My Car Screams Diabetes!

I am one of those people that always wants to be prepared and that means always having what I need in case of an emergency. My car has become the carrier of all that is diabetes.

I have 2 items in my car that I never leave home without and they are my “Car Visor” which carry’s a fast acting sugar dex4 (we love dex4) and my purple organizer loaded with test strips glucagon, pump site change,needles,spare test kit, another dex 4 and spare batteries. I always swap out what has expired with the change of season and this has worked out great. So you can imagine my surprise when I was cleaning out my car this week and found:

In my glove compartment I had not 1 but 4 boxes of test strips (all expired ) and i am not even sure how long they have been there. In the slot of the passenger door is a glucagon (expired) a open box of needles. In my arm rest where i store my cd’s are 3 drink boxes (now this was really surprising that they did not open and leak) but they too have expired. In the pocket holders behind my seats was another box of test strips (do you think I am afraid we will be without?) a test meter that doesn’t work, (this was left behind by some child who’s test meter needed batteries. Where i keep change are 3 pump batteries and 1 meter battery. The funny thing about all of this is that all these things were brought into the car at one time or another and I don’t remember bringing any of them into the car. All of my supplies are in my organizer or car visor. So all of these items test strips etc were left in the car by one of the kids when in a hurry they grab a box from the house take a vial and leave the 2nd vial in the car, grab an extra drink box, needed a battery for a pump and swapped then out in the car leaving the used battery in my change holder.

If you are a passenger in my car it screams diabetes! From the test strips, car visor, drink boxes and meters, how could you not know that a mom of child with diabetes is on board! Well I finally got everything cleanned up and thrown out and I am back to my nice neat Car Visor and purple organizer taking care of all my diabetes necessities.

I dropped my daughter off at a friends the other day and on the seat she left a drink box and 1 box with 1 unused vial of test strips, I automatically picked up the drink box and went to put it in my arm rest and threw the vial of test strips in the glove compartment!
Here we go again!

Pump Wear Inc. Where Kids Are Kids and Adults Just Have fun!

Is It A Good Idea?

Is It A Good Idea?

I believe every parent who has a child with diabetes will experience this at some point in their child’s life. When the testing frequently becomes an issue.

I use to believe it would get easier as they got older, I no longer think that way. When our children are young we have virtual control over everything they eat, how often they test and even though there’s just no controlling diabetes we at least could fool ourselves into thinking that we had a handle on what was going on.

Then that fateful day comes when our children go off to the Middle Schools and are pretty much responsible for their daily testing of blood sugars during the day. You would think that a child who has had diabetes all of their life would just automatically remember to test before eating, when feeling high or low. Now that they are away from us and taking on more control of their diabetes I long for the way to make this a positive experience. I am tired of the hounding text messages checking to see if my child is testing, if she remembered to bolus, then downloading meters and pumps only to find out that what I thought the numbers were are not quite the same as the ones I downloaded.

So my question is this, with the New Year Approaching, I am adapting a new strategy! I will be looking at the pump each day to ensure proper testing and blousing, at the end of the week if we have had 4 days (I have to allow a day for the oops I forgot) of doing what we need to do than we will be giving out a reward, something fun like movie tickets, a trip to Target or something else that is special for a job well done.

So do you think it’s a good idea to reward our children for taking on the responsibility and care of their diabetes? I will let you know our results, Remember our kids are kids first and as hard as it is we still need to make teaching them what they need to do a positive experience.

Lists, Lists & More Lists

Lists, Lists, & More Lists!

You know its bad when you can’t find the list! This Christmas I started out with a list so I would know what I had already purchased, who was getting what, sizes etc. Well early into my Holiday Season, I lost that particular list. Now I am left with that kind of unfinished feeling, like I forgot someone, or the feeling that someone is getting a whole lot more than everyone else? Ever had that feeling?

When diabetes first entered our world 10 years ago (has it really been that long). I use to write everything down, I could tell you the exact time that Nikki ate something, the number of carbs, the insulin she took, when it peaked etc, etc. At that time I walked around with notebooks, a notebook for blood sugars, my list of things I had to do, a list for every day things to do. I had so many lists I needed a bag just to carry my notebooks of lists.

Then technology took over my lists became fewer and fewer as I tried using my blackberry to make lists, my outlook and my apple computer, but nothing for me works better than my good old notebook! I do so like my lists but I really like seeing them on paper and putting that little check mark next to the items as I complete them. I somehow feel like I accomplished something when I can put that check mark next to something I had to do! Of course if my Christmas list was on my blackberry I wouldn’t have lost it!

Are You High?

Are you high?

If you are like me you can probably tell when your child’s blood sugar is in the high range. With us we go from being extremely annoying, (guess which one this is), to being rude, loud or agitated, just to mention a few of the signs from our 3 children that tune me into the fact that the blood sugar is up there!.

So I ask are you high? Well as you can imagine that really isn’t the best way to be asking that question when you are working with teenagers and pre-teens, first of all they find it to be extremely funny (yeah mom I’am high). Although they find it funny others around really don’t have a clue what we are talking about so their ears perk up to gain knowledge on why this crazy women is asking their child if they are high?

So I have resorted to asking them to just test, or adding to the phase “Is your blood sugar high”? I wish there was a better way to ask that question, what’s a nice way to ask a child if their blood sugar is high? We should have a diabetes short hand for asking our kids questions that sounds cool and does the job of getting the desired result we want like:

1. Hey, what’s your number?
2. Hey, sound’s like you are up there, want to give me a clue
3. “What color is the sky”? (meaning how high are you)

Our own diabetes teen language, I am sure you all can come up with some really cute and cool ways to ask this question we would love to hear them, so feel free to share!

As a mom of 3 children with type 1 diabetes I try to find the positive in every situation and I am truly amazed at the out pour of support other parents of children with diabetes offer each other. Thank you all for your continued support !

It's Hard To Choose!

Dawn and I along with our Caring and Sharing Committee spent last night choosing families that need a special weekend. This was our second meeting to go over all of the entries that we received since May of 2009 from people recommending families for the 2010 Free Caring and Sharing Weekend.

Our committee of 5 poured over the heart wrenching letters from parents, diabetes educators, children themselves, grandparents and even people that have attended in the past. All telling us in their very warm way what a weekend like this would mean to them.

Reading these letters really makes you know how fortunate you really are, there are so many families dealing with so much more than just diabetes. You just want to contact every single family and send them a hug, and that’s what this camp is all about. It’s about having a place where families can just come together as a family and relax and enjoy each other. It’s a place where you recognize that you are not alone.

I can’t tell you how much all of us truly wish that we could say yes to every single letter. After hours of reading and rereading entries 17 families an 1 alternate were chosen.

We would like to send a special thank you to many of the people and companies that help us pull all this together, Medtronic Diabetes, Animas Corporation, Insulet Corporation, Ultra One Touch, Diabetes Health, Kathy Striker, Anne Levitt, Katie Marschilok , Nancy Toleno, Debbie Bennett and the wonderful staff at the Double H. These are just a few of the companies and people that help support and bring this wonderful weekend together.

To review prior Caring and Sharing Weekends take a look at http://www.pumpwearinc.com/index.php?page_id=447

If you would like to donate or help sponsor the Caring and Sharing Weekend feel free to contact us at info@pumpwear@nycap.rr.com

My Wish List For Diabetes Gadgets!

I love technology I am always waiting for the newest gadget that is on the market. I just have to say that one of the newest gadgets out there are the “Kindles” this is my all time favorite gadget. I find it helps with my tolerance level because no matter where I am now I can read and download books so if I have to wait an hour for an appointment its ok with me I just sit down and relax. I wish I had stock in the Kindles because I see this as the wave of the future before to long our children will know longer be carrying books they will all have one kindle with every school book they need on it. It will certainly help to not have to carry all those heavy books.

With diabetes the gadgets are getting better also. We have insulin pumps that communicate with meters, sensors that talk to pumps. We have Alarms that go off for low blood sugars, and alarms that go off for high blood sugars. We can download all kinds of data and the advances continue so I thought I would put out my list of diabetes related technology items that I would like to see:

My wish list for Diabetes gadgets:

The Mom Alert – this would be an alert that goes directly to my blackberry every time one of my children tests their blood sugar. Wouldn’t that be neat that every time they test you automatically get a text. This way I would know who tested, the time and the actual real blood sugar (after all the text couldn’t lie to me right). Of course the child would have no control on this (meaning they wouldn’t be able to turn it off) because believe they would try.

Safe Driver Starter – The car starter that won’t start without an actual blood test with a blood sugar within range. (and if it wants to send me a texts that's good too.

Weather Resistant pump and meters that were not affected by temperature so when I am out in the summer and the meter has been sitting in the car for hours it will still work.