JDRF Annual General Meeting

Picture of my feet standing on the glass floor of the CN tower. It still freaks me out just looking at the picture...

This past weekend, I attended the JDRF AGM in Toronto. It was amazing! 100 to 150 people dedicated to find a cure for Type 1 Diabetes together made for a very strong and positive vibe. I found it very inspiring to be amongst such a group of amazing people who have stepped up to the plate to help accelerate the cure for Type 1 Diabetes instead of feeling sorry for themselves. Interacting with others who truly "get" what it is to live with Type 1 was very good for the morale and provided me with lots of hope for Adele's future. And it has motivated me to continue to fundraise. This Type 1 thing is not going to go away by itself, it's up to each and every one of us to help make it happen...

It was very exciting to hear about the artificial pancreas project at one of the AGM presentations. This is a closed loop system in which an algorythm automatically makes insulin delivery adjustments based on continuous glucose monitoring readings. If the algorythm predicts that blood glucose is rising or will rise, then it reacts by delivering more insulin. If the algorythm predicts that blood glucose is dropping or will drop, then it reacts by delivering less insulin (or even none at all). This is still a few years away, but very exciting nonetheless. We also heard about glucose-responsive insulin which is only active in presence of glucose, a drug that seems to halt the destruction of insulin producing islets in early onset Type 1 Diabetes, a drug that seems to protect the eyes from the devastating effect of long-term diabetes as well as trying to find way to stimulate the body to regerate new insulin-producting islets. These are all very exciting research projects that show that funds raised for JDRF really are leading to discoveries that help all playing the Type 1 game achieve better control.

As far as our day-to-day gaming, Adele's toe is better. The infection is gone. But even as her toe was healing, her sugars kept creeping up. Technically this should have been the opposite. On Thursday we found out what was causing this rise. She woke up with a cold (sore throat, fever and cough). Yep, that'll wreak havoc on sugars ! Even if Adele's cold symptoms have gotten better, her sugars still seem to want to creep up. I've managed to somewhat keep things under control by modifying insulin scales throughout the day which translates into more insulin. Today was a good day. Here are the details...

1:00 am -> 13.2 (too high, gave 0.6 units insulin to bring down)

7:10 am -> 3.8 (too low, I guess the 0.6 units of insulin last night may have been too much, also decreased morning insulin basal rate from 0.55 units per hour to 0.5 units)

7:55 am -> 6.7 with one arrow up (gave 0.3 units to avoid future high)

8:45 am -> 5.8 (very good before am snack, she ate 14 grams carbs, gave 0.1 units insulin)

10:15 am -> 7.0 with one arrow up (0.1 units after snack was not enough, gave 0.4 units insulin to avoid subsequent high)

11:15 am -> 7.2 (very good before lunch, she ate 51.1 grams of carbs, bolused 1.9 units insulin)

1:15 pm -> 8.4 (did nothing)

2:15 pm -> 7.9 (gave 9 grams of carbs, still 1 hour before afternoon snack)

3:15 pm -> 6.9 with one arrow up (i guess the 9 grams one hour ago wasn't necessary, ate afternoon snack, bolused with 1.1 units insulin)

5:00 pm -> 4.1 (pump gave low alarm since sugar was below 4.5, gave her a Dex4 at daycare to avoid low before arriving home, supper and 2.6 units insulin)

7:00 pm -> 6.3 (very good before bedtime snack, ate 62.4 grams carbs, gave 2.2 units insulin)

9:00 pm -> 7.9 (looking at graph her sugar was dropping and snack bolus was about to peak, shut off her pump for 1 hour to avoid low)

10:00 pm -> 7.7 (low avoided)

10:30 pm -> 8.3 (rising slowly, hopefully not too much, 9.0 is our target at bedtime)

All these numbers are from the Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM). After 2 days of finger pricks, we inserted a new sensor last night. The CGM indicates rapid blood glucose fluctuations by either one or two arrows either up or down. These helped me today to keep things in check. We'll see if Adele's body keeps cooperating. I predict that I will need to back things off later this week as she really gets rid of her cold... We'll see.