Sure, you can go to the Selena Gomez concert
If you read Arden's Day with any frequency you know that we manage Arden's Bgs with text messages while she is in school, at a friend's house and every other time that she isn't in our physical space. I've written how the process has eliminated so many issues, lowered her A1c and making us all to feel more independent are but two. I am genuinely excited to tell you that we have recently added, "Go to a concert" to that list! Now you may be thinking that there is a world of difference between managing type I from across town and being an hour away in a stadium singing along with the former Wizard of Waverly Place, but you know what - not so much. It turns out that the biggest hurdle when considering the difference between the two situations is realizing that there aren't any.
I have two main concerns when Arden isn't with me. Loss of communication and An unexpected low BG. All that remains is manageable with pre planning. Supplies, food, and juice is no issue to pack and have at the ready. A well thought out testing schedule eliminates most surprise BGs and Arden's DexCom G4 finds the ones that slip through the cracks. Of course no one can plan for a significant BG drop that defies logic, that possibility is the diabetes equivalent of having a car accident - you wear your seatbelt, drive safely and hope for the best.
I received a call asking if Arden could go to the Selena Gomez concert with one of her best friends, I didn't hesitate to say, "Yes!". One year ago the mom on the other end of the phone wouldn't have been able to finish her sentence before I said, "Thank you but no". But so much has changed in the last year. Now when a person that I trust calls and asks for Arden to accompany them for an evening, I can say yes with less trepidation and that makes me very happy for Arden.
Here's how I handled Arden going to the concert...
First, the mother and I had a nice lunch together the week before the event. Even though Arden goes to their house for play dates, we still manage through texts while she is there so the mom doesn't have a lot of interaction with diabetes. She understood the basics and knows how to react in an emergency but the concert was going to require me to advance her understanding of type I diabetes.
We spoke about all emergency possibilities in very, very real terms. I explained that I needed her to understand all that could happen, even though the likelihood of it happening was extremely remote.
I said thank you for her willingness to except the extra responsibility and went about the seemingly impossible task of preparing a person for an evening with type I without overwhelming or causing them to obsess during the event. The last thing I wanted was for the extra considerations to take away from the experience that she was going to have with her own daughter.
We spoke about supplies, testing times, CGM check ins and how to talk to the security guys in a way that makes bringing food and drinks into the venue easy. We talked about panic situations, CGM arrows and how to use glucose gel. I explained low blood glucose seizures and that I was going to discreetly slip her the glucose gel because the sight of it makes Arden anxious.
I couldn't have been prouder of Arden and her friend's mother when they pulled out of our driveway for the concert. The conversations that we had and the topics that they had to consider, just to go to a concert, were more than a nine year old and her friend's mom should be asked to think about - but they did it. When Arden got into the car with her friends she was smiling just as a little girl on her way to a concert should. Thankfully, her BG's were rather uneventful during the evening, she required two maintenance boluses during the show (Adrenaline I imagine) and a juice box on the ride home (No more Adrenaline) but other than that, easy sailing. When she walked through the door at almost eleven, her BG was 104 (DexCom had the BG at 74). Success!
Never once that night did I have to speak with the adult who accompanied Arden about anything related to diabetes. Actually, at one point she sent me a text and asked, "Is there anything I need to be doing?".
The bag of supplies I sent was returned to us unopened. Arden didn't need the extra OmniPods, insulin, needles or food. In fact, she would have been just fine had I not sent any extra supplies, all she needed was the juice box that she always carries in her bag.
I want this story to illustrate that everything is possible with type I, but what I don't want is to make you feel like planning ahead isn't necessary. This trip included a number of conversations, pre planning, a well packed bag and a little luck. Actually, to show you how much luck - Arden's OmniPod experienced an error the morning after the concert and I had to go to school and change it around 8:30 am. Can you imagine if the pod would have shut down during the concert? I could, and that's why we had a plan for how to handle that situation, should it arise. We planned for every conceivable possibility and talked about each ahead of time so that if they did occur, no one would be caught off guard or be unprepared for what to do next.
Arden popped out of bed for school the next day and put on her concert t-shirt still smiling from the evening before -- suddenly, the effort that it took to get to that moment felt like no effort at all.
Link between Type I Diabetes and Coxsackie B Virus
I found this article particularly interesting because Arden was diagnosed with the Coxsackie virus prior to her diagnosis with type I diabetes. I was wondering how many of you also saw Coxsackie before type I?
The following is from The Scotsman.
A SPECIFIC virus family has been implicated in the development of Type 1 diabetes, raising the prospect of vaccinations against the disease. -
- by JOHN VON RADOWITZ
Scientists are encouraged by data from two studies that show a clear link between the condition and group B coxsackieviruses, which are known to damage insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.
The potential breakthrough relates to type 1 diabetes which affects around 400,000 people in the UK, 29,000 of whom are children.
Researchers believe that, in time, it may be that with screening and a vaccine, they could prevent a proportion of diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease caused by the body’s defences destroying insulin-producing beta cells. But what triggers the extreme immune reaction in the first place has been an unanswered question.
Suspicion has fallen on enteroviruses, one of the most common infective agents in humans. They include the virus responsible for the common cold, as well as those responsible for polio and viral meningitis.
The new study narrowed the diabetes culprit down to one particular enterovirus population known as group B coxsackieviruses.
The remainder of this article a valuable read and can be found here.
Family Matters with Nancy Redd: HuffPostLive
I wish that I could hop into a time machine and go back to high school. I'd love to find the teachers (There were many) who told me that I talked too much. I could let them know that one day, HuffPostLive would call to ask if I could be a panelist on their inaugural edition of 'Family Matters'. I knew I was practicing for something ;)
Gravity
It took over a week before it hit me as to why I liked the movie Gravity so much - because it reminded me of living with type I diabetes, because I am comfortable with jumping from one situation to the next.
I won't ruin the movie for you by exposing specific plot points - This paragraph will include some basic information but nothing that isn't inferred in the movie's trailer. The film begins with astronauts in space fixing the Hubble telescope, almost immediately, some bad stuff happens and that stuff leaves Sandra Bullock drifting for her life. Every time poor Sandy completes a dangerous and nearly impossible task that she believes will save her, some other amazingly difficult obstacle appears and she must begin again. Each time she must conquer the new obstacle without so much as a moment to take a deep breath. I very much enjoyed that aspect of the film, the "out of the frying pan" and into another frying pan aspect, that is. I found myself strongly identifying with it and the character's insistence on not giving up.
During the ride home my family, as we always do, discussed what we liked or didn't like about the movie. I found myself saying that I enjoyed the movie, yes the special effects were great and I even liked the use of 3-D but what I enjoyed most was that the plot felt like real life to me. It felt like the way I live. Not the part about being in space or the slightly over the top scenarios that the characters found themselves in. It was the immediacy of the peril and the unrelenting nature of the situations. Type I diabetes is many things, but perhaps more than the rest, it's persistence and constant feeling of presence that it creates is, for me, it's define characteristic. Some days dealing with diabetes feels like being a tired swimmer whose trying to crawl to shore. Just as we wipe the salt from our eyes and spit out the remainder of the last onslaught, another wave appears from the calm and knocks us over.
I loved the way that the main character faced each new challenge with the same determination as she had for the last. It was the message that if you want to live, you do this thing. There is no time to complain, not a moment to spare and you can afford to feel sorry or yourself - living is moving, reacting and doing. I feel like that's our life and I guess since I didn't hate the movie, I must finally be comfortable with this narrative as my reality. It feels good to look for the next path to follow when a roadblock appears, I much prefer that feeling of "I can do this", to the weight of, "Oh no, not something else".
Expired Glucagon
I think that we can all agree that the best Glucagon is the one that you never open. I understand how uplifting it is to toss a Glucagon kit into the trash, nothing feels better than knowing that it was never opened - but what if I told you that there was something better? Something easy and awesome that you can do with your expired Glucagon?
Practice. Practice. Practice.
My best advice for what to do with your expired kits, practice. Parents, siblings, friends and relatives will all benefit from being able to learn how to help in a severe low blood glucose situation. I know that we all hope and want to believe that we will never have to use Glucagon in an emergency situation, but just in case, the first time you hold one shouldn't be during a seizure.
This I know from experience.
Not long after Arden's diagnosis back in 2006 we tried to eat Chinese food for the first time since diabetes entered our lives and well, that didn't go very well. I injected too much insulin and about two hours later, Arden was having a seizure. We placed Arden on the floor, Cole called 911 and Kelly began to rub glucose gel into Arden's cheek while I was frozen and staring at the Glucagon. "I never thought I was going to need to know how to use it", I mumbled. Thankfully, the gel Kelly applied brought Arden out of the seizure but I'll never forget the sickening feeling of having the tools to help my daughter in my hands but not the knowledge of how to use them.
So practice with your expired Glucagon until it doesn't feel awkward. Then once everyone in your life is proficient -- donate them to your child's school nurse or a local school.
Glucagon is the only thing in the world that I buy hoping that I will waste, but you don't have to throw it away. School nurses, Glucagon proxies and other school personnel will be grateful for the opportunity to get comfortable with the process. Speak with your school nurse and ask if an expired Glucagon kit is something that they'd be interested in having and you'll feel twice the pleasure the next time a kit expires.