I will be posting for Diabetes Blog Week

I have joined up with others over at Bitter-Sweet. I hope it will be an interesting week in Blogdom. I'm looking forward to reading other DOC (Diabetes Online Community) blogs during the upcoming week. We can learn so much from each other.

The need for insulin.

Lately the have been lots of reasons that PWD (people with diabetes) need extra help. Flood, earthquakes and tornadoes have played havoc with peoples lives. Possessions have been taken away from them and their day to day life has been put on hold.
The thing is that PWD have special needs when it comes to food and their medication. They can't not eat and they can't miss their insulin.

When communications are down, power out and supplies low it make life for PWD. People with other disease have their own challenges as well but since DD#4 Miss F was diagnosed any natural disaster makes me think of those PWD that are in the midst of it all.

The most recent of these are the tornadoes in the US.  I just read this article Alabama PWDs Need Your Help over at Six until Me which outlines the needs of PWD and how other can help. Send supplies if you are able to the Huntsville JDRF office.

An organisation the helps out PWD that don't have access to diabetes supplies in normal circumstances as well as during disasters is Insulin for Life Australia and the Insulin for Life USA.

Family Fun - Camping

Our family took the opportunity this past weekend to go camping at Lake Somerset. The Holiday park had a children's movie on Saturday and Sunday nights. This helped to occupy the evenings while we were there.

The children had a great time. There was mini golf (a free game per day) and a play ground. Great family fun. We made a quick drive to Kilcoy on Sunday for a few extra supplies and DD#4 had a nap in the car. No napping in the tents for our Miss F.

One extra challenge on camping with Miss F is her medication needs to be refrigerated. We decided to take her back-up tablets instead. This meant grinding up the tablets and slipping them into something tasty. She loves fruit puree so she didn't mind at all. But BGL testing and medication adds an extra things to do at each meal time and feeding four DD's while camping can be challenging enough. DD#3 was not so good at using her lamp as a table and wore a bit more of her food than usual.

Miss F's BGLs weren't as good as the usually are at home but I guess cutting up and then grinding them it as exact as using the solution at home.

Over all it was a good experience and we look forward to spring to head off camping again.

First diaversary - One year on from diagnosis

It is one year today since our family changed in an unexpected way. Last year DD#4 F was diagnosed with diabetes. After months of worrying, wondering and wandering (between doctors) we were given an answer to why our little one had "failed to thrive" as the doctors put it.

It turned out to not be a straight forward diagnosis of Type 1 but a very rare form of Monogenic diabetes. Neonatal Diabetes was her new diagnosis after genetic testing. Particularly as mutation of the Kir6.2 or KCNJ11 gene - R201H. We found out in September and I promptly started blogging away. Partly because I couldn't find much online about babies with diabetes when Miss F was initially diagnosed.

It's not a club I would haven't picked for Miss F (& our family) to join but I have met some some great people through this journey. I'm sure we will meet many more. The DOC (Diabetes Online Community) has been great ask questions and find out how others cope with different things. Those in real life have been equally important to us getting through this first year.

Thanks for you encouragement, support and prayers as we have made our way. I am thankful that God lightens the load as we share with others.

Busy weekend & the Highland Gathering

Our weekend was so busy that I have spent the last few days trying to work out which part to blog about.

The main part other than remembering the death and resurrection of Christ and observing this at church was travelling to the Maclean Highland Gathering.

My DH grew up in Maclean and has talked about the Scottishness of the town and the Highland Gathering each Easter we have been married, I think. I had had an aversion to bagpipes and want to spend time with my extended family at Easter.

This year we compromised we went down but only stayed one night so we could have lunch with DH's family on Good Friday and lunch with my family on Easter Sunday. My compromise was the fact we actually went and DH's was that it was only one night.

I am happy to say that I enjoyed the time away. DD#2 D really enjoyed watching the Scottish dancing. She asked me to look up a local school so she can learn. The parade through town was nice and the band competition was impressive. They also have a Highland Games which was quite fun to watch.

Join me for WEGO Health’s Webinar: Navigating Your Health Narrative!

I just registered for WEGO Health’s exciting new webinar and I wanted to share with everyone.
I think it might help me work out how to post better about Neonatal Diabetes and DD#4.


Here are the particulars:
What: Navigating Your Health Narrative Webinar
Who: Health Activist Panel with Lisa E, Erin B, Jenni P, and Amanda D
When: Thursday April 21st 8pm EST in the US (the webinar will last one hour)
 I haven't worked out the time here in Australia but I will look up the archived version.
Where: Sign up here and you’ll get all the details

The webinar is for anyone from seasoned bloggers to blog-readers who want to start their own blog. The webinar will cover the basics of blogging and include more advanced tips and tricks for promoting posts, managing your time, and establishing your blog “voice” and how to raise awareness about your condition through blogging.

By signing up you’ll also have a chance to ask specific questions for the Health Activist panel that will be answered during the live Q&A portion of the webinar. You’ll get access to the archived version of the webinar!

The term is over.

We have successfully made it through Term 1 for 2011. It has been a very long term for our girls. I had a parent/teacher interview for DD#1  Miss C yesterday. It went pretty much as expected. She is doing fine. I wanted to know how to motivate her to do her reading so we discussed some possible strategies. She doesn't have a problem with her reading, she likes reading in class but she doesn't want to do her home reading.

As DD#2 Miss D is in Prep there is no interview until next term but I wanted to know how things were going as her kindy teacher was a bit worried about how she would settle this year. I tried to make a time with one of her teachers but our availability didn't match up. We ended up having a chat after school last week and covered most of what I wanted to know. The rest can wait until the week 5 interview next term.

Now to keep the girls occupied for the next week.