Dear Thursdays, we need to talk...

Dear Thursdays, what have we done to you for you to treat us this way for the last 2 weeks. First, the cannula from Adele's insulin infusion set pops out in the middle of the night and now another old infusion site that gets infected on Adele's thigh. I apologize if we have done something to offend you. Let's please try to get along from now on. And, please pass this message on to your friends Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Yours truly,
The LeBlanc family

We have still not received a reply back, but are hoping that we can put this whole mess behind us.

Here are a few game highlights since last Thursday... Adele came home from school and said she had a hard time walking because her left thigh really hurt. It started after lunch apparently. I had noticed that her sugars were creeping up a bit, but wasn't too worried at that point. When we looked at her thigh it was very red, swollen and there was even puss coming out of the canula insertion hole. It didn't look good at all. We tried to clean it up as best as we could with Hydrogen Peroxyde, applied some Polysporin and covered it up. Adele started feeling sick before going to bed and had a slight fever and I needed to up her insulin to keep the sugars in check.

The next morning, the fever had gone away, but her thigh looked worse. The area was like 6 inches wide, very, very red, tender and sore. We knew at that point that we needed antibiotics so we went to the clinic and got it checked out. At this point Adele's sugars were pretty much out of control. Basals were at 150% and her meal / snack boluses were pretty much double what they were the day before and still her sugar would not go below 12.o (216). Have you ever written a test where you had absolutely no idea what the answer to a certain multiple choice answer was? That is how I felt trying to figure out basal insulin rates and meal carb to insulin ratios. It was a complete guess. She went from 18 - 19 units of insulin / day to 33 - 34 in a matter of hours and was still running high. Fun times playing the Type 1 game...

Guessing insulin dosages doesn't really make for good nights. Friday night was the worse, we were up to check her sugar 4 times. Needless to say, I was tired and cranky on Saturday morning. After being high all evening, she started to go low after midnight, so I had to keep reducing the basal insulin and give her a few carbs here and there to avoid the lows. Her pump Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) alarm woke us up at 7 am on Saturday with a low alarm. I'm pretty sure that she would have slept in, but she had to eat and once awake, the day had started...

After a few bad weeks with the CGM we had decided to not bother with it last week, but Adele wanted a CGM sensor so we inserted one last Monday. We were very happy to have the sensor because unlike past weeks, this CGM sensor was accurate throughout the whole adventure which was very helpful in these of "your guess is as good as mine" days of Diabetes management.

So now her thigh is better, but still red and tender to the touch even after 3 days on antibiotics. We dropped in to see the doctor this morning and she told us to continue with the current treatment, but to drop back in Thursday to make sure that the infected area continues to get better. Sugars have stabalized with the changes that I have made in the last few days and I don't feel like I'm guessing insulin doses as much anymore. Fun times...

So, there you have it... Our latest adventures in Type 1 gaming... I'm having a hard time staying positive and finding the love these past days, hopefully things will turn around soon...