Christmas Balance

What does this picture of a bunch of bikes in my messy basement have to do with Type 1 Diabetes? Let me explain... This is also a picture of my anti-depressant drugs, therapists and my church benches. All 7 each have a purpose. I visit them regularly. They are quite therapeutic and enable me to re-establish balance in my life. Isn't balance what the Type 1 game is all about? The object of the game is to balance insulin with blood sugar. Like the Type 1 game, collecting and riding bikes to maintain sanity is not the cheapest therapy. But in reality my bikes are an investment because JDRF is over $20,000 closer to a cure because of them. That's how much our cycling club has helped me raise since 2007. This would simply not be possible if not for my passion for the bike. I find that very, very cool !! Passion is contageous. Combine one of your passions with finding a cure for Type 1 Diabetes and join in the fight! Make it your 2010 New Year Resolution!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We did. So many hours of work, preparation and planning and in about 5 minutes Adele had already opened all of her gifts. What a huge investment for a very, very short return. Ok, so the return may have been short (as in time elapsed), but Adele's excitement and joy made the whole effort worth it. At 9 years old, Christmas truly is magical for most kids and I think we managed to ensure that Adele was one of them. Adele's favorite gift is her new Wii. Actually, the whole family has been enjoying it!

As for the Type 1 game, Adele had a few ups and downs. With all the home-made food, we were guesstimating the carb content quite a bit. We had inserted a CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring) sensor on December 22nd and it was working well giving pretty accurate blood glucose readings. We really wanted one on Christmas eve and Christmas day since the daily routine is quite different from other "normal" days. It makes checking Adele's blood sugar so much easier (and quicker) like in church for example when you don't have to take out needles, meter, test strip... We removed the sensor on Boxing day (5 days after putting it in) after Adele begged us to do so. The sensor still worked, but Adele's winter dry skin becomes so itchy after 3 days. She litterally itches the skin right off until it bleeds. The one thing that I find the CGM useful for is to prevent lows. A summary of Dec 26th (after removing the CGM) supports this:

7:45 am -> 2.9 low (52 for US readers)

9:30 am -> 7.2 good (130)

11:00 am -> 2.7 low (49)

12:30 pm -> 10.2 high (184)

2:40 pm -> 17.8 high (320)

4:55 pm -> 8.1 pretty good (146)

6:35 pm -> 2.7 low (49)

8:15 pm -> 6.4 good (115)

10:15 pm -> 3.8 a bit low (68)

11:30 pm -> 5.8 good (104)

So, 4 lows and 2 highs. I'm sure that we would have caught these with the CGM. Because of the dry itchy skin, we have been on a CGM vacation since then, but will be inserting a new one in tonight in preparation for New Years Type 1 gaming. Happy New Year !!

Oh yeah, and thanks for the comments on the last post. I really appreciate your feedback and support.