Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The "Good" of Today

Today has been a roller coaster of 'good' and 'bad.'  No, that doesn't even come close....'good' and 'pile of sh*t.'  Yep, that's closer.

Tonight I will share the 'good' as I am still trying to formulate how to share the bad without completely offending my mother (love you!!) with some choice words that would be completely called for in the situation, but none-the-less not really the best way to convey the story for all to read.

So...on to the GOOD...

Bean had her appointment with her superturboaffengeil (that would be 'totally super monkey cool' in German) CDE (certified diabetes educator) today.  We haven't had the pleasure of hanging out with her since Bean started using the Omnipod in October.  So, since we had done a 6 week check with her NP (nurse practitioner) we decided to do the 'three month' appointment with her CDE.

This gal is the most animated talker you have ever met.  She's from Texas...need I say more?  We tend to spend the appointment in 'chat' mode and somehow we always get to the reason for the appointment in a nice casual way.

We went over Bean's log.  We talked about the dreaded 'almond butter toast and milk' combination.  Her suggestion was that it could be 'morning insulin resistance' or simply God's sarcastic sense of humor!  (Do you see why I love her?)  She gave some suggestions if we ever wanted to dare try said combo again.  We then moved on to the overnight basal tweaking that I've been doing since our appointment with the NP.  We've decided to continue the larger amount until 9PM instead of decreasing at 7PM to see if we can ward off those 10-11PM spikes Bean has been having.  If that doesn't seem to do the trick, we're going to adjust her dinner insulin:carb ratio.  Little steps since Bean deals in such small amounts of insulin and seems to be quite sensitive.

We had mentioned a few times that we also needed to do an A1C.  It was getting past 'our time' with her and we had bounced here and there in our conversations but never made it to the A1C test....partly because we were talking so much, partly because the CDE technically can't do the test and we needed to grab someone to do it.

Anyway...Bean lanced and the said available tech sucked up the blood in the little tube thingy and the five minute count down began.  We stared gathering our things and she asked if we wanted her to text us the result.  I said sure; Ubergeek said no way, we are waiting!  So, we continued talking in the hallway as we all periodically glanced at the countdown on the machine.

10-9-8-7-6-5-4...the CDE ran over and covered the display. She made us all guess and then gave us a hint that it was two of the same number. 8.8!!!!  Woo-freakin-Hoo!!!!!  OK, to some of you that might not be a 'woo-freakin-hoo' number, but that is an entire whole point DOWN from Bean's A1C at the end of January.  We (um, try me, myself, and I) have been working my a** off trying to get Bean's numbers more in range.  It's been a very slow process...I'm talking adjusting ratios by 1 carb at a time for a week to see how things go then doing another carb and so on for weeks and weeks and weeks. Then add the overnight basal tweaking that took weeks and weeks.  It has been a crazy 90 or so days of trying this and trying that and IT PAID OFF!!!!

WOO-FREAKIN-HOO!!!!!


So, that was an hour and a half of my day...the 'good' hour and a half of my day.  Oh, how I wish it was a longer part of my day, but being able to share it with you has made it a bit longer.  8.8, seriously, 8.8!
That makes the carb counting, ratio tweaking, basal bumbing, more night checks, and all that other ridiculous pancreatic-ness worth it.  Not saying I wouldn't love to have my sleep back, but keeping Bean in range more and thus improving the quality of her health and life is a dang fine reward if you ask me!!



The plan is to share tomorrow about the 'bad' part of my day tomorrow.  I'm not promising it will be all that 'mother-friendly' so maybe you should just wait for the phone call version, Mother!! ;)

5 comments:

  1. Way to go on the A1C! A whole point is awesome and your hard work has paid off. I so understand....my daughter's A1C has slowly come down as well. That's all we can hope for is a decrease right? So happy for you!

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  2. Yay! Good for you - it's so wonderful to see all that hard work pay off! :)

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  3. WOOHOO on the A1C!!! That is so awesome to see all of your hard work paying off with better numbers!! :o) I am totally going to tell Emma about the "superturboaffengeil" word today...lol..she's gonna love it...she is OBSESSED with monkeys!

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  4. "superturboaffengeil" - - - awesomeness!!! I love learning new words ;)

    And, I Love, lOve, loVe, lovE to hear these wonderful stories of better A1C's. So peaceful and wonderful . . . the settling in the massive flutterings of our hearts for our children with T1D. Progress to betetr health. What a blessing!!

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  5. WO-FREAKIN'-HO is effing RIGHT!!! Pat yourself on the back Girl Friend. That is your fine work paying off Mama Pancreas!

    I am on the edge of my seat for today's post.

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Hey, Thanks for sharing!! Your comments make me :)!!
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