Time to Wake Up !!!

Like most people, as soon as I wake up I glance over to the clock to see what time it is. For me, the first reason is not to see if I’m late but rather to see if I need to get up and check Adele’s blood sugar. Sleeping in on the weekends is always tricky and sometimes is just not possible if Adele’s blood sugar is too low and she needs to wake to eat.

Lying in bed after I wake up in the morning while Michele and Adele are still sleeping, I listen and feel a certain sense of relief hearing Adele shuffle in her bed in the adjacent room. It reassures me that she has made it through the night. Hearing her move around is not a guarantee that she is not low (or high), but at least I know that she is alive. Every now and again, I read stories where Type 1 gamers are not so lucky.

After a blood glucose check (and a correction if too high or low), it’s time for breakfast. We usually tell Adele to give herself a “head start” insulin bolus before eating to try to prevent the common post-meal blood glucose spike. I then prepare breakfast. All carbohydrates must be calculated. We use a scale to weigh Adele’s food and multiply by the corresponding carb factor to give us the amount of carbs (in grams) for the portion. Immediately after breakfast, Adele gives herself the remaining insulin based on our calculations. Protein slows down digestion making the influx of sugar into the blood stream more gradual, so we try to add it to every meal when possible. If it is during the week, all of Adele’s snacks and her lunch for the day must be prepared and the carb content calculated. We then write down all of these food items and associated carb content in Adele’s pump journal in order to be able to calculate insulin doses to be administered throughout the day to cover these ingested carbs.

Managing Type 1 Diabetes requires strong math skills. We’re beginning to introduce this to Adele, but she’s still too young to be able to calculate carbs accurately unless the portion consumed is the same as what’s on the nutritional information label. She has started to estimate carb content. This approach is necessary when we’re eating out and don’t have access to her food scale or any nutritional information, but it is not very accurate and can often cause out-of-range blood glucose values. Precise carb counting will not guarantee in range blood glucose levels but it increases the likelihood. In a nutshell, that’s what the Type 1 game is all about, doing as much of what you can at all times to increase the chances of normalized blood glucose levels most of the time.

Adele now has her own cell phone and we (either myself or my wife) communicate with her many times during the day instructing her what to do (insulin doses, extra snacks to correct or prevent lows…) to manage her diabetes.

Even with such vigilance, there are no guarantees. And for the Type 1 gamers that just can’t manage or afford such vigilance… they pretty much don’t even stand a chance…