The MBS Cyclebetes 200 and back to school...

I always get emotional each year at the start of our Mike's Bike Shop Cyclebetes rides. Adele and Michele are there. I look around at all the people, supporters and riders that are there essentially because of me. The ride could not happen without the full support from the Mike's Bike Shop cycling club (my friends) as well as all of the volunteers that come together to help with registration, count pledge money, drive the support vehicles and everything else that needs to be taken care of, but I am still the catalyst that started it all. I feel so overwhelmed that all these people step forward and enable me to keep on doing this. I'm a very, very lucky man. Thank you.

Since the 1st ride in 2007, this one was the best in my opinion. We had more riders and raised more money than past years. 60 riders raised $9000 for JDRF. Wow !! I appreciate all the sacrifices that alot of people make to enable this ride to happen. Again, thank you. I want to do everything that I can to help Adele with this Type 1 sentence. The more people can be aware and work together, the sooner my dream will come true...

Last week we went to IWK in Halifax for Adele's diabetes clinic apointment. We go to Halifax once a year to visit her gastroenterologist and we also squeeze in an apointment with the endocrinologist while we're there. It was also time for Adele's 3 month A1C. This test mesures the average blood glucose for the past 3 months. It is used to measure how good of a job that you have been doing playing the Type 1 game in the past 3 months. Adele's result was good, but had gone up since the last the last one (before she was on the Continuous Glucose Monitor - CGM). Why? Were we slacking off in her care? No. I think it is a combination of the fight with the H1N1 virus a few months ago (caused her sugars to go high), getting used to using the CGM and the fact that she has much less lows when we're CGMing. Sometimes an excellent A1C result is also accompanied by lots of low blood sugars, so you need to be careful when interpreting these results. We're going to try to improve for the next one (hopefully no major flus this time around) while continuing to minimize lows. That is one thing that we have noticed since being on the CGM, Adele has become better at recognizing her lows. The hypoglycemia unawareness has been lessened since she is low less often.

So, we're already in week 2 of school. The transition has been going well so far. Adele really likes having her CGM sensor at school since it is much easier for her to check her blood sugar. The sensor insertion is much better as well, so now Adele actually asks for a new sensor as soon as the old one expires.

A few nights ago, Adele suddenly became very insulin resistant in the evening and throughout the night. Her sugar kept creeping up and wouldn't come down even if I was being quite aggressive in giving her insulin. She started in the 12's, then 13's and climbed all the way to the 17's before I went to bed. I double corrected with more insulin and she still wouldn't go below 12. I even brought her nightime basal insulin rate up from 0.3 units/h to 0.35 units/h and she still woke up in the 12's. The two following nights were better, so I left the nightime basal at 0.35.

Then, without warning, this insulin resistance went away. Sunday night, Adele was 7.7 when I went to bed. I set the alarm clock to wake us 1.5 hours later, but for some reason it didn't go off (maybe it did and we turned it off, I really don't remember). I woke up at 2 am (like 3 hours after going to bed) and checked Adele's CGM. It said 5.2 with 2 arrows down (this means that's she dropping fast). I double-checked with a finger poke. Glucometer said 4.2 in blood. So, she wasn't low yet, but I just caught her in time. I gave her 5 gummies and turned off her pump for 1 hour and went to bed. A half hour later her pump alarm goes off saying her sugar is 4.5 (we have the low alarm set at 4.5). I acknowledge the alarm and go back to sleep, she's eaten and her sugar is slowly going up. A half hour later her pump alarm goes off again. Her sugar is still 4.5. I turn off her pump for another half hour, reduce her nightime basal back to 0.3 units/h and go to sleep (finally!). She wakes up at 5.6. I wake up exhausted. There was no mention of nights like these in the Type 1 game brochure. If only we could simply return the game and get our old life back...