Most of the time...

... it doesn't get to us. We've all learned to deal with it for the most part. It's become fairly routine.

But tonight... diabetes sucks.

Tonight, for the first time in three weeks, Janie was able to fully participate in soccer practice. This is a good thing. She ran a lot. (She hadn't been able to participate since 9/23 because of her arm.)

We went to Chick-fil-A afterwards for Family Night, kids eat free with adult combo meals. Janie's blood sugar was 72 right before eating, she felt a bit low. I gave her 6 units to cover dinner (1u/12g of carbs, less than her usual dinner scale of 1u/10g carbs). She had her six piece nuggets, fries, diet lemonade (what 7 yo old should have to order DIET lemonade!?) and then an Ice Dream cone w/ sprinkles. She felt great after eating.

We got home around 8:45p. She played with O.C., Mark gave her her Lantus injection, she did her arm exercises and piddled around. I tested her before she brushed her teeth. She was 103. She needs to be >150 before going to sleep to avoid night time lows. I gave her a snack. Due to the exercise at soccer practice I gave her a little more than I normally would, 16g carbs.

She brushed her teeth and got in bed - played Jacob's Pet Pals game on her Leapster for a little bit. She finally called down to me at around 11:00p (yes, she's a night owl) to come see her before she went to sleep.

Usually when she calls me I wait a little to see if she'll go to sleep before I go up - going up prolongs things. If she doesn't call me again after a few minutes I usually don't go up to check her one last time for another hour or so. But, tonight I went after about five minutes - thank God.

She had just fallen asleep. I tested her, she was 50 (her range is 70 - 180). She had woken up when I pressed the lancet to her finger, but wanted to go back to sleep. I had to run down to the kitchen to get a juice for her. 50 is low, near really bad low. If I hadn't gone up when I did she could have had her first severe low tonight... convulsing, Glucogen injecting, ER visiting low.

She didn't want to drink, she wanted to sleep, she felt lousy. I got her to drink the juice, she asked me to give her a snack right after so she could go to sleep. Thing is I can't do that when she's that low. I have to wait 10 minutes to make sure she's going back up and is over 70, not still falling. I test at 8 minutes and she's 66. She has to be above 70. I test at 10 minutes and she's 61.

She drinks another juice. We wait another 10 minutes. At 11:32p she was 75. I give her three graham crackers with peanut butter, about 18g carbs.

Exercise improves the efficiency of insulin, makes it "break down" more carbs than nomal. It can reduce blood sugars for up to 12 hours. I'm not confident that 18g is going to keep her high enough through the night. She hasn't exercised like this in weeks. Her insulin doses have been higher due to the lack of inactivity, so she has a good bit of insulin on board.

I'm going to have to test her three more times before wake up time, one as soon as I finish venting, then twice more at two hour intervals to make sure she doesn't drop again.

What will probably happen is this... I'll test her in 20 minutes and she'll be 200. I'll test her at 2:00 and she'll be in the 300s. She'll wake up high and will have to have extra insulin at breakfast to counteract the too-big snack from the night before. But, I can't be sure. She might go low again tonight. The not KNOWING what to do kills me. It's all a freakin' guessing game. And she's always the loser.

During the waiting periods mentioned above, Janie said that she wished she didn't have diabetes. She said she didn't remember herself before having it. She told me she doesn't like looking at pictures of herself before the diagnoses because it makes her sad.

She shouldn't have diabetes.
She should have had real lemonade and been fast asleep at 11:00p.