The Field Trip

A few weeks ago, Kortnie's school was doing field trips to the local pumpkin patch.  She brought home the permission slip around the beginning of October.  I signed it and wrote a quick note on the bottom of it telling her teacher that I had daycare kids that day, but her dad was off work and he'd be attending the field trip.  Kortnie asked if she could just go BY HERSELF.  Since Kortnie was dx'd with T1D a few months into Kindergarten she has always had me with her on ALL of her field trips, even when in Kindergarten, I was the parent volunteer on her pumpkin patch trip which was about 3 weeks before her diagnosis.  Now, she's asking to go by herself,  "just this one time" she said.  We all talked about it, Brian, her, and I and decided if the teacher was okay with it and her numbers were okay that day, then yep we'd let her go by herself.

The pumpkin patch is about 2 miles from her school, 3 miles from our house.  She'd be going right after lunch, they'd be gone an hour or less, she's in 3rd Grade now, this will be her 4th school field trip to the pumpkin patch.  I told her she would take her phone, and her purse-inside her purse she'd have her test kit, a juice box, a roll of glucose tabs, and of course her cell phone.  She would check her blood sugar and do a lunchtime bolus like we usually do, but this time she and her nurse would call me and tell me her number.  After lunch and recess she would need to check her blood sugar and call me with her number, then she'd get on the bus, ride to the pumpkin patch, have fun, ride back to school and check her number and call me, and of course I told her if she felt low or something she would check while at the pumpkin patch and call me. I told her she would need to be with a buddy from her class at all times-which of course it's school policy to use the buddy system anyways.  I called her teacher and asked her if she would be okay with this plan, she agreed and said she'd carry glucagon, a juice, and her own cell phone in her backpack too. 

It was a good plan, I was pretty confident, so was Kortnie, and so was her teacher. 

And then the morning of the field trip came and, well, you know what they say about best laid plans...she had a site failure over night, woke up with a high BG, Large Ketones, and sick, sick, sick!
She couldn't go to school, she was devastated about missing her field trip, upset that she was gonna get to go by herself and now she wouldn't get to go at all.  Well, my girl, she was determined to go on that field trip, so she went back to sleep, woke up around 9ish, took a shower, got herself dressed, had some breakfast, drank some water, informed me that her ketones were down to moderate.  I told her to rest for a little longer and when I went to pick up her brother from 1/2 day Kindergarten at 10:45, we'd see if she could go.  By 10:45 she was itching to go to school, she checked her BG and it was 90, she said she wanted to go to school.  She looked pretty terrible still, tired and pale.  But, I let her go.  She has lunch at 11:25, she called me and said her BG was 63 and she didn't want her sandwich, but she did want her pudding.  I told her to eat her pudding and reduce her basal by 10% for an hour.  Told her not to run around on the playground to get a book and sit in the sun.  I told her to check her BG at noon and call me before she got on the bus. 

By 11:55ish, I was kind of freaking out, so I drove down to the school and waited at the bus loading spot.  She came out with all of the other 3rd Graders, her teacher told me that she could tell Kortnie wasn't feeling too great, that they were going to check her BG on the bus and call me, but that since I was there I could go with them.  Kortnie said no-she doesn't want me to go.  She checked her BG and she was 121, she told me that she laid on the tunnel in the sun with her friend at recess and she felt better.  She had some color in her cheeks and I could tell she felt a bit better and was excited.  So, I had her reduce her basal by 10% for another hour and let her go.  All.By.Herself. 

When they got back to school, around 1ish her teacher texted me and told me her BG was 142 and that they had had fun.  I relaxed.  For the rest of the day, she was tired and hung out in the 70's to low 100's.  She insisted on going to all of her activities that afternoon, her church group, and soccer, although at soccer she was kind of low, so I made her sit a lot. 

She went to bed early and by Tuesday morning she was back to normal. 

Another challenging day for my girl, but she handled it, bravely, and as independently as I would let her.  She is my hero.