Unitl recently I thought Mr. T ate as much as he needed and wanted until I saw him attack the buffet breakfast at the hotel we were staying in when we were in Bangkok.
We do not restrict carbohydrate intake for Mr. T. We let him eat as much as he wants, we count carbohydrates and we bolus accordingly. If he wants to eat more, he does so and we just add more insulin. It is easy on the pump and there is no need to jab him every time he changes his mind.
Unitl recently I thought Mr. T ate as much as he needed and wanted until I saw him attack the buffet breakfast at the hotel we were staying in when we were in Bangkok.
0 Comments
When traveling, before diabetes entered our lives, my “essential stuff” packing list looked something like this:
Everything else we could get / buy along the way, or do without.
From a diabetes management point of view that means: no time for testing BG, likely to go low with such amounts of activity, likely to mis-bolus for food which could end up taking his BG either too high or too low and, worst of all, possibly not feeling the onset of a low during all the excitement.
In one word - a challenge. A scary challenge. All I wanted for Christmas last year was a Cure for Diabetes. Second on the list was “Think like a pancreas”, a book by Gary Scheiner. I got my second choice. While I am still reading Gary’s book (savoring shall I say – or rather reading carefully so I do not miss something important) I jumped at the opportunity to see him talk about “Use of advanced features of insulin pumps”, here in Brisbane. Like in his book, his words during the presentation came out so easily and made complete sense. He spoke about “Almost 101 uses of Temporary Basal” and examples of the use of combo or dual wave boluses. I had “discovered” temporary basal about a year into Mr T’s pumping and have been exploring the various uses of this feature ever since. I was glad to find out I was familiar with most possible uses, some of which I did not fully understand, how and why they worked as well as they did. That is where Gary came in. Mr T received his new pump a few days ago. It is an Animas VIBE [for more info click HERE and for Australian readers please click HERE], the upgrade for his old(er) Animas 2020 model. He knew it was coming since Animas gave us a call the day it was shipped. When he finally got to open the package, the following day, I could not believe the glow on his face, the size of his smile. It is just a pump, an insulin pump, not much different from the old one – it is even the same colour. I did not get it, but he was like a child in a candy store – very, very excited! As I suspected while writing the post "I am going back to carbs counting school" (LINK here), over the years I have got bit relaxed with counting carbs, quicker at guessing and generous in rounding off. It was time I for a refresher course in carbs counting. Time to calibrate my key tool – my EYE. I am very grateful to Mr T’s year three teachers who immediately, at the beginning of the school year, recognised a need for Mr T to have a small privilege – 10 minutes head start at break times. As ussual, I had an information session with the teachers before the first day of school. I explained Mr T’s break time routine. He was to:
On a regular day everything goes as usual: tests, numbers, food, more numbers, insulin, more numbers…. and the numbers vary, as they do, when you have diabetes, but that is OK. No major drama. Then you forget to re-connect the pump when you get into your pajamas…. A few hours later – the NUMBERS HAVE GONE MAD ! You too….. And that is what happened the other night.
So I forgot to label garlic bread today.I did label all the other snacks in Mr T’s lunch box, as I do every day, including ones that do not have any carbs, but I forgot the biggest carb-loader of them all. It happens, I know, I am only human, but what now ? |
About me....
Born in Serbia, married in South Africa, gave birth to Categories
All
The old ones...
October 2014
|