Beyond the surface

One of the things that makes Type 1 Diabetes awareness difficult for non-players is that most Type 1 diabetics appear to be healthy. Adele goes to school, plays, runs, swims and bikes just like other "normal" kids her age. She doesn't have any visible physical characteristics that indicate that she has a chronic illness (well except for her pump and "mangled" fingertips). She acts normally most of the time (unless her sugar is low, but she can bounce back from this in a matter of minutes), she's not in a wheelchair or physically crippled in any way. And the biggest Type 1 misconception - yes, she CAN eat sweets like everyone else on occasion. She can't feel high blood sugars or sudden drops. All of the Type 1 turmoil is going on inside of her body, silently... That's what people not affected by Type 1 Diabetes need to know. Type 1 Diabetes is a silent, chronic, complex and serious disease that requires alot of very hard work... and without any guarantees whatsoever for a future without complications.

As far as our gaming this past week, Adele's sugars have been all over the place the last few days. Either way up, then crashing down... Scales that had been working aren't any more. Sleep has been in shorts intervals. I'm currently making changes to hopefully make things settle down. That's what the game cycle is all about for us...

Friday, May 8th, Adele's wake up sugar was 16.6 (way too high) and at 11:00 pm she was 3.1 (way too low). She fluctuated between these 2 values the rest of the day.

Saturday, May 19th, the low point was 2.4 (way too low) at 3:45 in the afternoon and the high point was 22.7 (way too high) at 10:00 pm. A high blood sugar like this before bed means some good "sleep-deprivation" training !

Sunday, May 10th, she dropped to 3.6 (too low) at 9:55 am and shot up to 16.4 (way too high) at 10:50 pm. Another night of short but frequent sleep intervals...

Monday, May 11th, woke up at 15.4 (way too high) and went low in the school bus after class (3.6 - too low, especially while unsupervised in the bus!).

Tuesday, May 12th, no lows today - changes that I have been making seem to be helping so far. Adele's sugar did shoot up to 15.3 at 8:30 pm just before she went to bed though.

Adele should be switching over to her new pump with the Continuous Glucose Monitoring at the end of this week. Details will appear in upcoming posts...