Today, I'm spending my birthday with my best friend, recovering from our collective "Birdy flu."

Two nerdy birdies, hanging out and getting better.

Posted by Kerri Sparling at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Grown-ups can handle being sick, for the most part.  (Unless you have a cold, and you're a guy.)  But outside of those perimeters, I'm able to handle a nasty cold or even a bout with the flu.

But I'm not good with my kid being sick.  Not good at all.

It's not that I overreact and lose my cool.  Over the weekend, when Birdy woke up from a sound sleep and covered everything in her crib with vomit, my husband and I handled it with as much grace as we could manage.  She'd never been sick in that way before (kid had her first "legit cold" last week; we've been luck that she's been very healthy for the last twenty months), so the learning curve for all of us was steep.  Chris and I had to figure out how to unearth her from beneath all the gross, puke-covered clothes without getting ourselves completely covered, and Birdy had to try and wrap her head around the fact that breakfast and lunch were heading out the way they came in.  (Also, "puke" is a horrible word.  It's onomatopoeia at its nastiest.)  And after several hours, when it became clear that our little Bird wasn't able to keep anything in her system and we were nervous about dehydration, we shuffled off to the doctor.

After a long night and hours of observation, the vomiting stopped.  This weekend, Birdy spent the day lounging around on the couch, watching the same episode of Sesame Street over and over again, and alternating between sleeping snuggled with her "bim" (her name for her special blanket) and her "mama" (her not-as-special-but-still-warms-my-heart-when-I-hear-it name for me). 

And then I caught her illness.  It's been fun (lies), and we've learned the following:

• The washing machine and the dryer are capable of running for 24 hours straight, without a break.  Even through the night, and without waking the sleeping baby.  Nice job, Samsung.
• That small children are capable of expelling mass amounts of blech in a matter of seconds.
• There isn't a diaper in existence that can properly contain toddler diarrhea.  I know that's graphic and gross to read, but let's keep in mind that cleaning up after this statement is worse than reading it.  So cut me some slack, and see aforementioned bullet point about loving my washer/dryer. 
  
• Pedialyte that claims to be "flavorless" is lying.  Somehow, Birdy knows the difference between a sippy cup of Pedialyte and a sippy cup of water.  She would never lose at a Pepsi Challenge.
• Seeing my normally happy and energetic toddler reduced to a small, sad lump on the couch breaks my heart in ways I wasn't prepared for. 
  
• There are doctors and nurses who show such unflagging amounts of compassion and intelligence, even as they examine a distressed (read: sobbing and puking) child at 2 am.  Those medical professionals are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
  
• That even though I test my blood sugar several times a day, I couldn't watch while they tested my daughter's heel.  (Her result was fine, but those five seconds were the longest in history.)
  
• I learned that snuggling a sick child may cause you to catch sick child's sickness.
• And then I learned about trying to care for a recovering little one when you're becoming sick, yourself.  Explaining to the baby, "I'll make your breakfast as soon as I finish throwing up," is a weird sentence for an almost-two year old to grasp.  
• Family members who willingly enter the Thunderdome of Pukefest 2012 are brave and invaluable people.  I'd have been lost without my sister and mother coming to help.
• (Which is why I hope they forgive us when they end up sick as dogs.)
• Ketones are those things you read about, when you have diabetes, but until you have them for hours on end, you forget how much they suck.  My own illness brought about moderate ketones, and the back pain, nausea, and overall blech of ketones, stacked on top of the instigating illness, just sucks.
• And no matter how long I've had diabetes, it's still weird to intentionally eat carbs when you're high, just to flush the ketones.  I can't wrap my head around that, entirely.
• A 160% basal rate wasn't enough to wrangle in my blood sugars, which blows my mind.  How much insulin does an illness need to function?  
• A diet of popsicles, tea, and Saltines is what we've both been on for the last three days, and I'm suddenly craving a cheeseburger.
• I am really looking forward to seeing Birdy run around, yelling with happiness, and upending everything in her bedroom.  Because this quiet, sad little Bird isn't the Bird I'm used to.  Damn this illness and how it has sapped my kid of all her happies. 
  

Watching your kid go a few rounds with an illness sucks.  Battling that illness at the same time also sucks. 

Germs suck. 

Posted by Kerri Sparling at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

Birdy was sick over the weekend (Pukefest 2012) and apparently was contagious.  Thankfully, the Bird is better but her mom is sick now. And using third person POV to shield herself from the awful truth of horrible dehydration, moderate ketones, and the shame of stealing her kid's Pedalyte popsicles.

See you tomorrow!

Posted by Kerri Sparling at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I destroy medical IDs.  Casually, and without much effort, unfortunately.  I've lost them on the soccer field (as a kid).  I've put them through the dryer by accident and they've disappeared straight into Narnia.  And there are the ones that just evaporate into the ether of college (read: it ended up lost at the bar). 

I've killed even the most resilient bracelets.  Back in the day (when I was 17), I had one of the diabetes medical alert bracelets with the large-link chain and the metal plate.  That sucker was solid, but one October morning before school, I managed to catch it on the emergency brake in my car, and it snapped and the pieces flew all over the car.  (I was picking up little metal links well into summer.)

But now, I'm a slightly more responsible adult, and I'm trying to wear a medical alert bracelet as often as possible.  I do a lot of solo traveling, so having something that lets people know I have diabetes in the (hopefully never) instances when I can't speak for myself is a safety net I don't want to pass up.  And thankfully, medical alert jewelry isn't as ghastly as it was back when I was diagnosed. 

This bracelet is one I received from the team at Lauren's Hope, and it's pretty enough to wear every day, but the alert plate is big enough that I feel confident it will be noticed as a medic alert ID.  

I asked for the inscription on the back, because I have this fear of being in some kind of situation where my pump will be accidentally disconnected, and I want any kind of emergency personnel to know that I am insulin-dependent.

It's pretty.  I love it.  Birdy loves it.  ("Pretty, Mama!"  Then, "Eat?"  One track mind on that kid.)  It's functional.  And it's point is to save my life, if such a need arises. I'm hoping I can go at least a few months without breaking this one, clumsy bird that I am.

(Okay, disclosure time.  Lauren's Hope sent me this bracelet for free.  They also sent one to Abby.  They did not ask me to write about it, but I think they could safely assume that I would.  They're offering a discount code for SUM readers, if you're inclined to order anything for yourself.  My biases are disclosed, per usual.  But my opinions, also per usual, are my own.  And this disclosure, per usual, is too long.)

Posted by Kerri Sparling at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

This isn't my video, but I love it.  I saw this on Arianna's Facebook page, and I'm posting it here because it made me laugh out loud.  It's the perfect complement to Marcus's video.  If you're the girl who made this video and you're reading this:  THANK YOU.  You cracked me up.

(My favorite part:  " What would happen if you ate a chocolate bar?")

Posted by Kerri Sparling at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Last night was an at-home workout (so I could get a little exercise in without missing the Wednesday night #dsma chat), so I was holed up in the basement with the ellipmachine and Stephen Colbert, with a starting blood sugar of 138 mg/dL.

At the twenty-three minute mark of my workout, I started to feel a little strange.  Heavy.  Like each foot had a big, fat chicken sitting on it, trying desperately to hatch it.  My arms were over-cooked spaghetti noodles.  And from the shelf, just a few feet away, I could hear the Dexcom buzzing over the sounds of Colbert's applauding audience.

"Twenty-three minutes ... I can get to thirty." 

Stupid, stupid, stupid Kerri.  This is the same brand of stupid where I think I need to test my blood sugar at 3 am before any drinking juice, despite the fact that I'm damp with nighttime sweat and dizzy.  And the very same brand of stupid where I clean the house instead of treating the low.  When the glucose is sapped from my cells, my brain doesn't know how to prioritize. It's like I need to challenge myself, taking control of a situation that's rapidly spiraling out of it, despite the fact that the smart and safe thing to do is treat the low.  But my brain doesn't function properly when I'm under a certain blood sugar threshold.

So instead of stopping my workout and going upstairs to raid the fridge, I pushed through the workout for a few more minutes, until that rational part of my brain spoke up.  

"Um, Kerri?"

I keep moving my legs, concentrating on the computer screen halfway across the room that was broadcasting the Hulu show.

"Hey, Kerri?"  My Internal Motivational Speaker pipes up again, more forcefully this time.

"Unh." 

"You need to go drink some juice."

I'm so low and so confused, but still trucking forward with this workout.  In my mind, I'm an elite athlete and moving with pop-and-lock precision.  But in reality, I'm loose and fogged up, my knees buckling every few seconds.  My whole body is screaming at me to STOP but my brain is drunk with power (seeing as how it's probably the only part of my body receiving any glucose).

"I need to get some juice," I say outloud, like I just thought of it.  I can hear my Internal Motivational Speaker sighing.  The ellipmachine shows a completed time of 18:58 and my brain is rattled by the fact that the numbers aren't round and complete.  (What is it about that need for symmetry and control when my blood sugar is in the trenches?  Why can't I force myself to focus on what I need, instead of what my OCD flare-ups are re-prioritizing for me?)

Once upstairs in the kitchen, my meter shows me at 48 mg/dL.  The grape juice enters my system almost immediately, firing off the synapses that were previously on snooze.  I start to relax.  I start to come up.  My brain switches back on in full.  And I realize how stupid, stupid, stupid I am.

"I'm an idiot," I mutter, wiping the sweat from my brow.

"I agree," the voice in my head mutters back.

(But damn it, once I was back up in range, I finished my workout.  Am I stubborn?  Yes, yes I am.)

Posted by Kerri Sparling at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (31)

Today's guest post is from a fellow Clara Barton Camp alumni, Julia.  She's spending some time studying abroad in Denmark, exploring her new surroundings with her insulin pump by her side.  (Sidenote:  Every time I've met Julia, she's been armed with a giant camera in her hands.  My kind of PWD.)

This past semester, I decided to test out my survival skills and study abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark.

... okay so it wasn’t quite as dramatic as the Hunger Games-esque experience I was secretly hoping for, but I did have my fair share of diabetes moments that required some survival-of-the-fittest techniques (or as survival-of-the-fittest as a first world country can get). Prior to departure, I knew little about Copenhagen other than it has good pastries, lots of bicycles, free health care, and the largest number of happy people in the world. [Editor's note: Is this true? Are the Danish super happy?]  All things I’m strongly in favor of – so why not?

I knew I would encounter some challenges with diabetes, so I tried to take as many precautionary measures as I could. The biggest one was ending my nearly two-year pump-break and going on a shots-hiatus. I reconnected ole yeller [Editor's note again: I'm going on the assumption that Ole Yeller is the pump.]  back in July, about a month before leaving, while working at CBC, where I was surrounded by diabetes experts. This gave me time to readjust to pumpster and figure out some basals and ratios. I’m more in check with my diabetes while on shots, but I knew my life abroad would be hectic and I’d need some extra flexibility. Best. Decision. Ever.

For the most part, I feel like diabetes didn’t really impact my life in Copenhagen. I had an incredible time, and the majority of my daily life wasn’t too out of the ordinary. With the exclusion of:

1. Weird carb counting (so this whole package weighs 534.7 grams and 100 grams has 29.8 carbs and each cookie feels like it weighs three billion grams soooo I guess I’ll just bolus for 12 carbs)
2. Biking everywhere all the time (I love incognito exercise. Unless it’s 7:30 am and I need to bike 30 minutes to class and my blood sugar is 43)
3. Living alone

The housing I chose gave me my own room, kitchenette, and bathroom. I lived basically completely alone for the first time. This was great because I secretly love being alone. But this also absolutely terrified me –What if I have a really bad low? What if I have a seizure? What if my pump breaks and then my back-up pump breaks and then my insulin all goes bad and I go into DKA and I’m too stubborn to tell anyone and then I slip into a coma? Thankfully, these things didn’t happen. I had my fair share of lows, but my dear friend Dexcom helped me catch them before they ever became too severe. And I had multiple run-ins with fairly massive ketones, but never to the point of needing medical attention. Phewf.

But my biggest dia-abroad-fail moment ended up costing me quite a hefty sum of money. One night, after leaving my meter and Dexcom in my apartment and with my pump was trickling on its last few drops, I lost my keys. My super intendant wasn’t answering his phone, so I couldn’t get the master key. So I coined some first world survival techniques and called a locksmith. But he ended up needing to drill through my lock, destroying it. Between the locksmith and the new lock, I ended up paying about 2500 Danish Kroner – around $500. Ouch.

This little fiasco was one of a few I’M GONNA DIE WHAT AM I DOING HERE moments. But they were always short-lived, thanks to this beautiful new thing called the Internet, where you can almost instantly talk across the globe to people with diabetes. I know my diabetes wasn’t as well managed as it has been in the past, and maybe I could have paid a smidgen more attention to diabetes. But looking back, I wouldn’t do it any other way. I didn’t let diabetes hold me back from biking everywhere or trying new foods or from traveling to seven different countries. I not only survived and avoided any real disaster, but I explored, learned, and grew; both as Julia-with-diabetes, and as just plain Julia.

*   *   *

Julia Romano has had Type 1 diabetes since the ripe old age of twelve, and is currently a junior studying psychology and theater at Skidmore College. In the summer, Julia ventures to Massachusetts to play with dianuggets (“dianugget”: a wonderful and adorable child with diabetes) at Clara Barton Camp. Julia loves elephants, knitting, and fanny packs – hoping to someday knit a fanny pack for an elephant. She isn’t sure where her life will end up post-graduation, but she knows it will probably involve grad school, laughter, and children with chronic diseases.

Posted by Abby (the Person) at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Dexcom graphs that look like gigantic Ms and Ws?  I see those all the time.  But when I sift through the pile of photos I have on my computer (in the folder marked "Diabetes Crap;" I can write real good, Ma), the Dexcom graphs I see are all pretty.  Nice, straight lines or soft bell curves, without the sharp angles.

I know these pictures aren't representative of how my diabetes is controlled, on a day-to-day basis.  There are way more times that I'm muttering "You stupid jerkface pancreas ..." than moments when I want to whip out my camera and take a snapshot for posterity.  But I like having these happier photos outnumber the ones that make me grimace, because when I need a lift, it's nice to have a catalog to draw from.  This is what I chose to document, visually, because it inspires me to earn this photo opportunity again, you know?

I chose to document this, because it made me feel good.

May will mark the end of my seventh year blogging at SUM (and starts the eighth year - jeepers), and when I look back through the archives, I'm weirdly proud to see a diversity in what's documented.  There are some really high moments (high as in "emotionally high," not "OMG, how did that 312 mg/dL sneak in there?" high), like when the Bird was born or when Chris and I got married.  And then there are low moments, like trying to be a strong advocate for PWDs while going through burnout, or when blue candles start peppering our Facebook feeds. 

And then I look at other people's blogs (holy crap, there are a lot of us!), and see that they're chronicling the good, bad, and decidedly 'eh' of life with diabetes.  The real stuff.  It's crazy how honest we are with the Internet.  I see people writing about things online that they might not be sharing with their doctor.  Or their coworkers.  Or their very closest friends. But it's shared here, and there's a power to sharing our stories.

I'm amazed at what we chose to document, as a community.  From celebrations of a no-hitter to scoring a quality pair of blue shoes, to difficult moments of feeling burnt out and admitting that we're struggling, what we document shows our strength as a community.  We're not afraid to share the stuff that really scares us, or empowers us, and we have one another to mark different milestones with.  What we share, as a global community, could help any one of us improve our health, emotionally and physically. 

Diabetes isn't a perfect math where you can just solve for X.  Usually, we're solving for "why."  And part of that equation is acknowledging, and appreciating, the sum of our community and what we document, every day.

Posted by Kerri Sparling at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

I first tried out the Dexcom back in June 2007 (here's that first blog post - forgive the inquisitive cat photos), when it was the Dexcom 3 system (with the crazy shower patches I had to put over the sensor and transmitter because it wasn't waterproof - that was fun, and was like saran wrapping myself every morning before work).  Even though I had reservations about wearing a second medical device and feeling a little gunshy about the potential data overload, I committed to the Dex technology almost right away because it made me feel safe. 

It wasn't a matter of not trying other CGMs - I did give the Minimed system that was available in 2007 a try, but it wasn't a good fit for me.  (Here's a detailed post about why I wanted a continuous glucose monitor and my experiences with trialing both systems, and also has a lovely .gif of some soap on a box.  So there's that.)  The Dexcom has been a huge safety net for me, especially during the before, during, and after of Bird-Building.

More often than not, this system works for me.  It's spot-the-eff-on and it often triggers me to double-check my meter results when they appear to be roaming around unsupervised.  I rely on the Dex.  It wakes me up when I'm low, it rattles my cage when I'm high, and Birdy thinks it's the best thing since Siah's tail.

So when it's off, I'm thrown.  Last night, before I went to the gym, my meter gave me an 87 mg/dL and the Dexcom was in the same range.  When I came home from the gym, I was 215 mg/dL, but the Dex was lazily meandering in the lower range, yawning and eating potato chips and watching Are You Being Served.  Not even remotely tuned in to the fact that I was above 200 mg/dL.

"Nope."  I said, yanking the sensor out of my thigh.  

"Ouch," I said, as the new sensor slid into my other thigh.  (Usually they don't hurt, but this one burned a bit on reentry.)

I don't know what causes some Dex sensors to give up so easily.  And I'm not sure what makes me so stubborn.  This troubled little sensor gave me pause earlier in the week with a result much higher than my meter, but because I'm dia-frugal (read: aware of the cost of these sensors, and see also: aforementioned stubbornness), I restarted the sensor instead of pulling it out and putting in a new one.  Whatever the cause of this hiccup, I'm glad I caught this one as it went rogue, and I'm thankful I didn't make any treatment decisions based on the Dex's "recommendations."

New sensor is in.  So far it's in line with my meter.  And today I will test its legitimacy with plenty of coffee.  

[Dexcom disclosure]

Posted by Kerri Sparling at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)

If I really tune in, there are quiet whispers (and sometimes GIANT SHOUTS) of diabetes everywhere I look.  (And, for once, I don't mean that trail of test strips that seems to follow me around everywhere I go.  Sorry, environment.)

Like in the Children's Museum in Providence, where a giant, rotating piece of art flows between a mermaid, a circus clown, and a unicorn. 

Or the fact that my daughter's pajamas are covered in teeny, colorful cupcakes.  (Also, she pretends to talk on the phone for long pockets of time.  Animated conversations with the ether.  I think she's prepping herself to be a blogger ...)

Actually, the diabetes-related rub here is that my blood sugars were great when I left the house, but after being nailed for speeding, I've since shot up to 217 mg/dL and am holding steady, despite bolusing.  The effects of stress on my blood sugars are direct and sticky.  (Also, just for the record, my shirt is blue.  Blue Fridays FTW?)

After a few weeks of feeling really tuned-in and de-sludging myself, I appreciate that diabetes reminders are everywhere.  Sometimes I need them; helps me stay in control.  But I don't always decide to notice them.  Artwork at a museum can just be artwork.  Pajamas are just pajamas.  And the piss-poor driving decisions made by this mama are just that: piss-poor.  ;)

Posted by Kerri Sparling at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)