her around 5ish at dinner time, then again around 8 at bedtime, then Brian or I check her around 10 or 11, or whenever we are headed to bed ourselves. It's at that 10 or 11pm check that I use all those factors mentioned above to decide if I'm going to need to do another check sometime in the 1-4am range. I'd say I probably end up doing a 2-ish-am check 4 or 5 nights out of 7.

We Won a Sugar Bolus!

Kortnie's new Angel Bear pump pack

Stasia's Bluebird of Happiness


Cute Graham-E-O modeling his new Spiderman Buff

We won our first Sugar Bolus! Well, we won one before this but I didn't respond in time to get the prize so we forefeited that one. Anyways, we won over at AutoImmune Island! (http://autoimmuneisland.blogspot.com/) We won an Angel Bear pump pack (http://angelbearpumpstuff.com/) which I gave to Kortnie of course. Also we won a Spiderman Buff (https://www.kitshack.com/) which I gave to my 3 year old baby boy Graham, and a Bluebird of Happiness (www.terrastudios.com/) which I gave to my oldest daughter, Anastasia. It was the perfect Sugar Bolus to win because it came with somthing perfect for each of my kids and I got to make a new DOC/Facebook friend. Thanks for the fun stuff Ronda and if you want to enter this week's Sugar Bolus Skidaddle on over to Princess and the Pump. (http://www.theprincessandthepump.com/)