In less than 2 days, we will be at Disney

While its dreary and cold and wet here, I can imagine what it will be like in TWO days when we are at Disney World!

Here's the weather report for our trip. Not too bad with only one day with any real chance of rain (30%) and my birthday is looking good (Dec 7):

Mon, Dec 8:
Sunny
High of 77
Low of 55
0% chance of rain

Sun, Dec 7:
Mostly Sunny
High of 76
Low of 51
10% chance of rain

Sat, Dec 6:
Partly Cloudy
High of 71
Low of 51
10% chance of rain

Fri, Dec 5:
Few Showers
High of 71
Low of 50
30% chance of rain

Thursday, Dec 4:
Partly Cloudy
High of 75
Low of 52
10% chance of rain

Wednesday, Dec 3:
Mostly Sunny
High of 72
Low of 52
10% chance of rain.

Tuesday, Dec 2:
Mostly Sunny
High of 65
Low of 40
10% chance of rain

Mom, don't forget to mail Morgan's birthday card if you haven't!

Weather report is looking better!

Well, all of the rain forecast on YESTERDAY's weather report is gone from today's. I think that's an indication of how volitile the weather can be. We've been when its freezing cold, and shorts weather, and lots of rain, and none. All of these weather reports within the same couple of weeks of the year.

So, here's where we are today:

Sun, Dec 7:
Mostly Sunny
High of 75
Low of 53
0% chance of rain

Sat, Dec 6:
Mostly Cloudy
High of 73
Low of 54
10% chance of rain

Fri, Dec 5:
Partly Cloudy
High of 77
Low of 54
0% chance of rain

Thursday, Dec 4:
Partly Cloudy
High of 75
Low of 55
10% chance of rain

Wednesday, Dec 3:
Sunny
High of 67
Low of 51
0% chance of rain.

Tuesday, Dec 2:
Partly Cloudy
High of 64
Low of 40
0% chance of rain

The trip seems to be starting off with a little cooler weather and then getting warmer during the week, which just means we need 2-3 seasons worth of clothes, as well as medium-weight jackets in addition to some shorts. Makes for some fun packing - NOT!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I hope you are enjoying a safe and happy holiday.

Today's weather forecast has a little bit of rain during our trip. But since I've see so many changes, and we are still a week out, I have confidence that it will get better (and I have shipped the ponchos down, just to be safe)

Sat, Dec 6:
Showers
High of 73
Low of 55
40% chance of rain

Fri, Dec 5:
Partly Cloudy
High of 75
Low of 54
10% chance of rain

Thursday, Dec 4:
Showers
High of 75
Low of 54
60% chance of rain

Wednesday, Dec 3:
Sunny
High of 67
Low of 51
0% chance of rain.

Tuesday, Dec 2:
Partly Cloudy
High of 64
Low of 41
0% chance of rain

Getting closer

Today, I'm getting ready for Thanksgiving and our house and shipping a box down to Disney World with items we don't want to have to pack in our suitcases (such as ponchos, juice boxes, etc)

Weather report for today:

Friday, Dec 5:
Mostly Sunny
High of 72
Low of 52
10% chance of rain.

Thursday, Dec 4:
Mostly Sunny
High of 74
Low of 52
10% chance of rain.

Wednesday, Dec 3:
Sunny
High of 71
Low of 53
0% chance of rain.

Tuesday, Dec 2:
Partly Cloudy
High of 67
Low of 49
0% chance of rain

Still looking like great weather

Weather is still looking great for our trip. Starting to have to think about getting packed - especially since I want to ship a box down in advance!

We leave one week from today!

Tuesday, Dec 2:
Partly Cloudy (yesterday it said Mostly Sunny - I STILL don't know the difference)
High of 72
Low of 52
0% chance of rain

Wednesday, Dec 3:
Sunny
High of 74
Low of 55
0% chance of rain.

Thursday, Dec 4:
Mostly Cloudy
High of 77
Low of 50
10% chance of rain.

New Pump!

We got Emma's new insulin pump today. Its an upgrade to our original pump (Animas 2020) called the One Touch Ping! It is a meter and a pump integrated.

For us, we wanted the ability to control the pump remotely. This means we don't have to pull it out of her pouch in order to dose her, or see what her insulin status is - its all on the meter. This will be especially valuable overnight, when we sometimes have to turn her over and dig out the pump to dose her.

For Emma, she wanted pink!

(Sorry the picture is grainy, out of focus, and not very good of Emma but she isn't cooperating for photos these days)

Bet you didn't know you were reading the blog of an amateur meteorologist, huh?

Tuesday, Dec 2:
Mostly Sunny
High of 72
Low of 53
0% chance of rain

Wednesday, Dec 3:
Mostly Cloudy
High of 75
Low of 56
10% chance of rain.

Gosh, if it gets much hotter, mom is actually going to say its TOO HOT! :)

So far, weather for our trip to visit our favorite rodent in Florida is looking promising!

Sunny, high of 73, low of 54, 0% chance of rain

That's the weather report for Dec 2 - the day that we arrive at Disney World. Sounds pretty good to me.

Only 10 days left. I've had trouble getting excited about the upcoming trip. I think its maybe because I'm afraid that its going to be crowded - due to the fact I couldn't get rooms at the resort I wanted nor a couple of meal reservations that I wanted. But I'm finally starting to get excited

We go when we do (beginning of December) because its supposed to be one of the least crowded times, the weather is still great, and we LOVE to see the Christmas decorations. I hope all of those still prove true this trip!

I've done my part to stimulate the economy!

I went shopping for Christmas presents today.

I have to tell you, I'm surprised at how expensive and BIG everything is. You can't just get a "small set of Tinkertoys", it has to be the "Super Size themed with colors" Tinkertoys - and price tag to go along with it.

And the electronics are all just expensive. Since kids are "engaged" with electronics earlier in their lives, its more years of electronics we have to deal with.

I even did my part to help the credit markets - I got a new credit card. Approved on the spot. I got a ToysRUs credit card that got me 10% off my purchases today (which I can say was NOT insignificant) and 6 months, no interest to pay. Since we are well disciplined in paying bills and don't pay interest or penalties on any of our credit cards, this is a safe approach for us to take and it spreads out our Christmas payments until June!

Have you done your part?

Good diabetes news!

Emma had her quarterly checkup yesterday. For many people, this is the only contact they have with their endocrinologist practice. For me, that is not the case (not withstanding the fact that I saw our nurse and Dr. at the JDRF Gala on Saturday). I email the nurse pretty often when we have trends that I can't figure out and need another set of eyes. She's really good at not just telling me what we should change, but WHY so that I can try and understand and make the change myself in the future.

The good news is that all of our discipline pays off - our A1C is 7.0%. We are all pretty happy with that for a couple of reasons. In general, its a great number for a 3-year-old. It equates to an average 170 blood glucose reading over the past 3 months. We've been seeing some lows that I don't like but the doctor is convinced that we aren't missing them, or our A1C would be lower. The other reason we are happy is because its down a smidgen from our previous one (7.1%). Every little bit helps. We've been working on her rates a lot and I was worried it would be a lot higher, so we're happy.

Everything else looks great and I always like going to these appointments!!

And, because I hadn't shared before - here is a photo of Mike and me from the JDRF Gala in DC this past Saturday:

JDRF Gala

A short post now. A longer one later.

Last night we attended the Gala for our JDRF Chapter. After a last minute change in location due to the G20 summit, the event landed at the Mellon Auditorium on Constitution Ave.

I bought a new formal and borrowed some great jewelry from a friend. It was a great cocktail hour and silent auction, followed by dinner and a live auction.

Our Endocrinologist (Dr. Cogan) and our Nurse (Celia Henderson) were both there, so it was nice to chat "outside of the office".

The MC of the event was Amy Robach from NBC. Much to Mike's chagrin, I went up and introduced myself. She used to be on the board of the chapter and has a family connection to Type 1 diabetes. When I mentioned that I lived in Loudoun County, she immediately connected it to the recent election as she was sent here to cover this "swing county" in the "Swing state" of Virginia.

Very tired today from being up late at the party and then late checking Emma.

A typical day

In honor of World Diabetes Day, I thought I'd post what a typical day for a Type 1 diabetic (or parent of a Type 1 diabetic) is like. Of course, the irony is that there isn't a typical day - there are so many variables and factors that go into a diabetic's blood sugar, that normal doesn't happen, but here we go:

Morning
7:00am - Emma gets up. We check her blood sugar first thing. Recently she has either been waking up in range (70-150) or low. If she's low, we have to give her juice before she eats
7:30am - Emma eats breakfast. Every meal she has needs to have a protein in addition to carbs. Protein slows down the absorption of carbs and paces it better with the action of the insulin. She is given insulin through her pump for her breakfast.
9:30am - Check Emma's blood sugar. Her morning numbers have been a little crazy so we have to do a 2-hour post-meal check. These days, she is in the low end of range at this time, which means more testing. If she's below 100, we give her 2 ounces of juice because the insulin is still working in her body and she'll go even lower if we don't.
11:00am - Check Emma's blood sugar. If she's below 80, we give her between 1 and 2 ounces of juice

Afternoon
12:00pm - Check Emma's blood sugar and feed her lunch. These days she has started arguing with me about what she wants to eat. So, I can't give her insulin before she eats, because there's no guarantee she will eat it. So, she eats (or doesn't eat) and then we give her insulin based on what she ate.
12:30pm - Emma goes to take a nap - sometimes she goes right to sleep and sometimes she's awake for a long time.
3:00pm - Check Emma's blood sugar. Whether she's awake or not, we need to check her reading. There is just no telling whether she's going to be low, high, or in between, so we need to check. The good news is that we only have 4-5 combinations of food that she eats for lunch, so we are pretty confident in the carb counts that we are using.
5:00pm - Check Emma's blood sugar. This is a crazy time of day for Emma. During sports seasons, we are often heading out to baseball or soccer so she's running around a lot, which makes her readings drop. If we are at home, she's a lot calmer, so her readings will go up. Obviously, its not steady so we need to check.

Evening and Overnight
6:30pm - Check Emma's blood sugar for dinner. Dinner time varies a lot based on what activities the kids have and what time Mike is getting home from work. Dinner also introduces the most variability in carb counts as we have more variety for dinner than any other meal. Its often a meal with a higher fat content too, which affects Emma's blood sugars.
8:00pm - Bedtime for Emma.
8:30 - 9:00pm - Check Emma's blood sugar. Based on what we ate, how confident we are in the carb counts that we did, and what Emma's reading was before dinner, we check her between 2 and 2 1/2 hours after dinner. She's often not been in her room for long, so she's often not asleep or just going to sleep. But we have to disturb her to check her and sometimes give her juice if she's low.
10:00pm, 11:00pm, midnight, 2am, 3am, 4am - any of those times overnight, we have to check Emma's blood sugar. Each night we have to make a decision based on what she ate, what her 8:30pm reading was, what else is going on, whether she went right to sleep, etc. There are many variables that factor into the decision each night.

Each time we check Emma and she is low (below 80), we have to give her juice. Usually that means a re-check in 30-60 minutes to make sure she really DID go back up. If she's high enough that we need to give her a correction with insulin, we have to check her in 2 hours to make sure she came down, and didn't come down too low.

The other variable is the unknown. Since Emma cannot tell when she's high or low, we have to try to read the symptoms. If she's fussy or cranky, we have to test to see if she's low or high. But, lets not forget that she's 3. She can be fussy or cranky because she's 3, or because she's low or high. We hate that we have to test because we don't know.

Every 3-4 days, we have to change the location of her pump site. After a period of time, the tissues of your body become saturated with insulin and you need a new site. We rotate from time to time between her rump and her belly. Over the past 2 1/2 months we have found that her insulin needs are a lot lower when her site is on her belly. Which means we've had to adjust all of her insulin doses to accommodate. Which means more testing. We have also found that after we change her site, her body is so excited to have fresh insulin in a fresh site that it goes nuts and she drops low - really low. So, we are often fighting low readings for 6-12 hours after a site change - luckily its only every 3-4 days.

So as you see, you tend to be "time driven" when you have Type 1 diabetes. Its always about when the next time is to test, when you ate last, how much insulin is still working in your body, whether the fat in your food is going to make you spike later, whether a new site is going to make you go low, whether the exercise you did in the afternoon will make you go low, or the adrenalin in your system will make you go high, whether you looked at your mother wrong, whether the moon is in a strange cycle, or Jupiter and Mars are visible at sundown.

There are just so many factors that the best you can do is have discipline and structure and test often - keep them from going too low or too high and have as normal a life as possible and you've succeeded.

Diabetes symptoms come on gradually

Many ask how I knew that Emma was sick and I can talk about the symptoms that she was experiencing, but its easy to look back and see what you were missing. Emma was taken to the Urgent Care with an ear infection on New Years Eve 2006. That was the first time she had had any sort of illness - she had been surprisingly healthy. Within 2 1/2 months, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. And looking back at the photos of her during that 2 1/2 months, I'm surprised we didn't suspect anything sooner about her illness.

Here's some information from the Children With Diabetes site that talks about the gradual development of Type 1 Diabetes:

Diabetes Develops Gradually

The process of developing diabetes is gradual. Studies performed by the Joslin Clinic1 have shown changes as much as nine years before the actual presentation of diabetes symptoms. The development of Type 1 diabetes can be broken down into five stages:

• Genetic predisposition
• Environmental trigger
• Active autoimmunity
• Progressive beta-cell destruction
• Presentation of the symptoms of Type 1 diabetes

People with Type 1 diabetes have a genetic pre-disposition to the disease, but one or more environmental insults is required to trigger disease. This fact can be derived from studies of identical twins with Type 1 diabetes. When one twin has Type 1 diabetes, the other twin gets diabetes only half the time. If the cause of Type 1 diabetes were purely genetic, both identical twins would always have Type 1 diabetes.

One environmental trigger is thought to be the Coxsackie B virus. Researchers at UCLA found that a small segment of GAD is structurally similar to a segment of a Coxsackie B protein. GAD is found on the surface of insulin-producing beta cells. The implication is that the body's immune system, after warding off the Coxsackie B virus, continues to attack beta cells because of the similarity of GAD to the virus.2

The environmental trigger results in the production of autoantibodies. People with Type 1 diabetes have antibodies in their blood that indicate an "allergy to self," or an autoimmune condition. One autoantibody found in people with Type 1 diabetes is the islet cell antibody. This antibody is often present months or years before the diabetes presents. Other antibodies include the GAD (or 64-K) antibody and the ICA 512 antibody. The presence of these antibodies is a sign that the body is attacking its own beta cells.

Symptoms of Diabetes
Once over 90% of the beta cells are destroyed, the body is no longer able to regulate blood sugar levels and the patient develops some or all of the classic symptoms of diabetes:

• excessive thirst
• excessive urination
• excessive hunger
• weight loss
• fatigue
• blurred vision
• high blood sugar level
• sugar and ketones in the urine
• Kussmaul breathing (rapid, deep, and labored breathing of people who have ketoacidosis or who are in a diabetic coma)

While the symptoms appear abruptly, the development of the disease actually occurs over a much longer period of time.

So, despite the fact that we saw the obvious symptoms for about 2 1/2 weeks, it was clear that Emma was developing this disease over a period of time. And I'm just glad that we identified it when we did or she could have been much worse before she was diagnosed.

Bartering Supplies

Anyone who has a chronic illness, has had a major medical problem, or who has to deal with insurance companies on a regular basis will laugh at this post.

Insurance companies are weird in what they decide to pay for and not pay for.

They have argued over and over with us about how many blood GLUCOSE test strips we get a month. We test on average about 11 times a day, which is 330 strips a month. And that's when Emma's not sick. If she's sick, or if she's having a lot of lows, we test more. But they wanted to just pay for 200 strips a month, so I've had to fight and get pre-authorization, and REMIND them that they pre-authorized in order to get enough test strips.

It took me about 3 months to get them to approve the blood KETONE testing strips - something you need to test for when a diabetic is running high numbers. When we first got the prescription, it was denied at Target - they were told it was a "medical" expense and not a "pharmacy" expense. So, I submitted the prescription to the approved medical supply company. It was denied - they were told it was a pharmacy expense. It took lots of phone calls from me AND the nurse from the Doctor's office, and finally my demanding a conference call with the supervisor from the Pharmacy Dept AND the Medical Supply Department where I got them to agree which department would be paying for this prescription and who would be calling to tell the supplier.

So, now I get two boxes a month of the blood KETONE strips - 10 in a box. Only once have I used 10 in a month. Many months I only use 1 or 2 strips. So, I have about 15 unopened boxes.

Someone on the Children With Diabetes message board today indicated that she had drums for the lancet that we use and she need blood GLUCOSE strips. Well, I don't have extra ones of those (because of the story above about arguing between 200 and 350). BUT, I have a TON of the Blood KETONE strips. Many people have trouble getting insurance to cover these strips.

So, I'm sending several boxes of Blood KETONE strips to a member of the board. She is sending blood GLUCOSE strips to the person who has the drums for the lancet. And that person is sending me some of the drums for the lancet that we like to use.

This is a ridiculous game to be played - thanks to a screwed up insurance system. But, as long as insurance is going to be screwed up, we'll figure out how to work the system the way it needs to be worked. I'll get rid of some items that will expire before I have a chance to use them, and get something that I'd like to have extras of. And everyone is happy.

Thanks for your service!

At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the armistice treaty between the Allies and Germany was signed, ending World War I.

Since then, this day has become the day to not only celebrate the end to a brutal and bloody war, but to celebrate and honor all of the veterans of this country. Military service in this country is not required, but is left to those who volunteer. It takes a person of great personal strength and commitment to take on such a serious commitment, even moreso during a time of war.

Remember today to honor and thank all former and current members of our Armed Services for everything that they do to keep this the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

Emma's numbers - finally pretty good

Last night notwithstanding, when I fought super-low numbers all night, Emma's numbers are finally starting to stabilize. We have been fighting unexplained highs, random lows, and everything in between. We have changed every basal rate on her pump (the ongoing stream of insulin to keep her steady) and bolus ratio (the amount we give her when she eats).

She actually had a meal last week where her preschool teacher FORGOT to give her insulin with her food - and she was still under 200 2 hours later. That means she would have been low had she HAD insulin.

Finally, after playing over and over with the morning numbers, we had a good morning at preschool today. She was 147 at 2 hours after breakfast and 100 at 2 hours later after snack - both of those numbers are smack-dab perfect and can't ask for more.

I look forward to getting back to a period when I'm not checking all the time because we don't know what's happening. We had a happy 3-4 month period where she was very stable and I could pretty much predict what her numbers were going to be when, and we rarely had to get up overnight. We've been back to getting up at least once (or twice or three-times or four-times) overnight for a couple of months now and its getting old.

Thankfully we have a great nurse who does most things by email (often at 10pm at night), can take an export of my pump readings and give me recommendations right from there. Its so much easier than trying to fax in numbers and trying to get a response.

Under 12 Girls Fall Classic Champions

With a 2-0-2 record in the tournament this weekend, Samantha's team, the South Riding United, won the Under 12 Girls Championship.

All of the games this weekend were hard fought. Our first game on Saturday morning was against the Gators and we won 1-0. Our second game was against the Hokies. It was a tough game with a LOT of shots on goals for both teams, but in the end it was tied 0-0. We went into today tied for first place with the Hokies, each team with one win and one tie.

Our first game today was played with great skill. All of the girls seemed to really be on their game, the defense was keeping the ball away from the goal and the offense was pushing forward and scoring. We started the game with two quick goals and in the end won 5-0. That score would ultimately be the one that won the tournament for us. Our fourth and final game of the tournament was played against the Monarchs - the only team that beat us this season. They scored a goal about halfway through and we were down 1-0. We fought back and fought back, but couldn't score as time was rapidly ticking away. Finally in the final minutes, one of our players kicked a huge kick that went OVER the goalies head for the tying goal. That game resulted in a 1-1 tie.

So that left it to the final game. The entire team watched the game and cheered for the Gators - if the Gators beat the Hokies, we were the champions. If the Hokies win, we're second place. And then there's the situation of a tie. If the Hokies tie the Gators, then we have even records at the end of 4 games. And lo and behold, that's what happened.

So at the end of 4 games, the South Riding United and the Hokies are tied with a 2-0-2 record. The tournament director has to pull out the tiebreaking rules to determine who wins. First criteria: who won head to head competition? Well, it was a tie. Then, it went to the team with most wins - we each had 2. At that point it went to Bonus Points. Bonus Points are awarded for each goal above and beyond your competitor in each game, for a maximum of 3. We won a game 1-0 yesterday for 1 bonus point. We won a game today 5-0 for 3 bonus points, for a total of 4. The Hokies won 2-1 yesterday and 3-1 today for a total of 3 bonus points.

So we won!! It was touch and go all day and Samantha really did a great job in the last game of playing defense and helping to keep the ball away from our goal.

1-0-1 and 2.25

1-0-1: That's Samantha's soccer team's record after the first day of tournament play. They could have beat the team they tied - they just weren't playing their best today. We won the first game 1-0 and tied the second on 0-0. So two more games tomorrow and then we'll find out our standings. We are "tied" for first right now - but its round robin and we have two more teams to play tomorrow. The team we tied today is the other team tied for first place. It will be interesting tomorrow.

2.25 - that's how much I paid per gallon for gas this morning on the way to the game. I can remember when we were aghast at a price that high - now we celebrate how low it is!

Appointments

A nice thing about homeschooling is that you can schedule appointments "during the day" and not worry about "missing school".

But here's the thing - you do miss school.

I try to schedule things in the afternoon, because the majority of our schoolwork is done in the morning. But it doesn't always happen that way.

I have a great schedule that we follow on most days that gets all of our work done efficiently. Until we have an appointment.

If we have an appointment during the morning, it throws the entire schedule off. So I have to figure out what to do. Because I have my mother's brain that doesn't always think in the morning, often having an appointment means skipping most everything else.

Practicing their piano is a priority. Doing part of their writing assignment for writing class is a priority. Both of these are because there are others involved with their progress (or lack thereof). So I make those a priority. Often when there's an appointment in the AM, the only thing that happens is piano practicing and their writing assignments.

I'm hoping to find a way to integrate appointments more easily into the schedule but it hasn't happened yet - I'm still hoping.

Can she have this?

I get asked this question a lot. Its a very valid question. Many people have not had an interaction around a Type 1 diabetic that involved food. And honestly, until I had one in my own family, my knowledge was very limited as well.

The treatment of Type 1 diabetes has changed significantly over the last generation, the last 10 years, and even the last 5, with the introduction of single "24-hour" insulins, fast-acting insulins, and insulin pumps to replace the regimented, scheduled treatments of the previous generations.

For Emma, its all about carbs. She asks me all the time, "How many carbs does this have?" or she tells me herself. Because for a diabetic, its carbohydrates that are converted into sugar. Its the sugar that is poison to her system - IF she doesn't have insulin to counteract it. Its all about the carbs

And in previous generations, diabetics were relegated to eating a certain number of carbs at a certain time to day, to match the action of their insulin. Now Emma can eat any amount she wants at any TIME she wants (or whatever we decide whenever we get around to eating it). Its just a matter of matching her insulin dose to the carbs she eats.

So, it might be grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Or, it might be a McDonalds Happy Meal with Chicken Nuggets and French Fries. Or even a big piece of birthday cake after a couple of greasy pieces of pizza.

Its all ok for her! And we're very thankful for the treatment advances over the past years that have made it possible.

And I'm happy to continue to educate my friends and acquaintances who ask out of genuine concern and love for Emma and a desire to keep her safe and healthy. Yes, its ok if she has that piece of candy, but thanks for asking!

What is normal?

When you talk about blood sugars, you often ask the question (or you are ASKED the question), "What is normal"?

Well, normal means lots of things.

For a completely healthy non-diabetic, normal blood sugar readings would be 70-120.
Even right after a meal.

Your body has an amazing ability to secrete insulin that is immediately effective on sugars in your system - synthetic insulin is much slower.

Normal for a Type 2 diabetic that is diet-controlled is about the same as a non-diabetic.

Normal for a diabetic is a bit different. Would we LOVE Emma to always be within 70 and 120 for her readings? ABSOLUTELY.

Will that happen? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Is it normal to see a reading over 200 after breakfast? Yep
Is it normal to see a reading of 50 after a lot of activity? Yep
Is it normal to see an unexplained reading of 300+? Yep
Is it normal to see an unexplained reading below 40? Yep

So, for us, normal is relative. We target numbers in the 80 - 150 range. But its not abnormal to see anywhere from 50 - 300!

For a diabetic, its not about a single number. Its about how we deal with that single number, how we react to trends, and how we fix a situation that we handled incorrectly (overdose, underdose, missed dose, bad pump site, bad insulin, illness, etc)

One reading at a time.

Symptoms of Type 1 diabetes

In honor of National Diabetes Awareness Month, I'm going to have a series of posts over the month that hopefully help to educate and raise awareness about diabetes. I know I have some readers that aren't associated with Type 1 diabetes, so I hope this is beneficial.

When people ask me how I knew that Emma should be checked for diabetes, my answer is simple: she was drinking an enormous amount of water and peeing a lot! It was that simple.

Diabetics without insulin cannot process carbohydrates and convert them to energy (because they need insulin to do that). Therefore, their system tries to dispose of the carbohydrates and they end up as sugar in the person's blood stream. Having excess sugar in the blood stream makes the person thirsty. They keep drinking and drinking trying to quench a thirst that is unquenchable.

When a person's body doesn't get its energy from carbohydrates, it burns body fat to get energy. The resulting by-product of that process are ketones. This process makes a diabetic lose weight and ketones are poisonous to the human body.

The excess water the person is drinking, combined with the ketones produced by the body, makes a person need to use the bathroom A LOT. Its so extreme that it can be quite obvious that a person needs to go all the time.

Most people that have identified a person with diabetes, or suspected a person has diabetes, usually picks up on these two symptoms - drinking a lot of water and using the bathroom a lot.

Some of the other related symptoms include: loss of weight, dark circles under the eyes, lethargy due to lack of energy from food, and extreme irritability.

Identifying a person at risk to Type 1 diabetes EARLY is key to help them get the diagnosis and begin the insulin treatment that is crucial to save their life. Many diabetics have been diagnosed because they were admitted to the hospital almost in a coma from the extreme high blood sugar levels.

Being aware of the symptoms of Type 1 diabetes and discussing any concerns with the family doctor is the key to early diagnosis.

Second Place!

We had a very exciting baseball weekend!

Michael's travel team played in a tournament with 4 teams - 3 from the regular season league and 1 additional team. It was a double-elimination tournament.

We lost our first game on Saturday to the Manassas Generals - we lost all 4 games to them in the regular season. The second game on Saturday was against the Virginia Young Guns, who we beat twice and lost to twice in the regular season. At the end of the 2 hour time limit, we were tied 10-10. The tiebreaking rules say that you play another inning starting with a runner on 2nd base. Well, it was 6:05 and it was clear we couldn't finish that inning before dark, so the entire inning was rescheduled to play at 9:30 on Sunday morning.

That was very advantageous for us - a pitcher who couldn't be there on Saturday could be there Sunday morning.

So we went to the field on Sunday morning just hoping to win the one inning we play at 9:30. We batted first and scored two runs, and then shut down the other team and won the game 12-10.

The boys were ecstatic, but had to regroup beause we now had to play the Manassas Generals again.

We played a FANTASTIC game. Our pitcher SHUT THEM DOWN and we won 12-0 in 4 innings due to the mercy rule. This against a team that we hadn't beat all season!

So all of a sudden we were in the finals against a fantastic team from Harrisonburg - the Valley Diamond Dawgs. This team was intimidating.

Our boys played very well and while we lost 9-5, it was very competitive and we were thrilled at how well the team did.

We beat BOTH of our regular season opponents in the tournament and came in 2nd to a great team - great results for our first season as a travel team.

Michael had a tough time pitching due to a sore arm - we were all disappointed (including him) that we weren't able to have him pitch more - but he hit the ball very well and played strong in the outfield, including assisting in a play to prevent a hitter from getting a home run by getting the ball in and eventually having the catcher tag the runner at home!

Winning doesn't always mean 1st place - as far as I'm concerned, we WON!

My mother will laugh at this!

When I was growing up, we spent a lot of time at the baseball field. There was this little boy who was always running around the field - his brother was a couple of years older than him and was often on my brother's team.

Well, this boy never met a dirt pile or a mud puddle he didn't like. He was ALWAYS covered in dirt.

I am now the mother of one of these - she is 3 and her name is Emma!

Happy Birthday Granny!

Just taking a quick stop home between baseball tournament games and wanted to take a quick second to wish Granny a Happy Birthday!