Sad WA news story

Girl dies in boarding school A year 10 student with diabetes was found dead on Sunday morning. I can't imagine how her parents feel. It is always a fear for parents of children with diabetes. No matter how good their control is things can happen.

Disappointing outing

Today we ventured out after church to the Planetarium. DH wanted to go yesterday with the 2 oldest DDs but we decided to make it a whole family outing. We had difficulty getting a car park and then we found that the show we wanted to see "Secret of the Cardboard Rocket" was sold out. It is one of the children's shows.
We had no idea that going to the plantearium was such a popular Sunday outing. We now know it is wise to book ahead to ensure a seat.
We ended up going through the tunnel there which has telescope images and looking at their small display area before heading home via the KFC drive thru.

First Words

This makes me sad. DD#4 F has diabetes and that means testing her BGL at least 4 times every day. That makes me sad enough.
She is 20 months old and not really talking. She has a few words that she says sometimes. Mama, Dada, Nana (Banana, not her Nana) and Ella (a family friend). Last night she said "inger". Now the only reason I know it was susposed to mean something is that she had just crawled up into her highchair, put on the table and then stuck out her pointer finger and said "inger" because she knows she has to get tested before she gets her dinner.
Now I am making myself cry. I know we have it a lot better than others with diabetes because it is Neonatal diabetes rather than Type 1 and she has responded to oral medication and some mutations don't but I really didn't want one of my little girls first words to be about testing her BGL.
Another friend whose little boy has diabetes too posted about him being able to say "test" and now DD#4 is nearly able to do the same.

Last night's experiment

Our little medicate or not medicate experiment with no dinner last night went well. I tested DD#4 F BGL at 11:17pm and it was 3.8 (69). That was boardline for my comfort levels so I set my alarm for 3am. When I tested her BGL again at 3am it was 6.6 (119) and then 5.4 (97) at breakfast time. Beautiful numbers really.

This experience adds to my knowledge of how Miss F responds to her medication. Hopefully this will help in the future as we get used to this new regimen.

First time for medication and not eating

Tonight DD#4 F went to sleep in her highchair before eating her dinner. For any of the other girls it would have been no big deal and putting them straight to bed. But with Miss F I had a dilemma because of her diabetes.

1. Do we wake her up, test her BGL, give her medicine and feed her dinner?
2. Do we test her BGL and put her to bed with no medicine and no food?
3. Do we test her BGL, give her her medicine in her sleep and put her to bed with no food?

If she was still on insulin the only option would have been to wake her, test BGL, insulin, food and then bed. No real choice there. But she has been on glybenclamide (glyburide) for 4 months. This is the first time she is missing a meal.
We picked option #3. So I am about to do her late night BGL test to see how the experiment is going. Hopefully it is not too low so I don't need to wake her for some food. If it is OK we will see how it goes overnight.

Missed a dose and feeling silly.

Last night I tested DD#4 BGL before I went to bed.  It was 11.1 (200) which is a bit high for her. I hadn't given her the medication at dinner. I asked DD if he had given her dose of glybenclamide as he tested her then. But no. So that was why she was a bit higher than usual. Out of the 4 last readings over 10 (180) 2 have been missed doses, 1 explained and the other must have been food on finger because the other hand was 3.3 (59).

I am so thankful for the good control we have had so far on this new treatment. We don't really know what the future holds as it is a bit of an experiment. Only a dozen or so people are using this medication for this condition in Australia and 500 or so around the world.

Glad it's Friday

I'm not sure why but this has felt like a long week. Maybe it's becausewe are getting to the end of the school term. Maybe it's because I have been tested by some challenging behaviours in my DD's. Not sure. But I am looking forward to the weekend. Even though it's mostly the same duties with less schedule.
I think the whole family it looking forward to the Easter break. Twelve weeks is a long school term.