Soccer

Kortnie is playing soccer this year.  The first and only other time she played soccer was in 2009, the year she was diagnosed, soccer season is Sep/Oct here.  In 2009 about halfway through the season she started not feeling well.  We'd go to the soccer game and she'd end up laying in my lap on the sidelines while we watched her sister and the rest of the team play.  We'd go to practices and she'd run down the field once and get so tired that she just had to sit.  At first I thought to myself, that she just wasn't a sporty girl.  Then I started noticing that everything was making her tired and not only tired, but drained!  Her face would go white, she'd cry because she was so tired, she'd just flop down on my lap and fall asleep.  Soccer season ended and 1 week later we were in the hospital getting diagnosed with T1D. 

When soccer season 2010 rolled around she didn't want to play.  Her older sister wanted to play, so I signed her up.  I didn't push it with Kortnie.

Soccer 2011 came around, I asked the girls if they wanted to sign up, neither one of them did.

Sign ups for this year's season came around, I asked again if they wanted to play and asked my son too since he is finally old enough to play.  Surpisingly both Kortnie and Graham wanted to play.  Our oldest didn't.  Fine with me.  I signed up Kortnie and Graham and they really are having a great time. 

Kortnie is a go getter, she runs fast, she has okay ball handling skills and most times plays forward.  That means she is running up and down the field the whole game pretty much.  Her blood sugars are definitly affected, but they are different at every game and practice, so I haven't figured out what to do to manage them better.

Today we only had 10 kids to show up to play her game, this meant all 10 of them had to play the whole game, no sitting out.  Her coaches were out of town, so I was sub-coaching for them. 

Here is how her blood sugars went Her in-range # should be between 80 and 120

Her game was at 11am, around 9am we started thinking about breakfast

9:14am  she was 362...I should have known this would happen, we always have late morning highs on Saturday, I think because our sheduale is different, I really need to get her to eat earlier, or change her basals on the weekend.  She ate a muffin, I had her bolus for 35 carbs (instead of 50) and the correction. 

10:56am - game starts at 11, her BG is 182 no correction

11:32am - halftime, we always check at halftime but I knew she was gonna be low, I could tell she was getting tired, been running nonstop pretty much for 30 minutes.  She was 81, gave her about 1/2 a package of Smarties and she was off.  I would have given her the whole package of Smarties, but it must have been in her kit for a long time, because when we opened it about 1/2 of them fell into a powdery mess and the other 1/2 of them that she ate, she said tasted yucky!  Around  11:38 I ran out on the field and put a glucose tab in her mouth.  The other coach is a friend of ours and she just laughed and yelled out "Such a devoted mom!"  She knew I was shoving sugar down Kork's throat.  I was running off the field and kind of yelled out "Sorry she needs some sugar, I can tell!" A couple other parents, were like WTF was that all about? I could hear them murmuring, then another girl who knows us-she's friends with my older daughter-on the sidelines says, "she's diabetic, she needs candy and stuff sometimes".  Then I hear this older kid talking about how he's hypoglycemic.  Then I just tuned out and kept my eye on Kortnie.  I realize now that I should have had her take her pump off, or reduced her basal, I'm still getting this sports thing figured out, and it didn't occur to me that I should have done something like that until after the game was over.

11:44 - end of 3rd period, she was 67, she sucked down a Capri-Sun, and she went in as goalie, less running-that was my thinking-I should have made her sit out, but she wasn't having that and sitting out would have left us with one less man on the field, no one to sub in for her.   I went and stood by the goal to keep my eye on her, gluc tabs and juice in hand.  She did fine, I could see the life coming back into her face.  I also at this point thought to myself that it was pretty stupid of me to leave my glucagon in the car, way across the street at the fire station.  Had to park there because the parking lot at the park was full, well because there are 3 games going on all day 9am-5pm.  Next weekend I will be bringing the Glucagon with me to the field, and I'm going to remind myself to think about temp basals too!

11:59 - end of game, she was 123, she had a cupcake as an after game treat, had her bolus for 23 carbs

1:09 - back home, time for some lunch (stopped at a yardsale on the way home), she was 85, we had mini pizzas, she bolused for 32 grams of carbs, after they ate, the girls had to clean their room

4:11 - 63, she ate a mini chicken sandwich 12gCarbs - no bolus and a dum dum sucker unbolused, at 4:30 she went out to play at the neighbors house, with a roll of Smarties in one pocket and cell phone in the other, told her to come back at 5, it's 4:43 now.

5:16 - called her on the phone, told her to come home and check, 71, cupcake time, 23gCarb, she got a bolus of .85 and is now un-hooking from the pump for a shower and site change, which will probably take her 30-45 minutes, she loves to be un-tethered so she stretches it out.  Being un-hooked, that ought to bring her BG back up, probably too much.

Her team ended up losing 3-1, kind of sucks because it was a great game, going into the 4th period (when I put Kortnie as goalie), the score was 1-0, her team scored bringing us up to 1-1, then the other team got 2 kicks past Kortnie, which I'm sure the low had something to do with her letting at least one of those get by.  Oh well, though, it's just city league 8 and 9 year olds and they had fun, so that's the main thing.  Right?  Maye next time the real coaches are going to be gone, they won't ask me to sub-coach.

Phew, here's hoping the post game lows stop now and give us a break. 

Diabetes-never ending-always making me think-my brain is tired-but Kortnie is having fun and enjoying a typical Saturday for an 8 year old girl.