28. July 2011 by admin.

In the past couple of months since she turned 15 she has actually returned to earth on many levels. She is not so willing to explode at air moving or whatever her senses tell her she should be crabby about.  I don’t remember behaving like a complete beast as a teen ager but my mom says I did. Clearly she is remembering the neighbors… ha!

My cherib has been watching her sugars much better, covering when she eats and sometimes before. It has been a little shocking. It looks like her and sounds like her so I think it is her.

She had a chance to go to a cabin with our friends that have a daughter with diabetes but is about 5 years younger. They have a daughter her age as well. The family kept on her about testing and covering the same as they do their daughter and it helped. She saw that it is not just her mom getting ‘on her case’ but a part of being a diabetic kid getting prepared to handle this life on her own. It was a good thing for us and for her.

She continues to mumify the chicken and I continue to tell her I don’t really need the details. Of course that means I get even more details and have been invited to view the progressive slide show she has to create for school as part of the credit for this project. I am more confident every day that high school teachers should get combat pay.

We have been blessed with some severe water damage when the recent storms blew up the flashing around the chimney and allowed water to follow the block through the house to the crawl space. This has become a family event clearing out the entry closet which is 9′ by 6′ and our pantry among other storage. With her sugars in range she was pleasant and very helpful with this task. Even with her younger brother all went very well. When we had her test before we ate after the worst of the work she was at 136. Very nice given the past 6 years have held her average near 400. I need to be careful about getting to ‘lazy’ and confident with her self care but am enjoying a little bit of rejoicing for the good numbers and less conflict.

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2. July 2011 by admin.

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29. June 2011 by admin.

She was so good for the most part of the school year. Pulled her A1C down 4 points.  Now that school is out she is reverting.  Several times in the past two weeks I have ‘caught’ her not covering. 5pm in the evening when I check her pump for bolus activity the last bolus will have been at 7pm the night before. And she is wonderin why she does not feel well - ugh!!!

I don’t even care if we are at my sons baseball game or her friends are all near - I start the ‘What’s up with that?’ shpeal. She replies ‘I thought I did hit send’.  uh huh.

Currently my husband is on spring break from school and not working - I have to get after him to check the pump. She is going to reset the sensativity of her system back up where she wont get sick at 300 - no good.

She has murmured about driving. We have set a hard and fast rule that no driving or lessons until A1C is at 8.5 and it must be maintained.  sound harsh?

So my time of feeling like all is good is over - for now…back to being a parent of a diabetic.

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23. June 2011 by admin.

She seems very proud of her chicken in salt …. in the garage …. out of my site.  She continues to want to tell me about it and giggles so teenagery.

The summer projects to bring her credits up to PSEO level are keeping her busy now that she is back from hiking the Porcupine  Mountains in the U.P.  She loved being in the wilderness for 5 days and never showering but the bug bites were a little intense on her arms. She tried a few different bug repellents with little success.  While hiking on the shores of Lake Superior she was able to fall in three times. This was not good on the mini-med pump. The pump had a bad crack in it that had been there for about 6 months and neither of us were able to remember while at home to call and see if it should be replaced. Now it has been replaced.  She was on Lantus and injections for most of her trip and did fairly well.  She stayed pretty high in the 300’s and 400’s much of the time but I think that was partly the teachers nervous that she would go low like she did on the biking trip.  They had her eating every hour of the hiking at least one carb unit - a little over kill but all came out good.

She turned 15 this last week. It seems like we barely have her with us and she is already talking about when she goes away to college - this could bring tears to this mom pretty quickly.  She is such a challenging teenager and such a joy in our hearts that the times we don’t want to lock her in her room until the beast that has taken her over leaves she brings joy to our hearts on so many levels.

Well - before this gets way too sappy I will say good night.

Please share how raising your teen has been going - I need input and to feel less alone through this.

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2. June 2011 by admin.

We have learned we have a little genius in our midst. We met with her 9th grade teacher last week for end of year conferences.  They reviewed the results of her NWEA test scores and let us know she is at college level for Math and Reading. I am a very proud parent!  Sooooo in order for her to follow the guidelines of this particular charter she has to have a certain number of credits before participating in PSEO. She has to do some projects over the summer in order to meet this credit requirement. Ancient Egypt interests her so she has chosen a project in that direction. Part of this project - you are not going to believe this - is to mummify a chicken.  OMG!  While I want to be a supportive parent and really encourage my children this one crosses some major lines of gross ness. She will keep it in the garage and I will not be a spectator to this event.  UGH!   She thinks it’s the greatest project since sliced bread and loves to watch me turn green…

Her A1C was at 9.0 and she is holding steady in that range. we are working to get her down but sometimes she forgets she is the main character in this show and her participation counts way more than ours. Today her teacher called me at lunch time to let me know her number was over 600 and her lunch consisted of chocolate covered mini donuts (two packs) and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. I just sighed and asked the teacher who her real mom was cuz I would not have let her pack that had I seen it.  geez!  When I got home and spoke to her about it she said ‘No Mom that was breakfast!’. Somehow that made it ok with her.  Lunch was a peanut butter sandwich (donuts leftover and balance of Dr Pepper).

She tested below 200 at 4pm so I had some level of calm when she was sharing this info but man! what will it take to get her to see the icky choices and make different ones.

For now I am going to bed - after I check her lunch.

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12. January 2011 by admin.

I checked her meter today for numbers and I just about fell over! she had a reading of 131 and later 169! I am ecstatic.  She was actually nice to us today as well. It was a red letter day in our home.

I believe I did a good job of acknowledging the great job without being ‘mom the over reactor’.  I hope we can get this again real soon. I did learn that her teacher is tracking any numbers under 200 on the board and having the class encourage her. I wonder if that is the difference.  Her teaching staff are amazing and very good at making the kids take responsibility for achieving goals, accomplishing tasks, completing work, etc.  Academically I wonder how much she is getting but above that her quality of life is being preserved by the community they are building.

Along the lines of being responsible - S did not get the paperwork needed completed and turned in so she is not on the snow shoeing and dog sledding trip. She is bummed but has no one to blame but herself.  She won’t let it happen again. I do love this school.

Weather stays cold - that’s a bummer but spring must be coming - I think…

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28. December 2010 by admin.

Winter break - this is a problem. S is in bed forever and when she is awake she is in her room with the stereo playing.  Wrenching her into the family activities can be stressful.  Was I ever like that?  Her BG numbers hover around 300 - 400.  Hubby and I are continually asking her if she tested, did she cover, how much - Ok add 5 or 10 more units. Today she tested one time at 10:35am - no insulin then when I did the questioning at 6pm she tested - HI but ‘forgot’ to take the insulin. Sooooo I stood there while she put in the amount into the pump and started it delivering.  YES, I do have to see it deliver because she doesn’t always hit the send button.

I have tried to explain what she is doing to her body and the permanent damage. I have had any medical staff do the same (they usually talk with her without my asking). I have found a family with a younger daughter diagnosed with Type 1. Spending time with that family does help her feel less alone and I just love them as friends but they have lives so do what they can. Support groups and family gatherings don’t seem to stick very well and the IDC wont include siblings so it’s not an option for us.

I continue to talk with her point out how she feels with the high numbers and work with her on better care. I am the mom and most days she is convinced I am just hysterical and don’t really know what I am talking about.

Does anyone else experience this? Are there suggestions or options I have not yet tried? These are my questions for the great void tonight.

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21. November 2010 by admin.

Here comes the Holidays. Such a time in the year.  S is doing better with her numbers on a daily basis when she attends school. The new charter we found is amazing and so geared for teenagers. They meet her as a 14 year old girl and factor in the diabetes as part of her instead of as something she ‘carries around’ with her. The teachers are so good to her and so tolerant of me.  I don’t remember being this much of a teenager - was the only one oblivious to attitude and emotional roller coastering.  The glucose level in a teenage girl is something to be rekonned with.  She can be nice and cooperative holding a conversation with the family and all of a sudden her face changes and she is done talking and no matter what I say I must be stopped.  Asking her to test is almost a death sentence for me. Restraining her is such an emotionally draining event I hate when we have to do that but she goes so high she can’t think straight refuses to take any corrective action.  I have picked her up from school and had her test - she will be HI and still enjoying her friends. Once they leave the car the venom starts to fly.

Is it just me? Do other mom’s have this same teenage issue? What are my options for handling it?

Happy Thanksgiving

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25. October 2010 by admin.

Her last doc appointment was in early September. Her A1C went down to 10.2.  While still strikingly high it is down 3 points from last time which says we are heading in the right direction.  She actually started getting sick when she hit 400 instead of feeling low.  She is behaving like she did a good thing and now she can go back to her old ways. Oh teenagers! We are struggling again with her but somehow she seems to hear us more than before. We tried the homeschooling route for the first 6 weeks and had terrible numbers and a young girl who spent way too much time alone - even when we got home she would retreat to her room. My straight A student was holding a solid D with a couple F’s for good measure. I did a search of charter schools and clicked on the one closest to us. I believe divine intervention was with me and I found a charter for high school that has an experiential and expedition based curriculum. It is an amazing high school. She has attended for only a few days and she is so much happier. Her numbers are better and her attitude is worse (well, more like a teenage girl). 

 We continue to work with her but I can’t help but wonder if there are other mom’s out there going through the same thing. Maybe they have a better idea or maybe it would be helpful to just know I am not alone….

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7. September 2010 by admin.

Her A1C was 13 3 months ago. She has a doctors appointment tomorrow morning and I hope the number goes down.

We have been on her every minute of every day (well I have - dad not so much).  She has started lieing to us about whether she has tested or taken insulin to correct or cover for her food.  I do not understand why she is so against covering for her food. What she says is ‘You don’t have to why should I?” I respond with a direct look into her eyes and ‘I don’t have diabetes - you do that means you test and cover with insulin’. It does give her pause and she does do it but she does not like it.

Being a strong willed teenager she is testing my patience. I have tried to talk with her about the permanent damage she is doing but at 14 she feels invincable - ‘it hasn’t happened yet so maybe it wont’.

I have tried to find support groups of other parents with teenagers but that does not seem to exist. Teenagers do not want to get together because of their ‘disease’ - that’s not cool.  I have talked with her endo team and asked if there are older patients with health issues resulting from A1C’s of 13.2 They tell me they don’t want to scare her that there are other ways to handle this. these other ways are not being presented other than to talk to her.

Can you hear the frustration?  I wish there were other 14 year old  kids out there with parents experiencing the same thing that I could bounce this stuff off of and maybe get some ideas.

bye for now.

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