But instead I'm waiting up late to do a retest. There is no logical rhyme or reason in my mind that lets me understand why I'm waiting up late.
After our sequence of lows last week, we adjusted Tori's NPH down by .5 units per dose, or 1 unit per day. We started on Friday, and by lunchtime she was into the 300's. She has been in the 300's all day and night ever since. Well, with the exception of Friday overnight when she was 54 at 2am, 75 at the retest, and 183 at the third retest. Saturday we were high 200's to mid 300's, with a 344 on the overnight.
Today we continued the highs, and at the evening shot we cautioned on the dosage, going with the lower than recommended dosage, and yet somehow we just got an 83 before we went to bed. This was an unscheduled test to guage whether we would need to do another overnight test, so obviously I'll be back up in another two hours to do a 2am test following the results of this retest...
151, I'm going to get some sleep now.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Thursday, January 19, 2006
aargh!
1/19/2006
11:10 am, my cell phone rings, it's Tori's teacher at daycare...
"Hi, Tori was just laying around, complaining about feeling tired, and her face was flushed, so we decided to test," she says.
"Ok... What was her number?"
"She was 104, we know that's a good number, but we're going to take her temperature. Is there anything else you want us to do?"
"Given that she was 38 yesterday at lunch, I'm wondering whether she's headed down, or rebounding from already being down. Why don't you test her again in fifteen minutes, and let's see which way she goes," I instructed.
"Ok, I'll call you back after we test"
Fifteen minutes passed. The cell rang again, she had dropped down to 60, and they had given her three glucose tablets. After a brief discussion, we concluded with the agreement that she would only call if Tori continued to go down.
Another fifteen minutes passed, and yep, you guessed it, the phone rang once again. She had continued to drop and was reading 38! They had given her another 3 glucose tabs, and wanted to know what else to do. I instructed them to keep a close eye on her, and told them I would consult with Kristina and get back to them. Kristina and I discussed contacting Riley's about altering the NPH dosage. We decided there wasn't really anything more we could instruct daycare beyond wait and test again.
I called them back to find out her number had gone up to 128. Whew! We're out of the hole for now.
Fast forward to 2:30 am, we've reduced the evening NPH and need to test Tori overnight for the next three nights. She rings in at 86, technically not low, but at this time of night she should be in the 120-130 range to make it all night. One juice box and fifteen minutes later, we're back up to 114; I'll take it!
11:10 am, my cell phone rings, it's Tori's teacher at daycare...
"Hi, Tori was just laying around, complaining about feeling tired, and her face was flushed, so we decided to test," she says.
"Ok... What was her number?"
"She was 104, we know that's a good number, but we're going to take her temperature. Is there anything else you want us to do?"
"Given that she was 38 yesterday at lunch, I'm wondering whether she's headed down, or rebounding from already being down. Why don't you test her again in fifteen minutes, and let's see which way she goes," I instructed.
"Ok, I'll call you back after we test"
Fifteen minutes passed. The cell rang again, she had dropped down to 60, and they had given her three glucose tablets. After a brief discussion, we concluded with the agreement that she would only call if Tori continued to go down.
Another fifteen minutes passed, and yep, you guessed it, the phone rang once again. She had continued to drop and was reading 38! They had given her another 3 glucose tabs, and wanted to know what else to do. I instructed them to keep a close eye on her, and told them I would consult with Kristina and get back to them. Kristina and I discussed contacting Riley's about altering the NPH dosage. We decided there wasn't really anything more we could instruct daycare beyond wait and test again.
I called them back to find out her number had gone up to 128. Whew! We're out of the hole for now.
Fast forward to 2:30 am, we've reduced the evening NPH and need to test Tori overnight for the next three nights. She rings in at 86, technically not low, but at this time of night she should be in the 120-130 range to make it all night. One juice box and fifteen minutes later, we're back up to 114; I'll take it!
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Diabetes detective?
We have a cat that is in the habit of pawing at Tori's door in the middle of the night, which generally wakes me up. Usually I yell at him, and he stops, but occasionally I actually have to stand up out of bed and move towards him in a threatening fashion (ooh, here comes scary ol' dad, I better run ;) to get him to stop.
2:00 am last night I am awakened to the sound of Punky pawing at the door. Yell... nothing, still pawing. Ok, I have to use the bathroom anyway, so I get up, and then, since I'm awake now I decided I better eat some of those Fiesta Cheddar Cheese Cheezits (get your own box), to keep them from going to waste.
As I'm out on the couch happily munching, I hear Tori's door open. Looking down the hall I see her shuffling to the bathroom, figuring Punky woke her up, too. She went to the bathroom, came out to say hi, and shuffled back off to bed. Moments later, she reappeared, and told me she was feeling low, and mentioning that her legs are trembly. Wasting no time getting the meter, we have a reading of 76, not technically that low, but still below our target range, and quite possibly still on the way down. One juice box, 15 minutes, and a retest later reading 104, she heads off to her room, leaving me sitting on the couch pondering whether Punky was detecting her going low, or whether he just wanted in her room. I know of the dogs in service to diabetics, never heard of a cat, but am just so curious now. He doesn't paw at the door every night, just every seemingly random occasion. He's never actually been in her room overnight, and never paws on Toby's door.
I'm tempted to test her the next time he paws at the door to see if she is anywhere near low...
2:00 am last night I am awakened to the sound of Punky pawing at the door. Yell... nothing, still pawing. Ok, I have to use the bathroom anyway, so I get up, and then, since I'm awake now I decided I better eat some of those Fiesta Cheddar Cheese Cheezits (get your own box), to keep them from going to waste.
As I'm out on the couch happily munching, I hear Tori's door open. Looking down the hall I see her shuffling to the bathroom, figuring Punky woke her up, too. She went to the bathroom, came out to say hi, and shuffled back off to bed. Moments later, she reappeared, and told me she was feeling low, and mentioning that her legs are trembly. Wasting no time getting the meter, we have a reading of 76, not technically that low, but still below our target range, and quite possibly still on the way down. One juice box, 15 minutes, and a retest later reading 104, she heads off to her room, leaving me sitting on the couch pondering whether Punky was detecting her going low, or whether he just wanted in her room. I know of the dogs in service to diabetics, never heard of a cat, but am just so curious now. He doesn't paw at the door every night, just every seemingly random occasion. He's never actually been in her room overnight, and never paws on Toby's door.
I'm tempted to test her the next time he paws at the door to see if she is anywhere near low...
Saturday, January 14, 2006
How low can ya go?
Just another typical saturday. Sleep in until around 7-7:30 and get up for test, breakfast, and go run errands. Tori's morning number rang in at 272, which seems to be fairly common for her in the morning, and the Humalog dose was calculated at .75 units. Our syringes are marked in .5 unit increments so we can get fairly close by hitting in the middle of two marks. The NPH dose for morning is 5 units, and has been for several weeks now.
We ate a full breakfast, got dressed, and hit the road. We had to round up all the loose ends for Toby's birthday party later in the day, and were looking forward to all the excitement coming later in the day. Little did we know that excitement was going to come earlier than anticipated...
12:00 noon, I was getting ready to test Tori, and she was beginning to get a touch whiny (which really isn't unusual for her sometimes). She had just mentioned a few minutes ago while playing with Toby that her legs couldn't hold her up any more, and continued playing, so all seemed normal... until I looked down at the meter and read 28!!! Kristina quickly gave her a glucose tablet, and grabbed a juice box. We took turns holding her while she drank the juice, and kept her from falling asleep, while her eyes rolled and drooped, and she wanted to lay down. I could tell by the tone of Kristina's voice that she was a little bit scared, and I already knew I was on edge. At the moment I didn't care that she was upset with me for keeping her awake, there was no way I was letting her fall asleep. Fifteen minutes, and another test later she was back up to 104.
She has never been this low before, and she had shown absolutely no signs of being low, except maybe in hindsight we could take the comment about the legs as serious. I don't know how low she needs to go to go into a diabetic seizure, but I damn sure don't want to find out!
Fast forward to snack time, where she rang in low again with a 64. This time, given her lunch number I had decided to reduce the dinner insulin, so when it called for 1.74 I opted to go down to 1.5 to avoid any further lows. No dice...
I wondered after the fact whether or not I had given her the shot in an area that had not been thickened by insulin yet. For those of you that aren't aware, insulin injected or infused with a pump causes a condition called lipohypertrophy which causes the insulin to be absorbed more slowly than areas that haven't yet been thickened.
We ate a full breakfast, got dressed, and hit the road. We had to round up all the loose ends for Toby's birthday party later in the day, and were looking forward to all the excitement coming later in the day. Little did we know that excitement was going to come earlier than anticipated...
12:00 noon, I was getting ready to test Tori, and she was beginning to get a touch whiny (which really isn't unusual for her sometimes). She had just mentioned a few minutes ago while playing with Toby that her legs couldn't hold her up any more, and continued playing, so all seemed normal... until I looked down at the meter and read 28!!! Kristina quickly gave her a glucose tablet, and grabbed a juice box. We took turns holding her while she drank the juice, and kept her from falling asleep, while her eyes rolled and drooped, and she wanted to lay down. I could tell by the tone of Kristina's voice that she was a little bit scared, and I already knew I was on edge. At the moment I didn't care that she was upset with me for keeping her awake, there was no way I was letting her fall asleep. Fifteen minutes, and another test later she was back up to 104.
She has never been this low before, and she had shown absolutely no signs of being low, except maybe in hindsight we could take the comment about the legs as serious. I don't know how low she needs to go to go into a diabetic seizure, but I damn sure don't want to find out!
Fast forward to snack time, where she rang in low again with a 64. This time, given her lunch number I had decided to reduce the dinner insulin, so when it called for 1.74 I opted to go down to 1.5 to avoid any further lows. No dice...
I wondered after the fact whether or not I had given her the shot in an area that had not been thickened by insulin yet. For those of you that aren't aware, insulin injected or infused with a pump causes a condition called lipohypertrophy which causes the insulin to be absorbed more slowly than areas that haven't yet been thickened.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Thanks? giving...
Have I mentioned in my blog yet that I absolutely hate diabetes? Well, I do!
I haven't written in a few days, life has been very busy getting in my way, and I'm doing the best I can to find any free time at all it seems. Anyhow, in order to try catching up, I'll relate a story from back on Thanksgiving day...
We got in to mom's house about 11pm or so. By the time we got everything carried into the house, and got the kids changed into pajamas it was nearly midnight. Seven hours on the road had taken its toll on me, as well as everyone else, but the kids were wired. They repeatedly needed reminding that it was very late and that they should be sleeping, so it was somewhere near 2am before they finally quieted down and I was able to get to sleep!
6:30am... the children have already decided to wake up. "Please God, tell me its a dream!"
It wasn't. We got up and headed into the living room to turn on cartoons to keep them busy while we figured out what we were doing for breakfast. Three cups of coffee later and I was still in a major fog. So much of a fog that I had used the evening formula to calculate Tori's insulin, and ended up giving her nearly three time the normal morning dose of the fast acting insulin! Kristina normally draws the morning shot, and since Tori has such a small dose anyway, nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me until I saw the look on Kristina's face when I told her the dosage. I realized immediately at that point what I had done.
Cookies for breakfast! Tori took great delight in eating cookies for breakfast as we scrambled to get enough carbs into her to counter the insulin. We ended up getting her to eat about double her normal carbs, and proceeded to begin the testing regimen to make sure she didn't go low.
Low? Not a chance, her sugar spiked up over 500 to around 580, and stayed there until late afternoon before it ever dropped back below 500. Dinner numbers were back to normal range, and the rest of the day seemed pretty normal, but I can't tell you how bad the whole day made me feel, and how much it reinforced my loathing of diabetes.
I haven't written in a few days, life has been very busy getting in my way, and I'm doing the best I can to find any free time at all it seems. Anyhow, in order to try catching up, I'll relate a story from back on Thanksgiving day...
We got in to mom's house about 11pm or so. By the time we got everything carried into the house, and got the kids changed into pajamas it was nearly midnight. Seven hours on the road had taken its toll on me, as well as everyone else, but the kids were wired. They repeatedly needed reminding that it was very late and that they should be sleeping, so it was somewhere near 2am before they finally quieted down and I was able to get to sleep!
6:30am... the children have already decided to wake up. "Please God, tell me its a dream!"
It wasn't. We got up and headed into the living room to turn on cartoons to keep them busy while we figured out what we were doing for breakfast. Three cups of coffee later and I was still in a major fog. So much of a fog that I had used the evening formula to calculate Tori's insulin, and ended up giving her nearly three time the normal morning dose of the fast acting insulin! Kristina normally draws the morning shot, and since Tori has such a small dose anyway, nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me until I saw the look on Kristina's face when I told her the dosage. I realized immediately at that point what I had done.
Cookies for breakfast! Tori took great delight in eating cookies for breakfast as we scrambled to get enough carbs into her to counter the insulin. We ended up getting her to eat about double her normal carbs, and proceeded to begin the testing regimen to make sure she didn't go low.
Low? Not a chance, her sugar spiked up over 500 to around 580, and stayed there until late afternoon before it ever dropped back below 500. Dinner numbers were back to normal range, and the rest of the day seemed pretty normal, but I can't tell you how bad the whole day made me feel, and how much it reinforced my loathing of diabetes.
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