Diabetes Month Photo-A-Day Days 5-11

Here are our Photo-A-Day posts 5-11.

Day 5 was Advocate

The CDE at our local hospital does a training for nurses about the many types of diabetes every few months. Kortnie and I are always guest speakers and we give them an inside look on the everyday life of the person with T1D.
The New Face of Type 1 Diabetes is a new advocacy campaign being started in our local region. Kortnie was the first "New Face", thus campaign is still in the beginning stages, but we're excited to be a part of it, especially since it's happening right here on our mountain.

http://www.thenewfaceoft1diabetes.com/

Day 6 was Relationship

On top, we took this picture last year on Kortnie's 3rd D-Aversary, diabetes affects the whole family, Kortnie's brother and sister are onboard and know how to look out for their sister. Below, Kortnie's friends are all onboard too, they know the signs of a low, they wait for Kortnie when she needs to stop whatever they're doing and have a BG check, and they sit with her if she needs a break. She's a lucky kid to have so many understanding friends and family!

Day 7 was Blue.  

The World Diabetes Day (November 14) campaign uses a Blue Circle as their Symbol.  Blue has become the color for Type 1 Diabetes, while a gray ribbon with a red blood drop on one of the tails is the symbol for all types of Diabetes.

Kortnie's 4th D-Aversary was on Day 8 so we made "Blue" Rice Krispie treat cupcakes for her on Day 7 to take to school. We put blue food coloring in them but they turned out kinda green. I was going to make regular cupcakes but she pointed out to me that she has a Gluten Free friend in her class so we opted for Rice Krispies instead. 

Day 8 was Organization

Some of Kortnie's stuff
Insulin in the butter compartment of the garage fridge
Pump Supplies, lancets, and a ketone meter
Test strips, glucagon, and other stuff
More lancets and syringes
We have enough to last us 6-9 months comfortably, and that makes me happy.

Day 8 Orgnaization picture two

I thought organization could mean how we organize our stuff or an organization we support. JDRF is the leader in research for a cure, we're proud to support them

Day 9 was Support

V and her parents came by the morning of Day 9, they took Kortnie and Stasia to get Blue hair extensions for Diabetes Awareness Month. V's family is one of my daycare families. I've never figured out if my families are my clients or my bosses, but either way, they've become our friends, and it's so good to have the support of friends.

Day 10 was Exercise

Exercise requires more BG checks, less insulin, more snacks...extra diligence.
A growing kid needs exercise, everyone needs it.
Trampoline, hiking, soccer, swimming, dancing, just being a kid, exercise is part of life. It means extra effort for Kortnie, but I'm ok with that.

Day 11 was Play

Even play time takes work as far as Diabetes goes. During Fall Break I took the kids swimming. Here is Kortnie waiting out a LOW in the shallow end of the pool.

My favorite Health App/Device/Book is...

Today's prompts for NHBPM are Call BS on something, or review your favorite Health App/Device/Book. 

I can't think of anything to call BS on that I haven't already talked about this month.  Mainly misconceptions and myths.  I've already talked about those here and here.  I am sure there are other things to call BS on, when I think of them I'll save it for another blog post later.

I'll tell you about some of my favorite things that help me and Kortnie all of us take care of Kortnie.

1.  The Calorie King book.  We got one of these at the hospital, it is awesome, it has carb counts (and calorie and fat counts) of all kinds of food.  It has a restaurant section, and it also has specific counts of actual brand name foods, or a general count of something.  It has fruit, vegetables, nuts, baked goods, and drinks.  It also has counts for something like a tablespoon of flour or sugar or what not.  Love this book!  There is also a website http://www.calorieking.com/ where you can type something in and search for it and it will bring back choices for you.  So type in something like Wendys Frosty and it will bring back a bunch of options from small vanilla frosty up to large chocolate frosty with whip cream.  I hear there is an app for it too, but I don't have it on my phone, but I do go to the browser on my phone and look up the website quite often.  I have one of the books in my kitchen and in my car.  It makes SWAGing easier (Scientific Wild Ass Guess).

2.  Rufus, the bear with Diabetes.  We also got him in the hosptial, he came with some syringes so Kortnie could practice giving him shots.  See the colored patches on him, those are the places you can give yourself shots, the arms, legs, and belly, the red patches on his hands are where he pricks his fingers.  He comes with a JDRF t-shirt and ours had a medical alert bracelet on him too.  3 years later, Kortnie still sleeps with him and takes him places.  He is just a teddy bear, but he's a teddy a bear with Diabetes, just like our kids.  All the little Type 1's seem to love their Rufus. 

 

3.  Diabetic Barbie this little girl Emma wanted to know why there was no Barbie with Diabetes, so her mom helped her to start up a campaign to make it happen.  Now they are making their own accessories and selling them with the proceeds going to various Diabetes related charities and organizations.  She makes insulin pumps, meters, syringes out of clay, she also makes mini pump pouches and walk t-shirts.  She makes them to fit Barbies, American Girls, Rufus, Lenny the Lion (Medtronic mascot-an insulin pump maker), and other stuffed animals.  We were lucky enough to win a drawing and got Rufus a pump, meter and pump pack.  Here is Kortnie showing off her Rufus and his new purple pump, and her pink pump.  She was very excited, now Rufus can have a pump and not have to have as many shots!  If you have a diabetic kid, go check out the Diabetic Barbie Facebook Page, these pumps and accessories can be made in any design, they are not just for girls, if you know a little boy with Diabetes, she can make him a kit for a stuffed animal or for a Rufus or Lenny, or a Ken doll.  If you don't have a diabetic kid in your family, go like her page anyways, the more likes, the more Mattel will take notice. 

 

4.  A fun test kit, Kortnie uses this one, it's a Sugar Bag from Sugar Medical Supply.  It holds her meter, her poker, a vial of test strips, and has a zipper pocket where she can put a couple rolls of smarties, and a unzippered pocket we can slip in a name and emergency card, and a few dollars if she wants, or a log book, there is also a strap for a pen-needle or syringe, and a vial of insulin.  The outside of the case has a pocket where you could slip a phone in too.  She keeps all her testing stuff in there and carries it either by itself, or in her purse, or her backpack for school.  It is cute and fun and not boring black.  Again, it's not just for girls, there are designs for women, boys, and men.  This is just the one she picked out.  She has had it for a little over a year and it is wearing out, so I have ordered a new one in a different design to give her for Christmas.  Even though it is wearing out, I still feel it is good quality, after all she has used this daily for over a year, and she opens and closes it and gets stuff out of it about 10 times a day, and she is 8 years old, so you know this thing has been thru the wringer. 

 

 

These are just a few of the things that make our diabetic life easier and funner.  I have not been asked to review any of these items, I get nothing for saying such nice things, just wanted to share a few things that we love. 

 

Diabetes Fact of the Day

People with diabetes are at greater risk for depression.

Poor diabetes control can cause symptoms that look like depression.

At any given time, most people with diabetes do not have depression. But studies show that people with diabetes have a greater risk of depression than people without diabetes. There are no easy answers about why this is true.
The stress of daily diabetes management can build. You may feel alone or set apart from your friends and family because of all this extra work.
If you face diabetes complications such as nerve damage, or if you are having trouble keeping your blood sugar levels where you'd like, you may feel like you're losing control of your diabetes. Even tension between you and your doctor may make you feel frustrated and sad.

 



 

#NHBPM Day 3 ~JDRF Walk

Today we are attending the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes.  Our walk is in Tempe at Tempe Town Lake (A city adjacent to Phoenix, AZ).  This will be our third year attending the walk.  This weekend is also the 3 year anniversary of Kortnie's diagnosis with Type 1 Diabetes.   Every year we walk under the team name Kortnie's Krusaders, you can still donate to our walk team through the end of the year, JDRF is one of the leading charities that is working to find a cure for Type 1 Diabetes, as well as working on improving the lives of those living with this chronic illness.  If you'd like to donate to our walk team or learn more click here.

The above photo collage is made up of pictures we took at the 2011 walk.  We always enjoy the walk, it's a fun day.  Our walk always has a pumpkin painting booth which is a hit with my kids, we usually just do the 1.5 mile fun walk instead of the 5k.  There are tons of booths that Kortnie likes to visit.  She visits the Animas booth and sees what kind of swag she can score for her pump, last year she got a new screen protector and matching purple skins for her pump and meter/remote!  She likes to visit the booths for different blood glucose meters, last year she got some cool meter skin sticker things for her Accu-Check meter, and a tealish blue skin for her Freestyle meter.  Old Orchard juice had a booth and was giving out full size bottles of their new carb smart juices, I think we scored like 4 or 5 juices and a bunch of $1.00 off coupons.  There was a face painting booth last year too, and tons of other cool stuff.  They also serve breakfast and lunch.  It's nice to be surrounded by other families who get it, everywhere you look you can seem someone checking heir blood sugar, wearing an insulin pump, or giving themselves a shot.  You can see mothers giving their children juice boxes or other fast acting glucose to bring up a low.  It's a feeling of same-same that is wonderful for Kortnie and for me.  Even my other kids, just knowing they are surrounded by families like ours.  I literally spend the morning teary eyed.  Tears of love, acceptance, sorrow, and gratitude.  The feeling I have at the walk are unlike anything else I've experienced before, they are hard to explain, the best way I can figure to explain it, is that there is a warmth in my heart.  I'm sad to see how many people there are that share this disease with us, but also it feels good to know we are not alone. 

I'm pre-writing this post, since we'll be out of town this weekend.  It's a big weekend for us.  Kortnie's got her quarterly Endocrinologist visit and A1C check on Friday (yesterday), we drive around 180 miles to take her to see her doctor every 3 months.  We'll stay overnight and attend the walk on Saturday.  We also plan on doing some shopping for winter school clothes and shoes as well as hitting stores like Sam's Club, Costco, and Trader Joe's.

Today's writing prompts were "I don't know about this but I'd like to...." or "post about a conversation you've had with your doctor"  I couldn't really think of anything to say about either of those prompts, I figured I'd save the alternate prompts for later, and didn't want to skip a day since it would be so easy to pre-write this post and talk about the JDRF walk instead.

Diabetes Fact of the Day

JDRF Walks are held at over 200 locations across the country and are managed by local JDRF Chapters. Participants can walk as individuals, or join a team (which can be started by a family, company or any group of people). JDRF’s Walk to Cure program raised $86 million in 2011 and had close to 900,000 participants.  To find a walk near you click here or click here to donate to our read about Kortnie's Krusaders.

Zumbathon for JDRF

My friend Sandy is a Zumba and ZumbaAtomic instructer here where we live. She also has a nephew and brother in law with Type 1 Diabetes. For the past few months we've been trying to get a Zumbathon organzied to raise money for JDRF. It's finnally happening! I'm so excited to say that we're doing a Zumbathon for JDRF on Saturday Febuary 4th in Show Low, AZ. It's sure to be a fun time and hopefully we'll rasie a good amount of money too. I hope to see a bunch of my local friends there. Let's raise money, have fun and get in some excercise!

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!

2010 JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes Tempe, AZ

We took part in the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes at Tempe Town Lake, here in Arizona last weekend. I think it was pretty successful. It was our first year to walk as a family team (about 6 or 7 years ago before D hit us personally I did this walk with my first daughter as part of a corporate team). I registered our team under the name "Friends and Family of Kortnie Silverhorn" back in January I think, but as time went on I decieded our team name should be Korky's Krusaders. So next year I think that's what we'll call ourselves. I registerd all 5 of us as individual walkers on the family team and set a fundraising goal of $1000. I am happy to say that we raised a total of $1220.00 for our walk. Most of our donations came from family and friends.

The walk took place last Saturday October 30th. Tempe is about a 3 hour drive for us. We decieded that we'd just drive down early Saturday morning, so we left here about 5:30am and got there right at 9:00. We ended up doing only the 1.5 mile fun walk rather than the full 3.2 mile walk. We figured that would be much easier on the kids and our sanity as well. After the walk was over we checked out the booths, I signed us up for trial net, and the kids got to paint pumpkins. We enjoyed the lunch that the walk put on as well. We were in a hurry to get back home for trick or treating though, so we didn't hang around too long. I think next year, we will plan to go down to the Valley the night before and make it more of a family weekend getaway.

Below are some pictures of us on walk day, the weather was beautiful, the people we saw treated Kortnie like a princess and she enjoyed getting some good attention because of her diabetes, people with knowledge asking her "smart" questions about her diabetes, her pump, her test kits, etc. She told me that it was nice that we didn't have to talk about it all day. Which I didn't get at first because it was like Diabetes was everywhere, but later I figured that she meant we didn't have to answer the same questions or explain the same things over and over like we do with non-D people.


Our family walk team (right to left) Big Sister Stasia (7 almost 8), Korky our D-kid (6 years old), Daddy-O Brian, Me, best friend Zoie (7 also almost 8) and on my lap is little brother Graham (3 years old).

Kortnie paining her pumpkin, a fun activity!

Stasia walking for a cure!

Zoie (in pink shorts) and Korky (in black pants) walking for a cure!

The girls, Stasia, Zoie and Korky