Monday, January 30, 2012

Sick Day

Saturday evening, Bean and I headed to the Alaska Museum of Natural History for a Girl Scout sleep over.

Yeah, 19 crazy 7-8-9 year olds sleeping alongside dinosaur bones, stuffed 'real' lions, and fossils sounds about as much fun as it was!

They did some fun science experiments:

baking soda and vinegar to blow up a balloon

glacier goo with glue, borax, and water

And then they settled in to watch a movie...honestly not sure what it was because I was helping blow up air mattresses!

About half way through the movie, Bean comes to me and tells me she doesn't feel good and wants to go to bed.  Fine by me, so I get her settled and get me settled shortly there after for what I was hoping would be a somewhat sleep filled night.

Not so much.

Bean wakes up coughing and coughing and then leans over the mattress and spits up/throws up a nice little pile of mucus and spit.  (sorry, if that's TMI!)  I get her and the floor cleaned up and settled back to sleep.

Repeat that scene three more times, adding a bit more of the baby carrots she had for a snack during the movie each time.  After the second time, I snatched one of the empty containers they used for the goo to sit by the bed.  Wasn't taking any chances that the next offering would be as small as the one before it!!

She was a trooper, especially since she hasn't ever been 'throw up' sick.  Sure, she's vomited...when she's gotten herself so worked up about something and when she's come out of anesthesia. But she's never had a stomach bug that has made her sick like this. 

We got everyone packed up and picked up and headed home Sunday morning.  (I would have considered leaving in the middle of the night, but I was one of only two chaperons for the six girls from Bean's troop because one had a sick kid and didn't come and the other had a babysitter cancel and had to go home.  Ah, the joys of being responsible!)  Bean tried to eat breakfast, only to loose it about a half an hour later.

She tried to eat a few times, to no avail; each time tossing those cookies more intensely, poor thing!  Thankfully she was able to sleep through the night without any incident....after the right before bed puke fest that started before I could set up the trash can by her bed!

This morning I had to go to school for a 'transition meeting' with my classes as the full time teacher started today.  (That's a whole other post that may or may not be coming...haven't decided yet.)   And since it hadn't been 24 hours since the last puke, Bean couldn't go to school.

She spent the morning with Grandpa (the saint that he is!) and didn't eat a thing.  She woke up at 212, a nice enough number since she had been pretty low all the puke-filled day before.  I corrected her; just felt like it needed to be done.  But, since she didn't want to eat breakfast, and who could blame her, it was just a correction.

I picked her up shortly before noon...yes, I had called mid morning and she was doing just fine...and she hadn't eaten all morning.  Impromptu basal test!!!  She cruised along, steady eddy, in the low/mid 100s all morning. (Wilma said 144, but PDM said 108 when she tested, just FYI)  Score one for the D-mom!!

please only pay attention to the nice steady line there in the middle
pay NO attention to the god awful "I'm eating food for the first time
in almost a day" spike that just wouldn't stop!!
oh, and never-you-mind the post pasta dinner 362
man, I should have cropped the crap out of this photo!!


She wanted lunch, so she ate and has thankfully kept that AND dinner down.  Hurray!!  
Her BG hasn't been so steady eddy for the rest of the day, but whatever.  At least she's not throwing up!!

So, we survived our first tummy bug relatively unscathed.  And it gave me some good data about her morning basal to boot. :)

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Belated Birthday Wishes


Sunday was Bean's 8th birthday.

We spent the majority of the day celebrating the Year of the Dragon.
Bean dances with her friend, G, and several other girls, in a Chinese Dance Group.  And since Sunday was New Year's Eve, there was a big party happening!

Here a couple of 'too cute not to share' pictures...



It's insanely hard to believe that it's been eight years.  Time has gone by way, way too quickly.

That day separated my life into two parts:  before Bean and after Bean.  
I no longer relate time to my life, but to hers.  
Everything is remembered by how old she was when it happened.  
I honestly have to do the math based on her age to figure out how old I'll be on my birthday this year!!

She is, in a word, amazing.  What she's been through...from cleft lip surgery at 7 months, two procedures and a surgery for her bladder reflux, another lip surgery, and the most recent adventure, D...would dim the light in many eyes.  But not hers.  She has this infectious smile, a sparkle in her eyes that makes it impossible to not smile when you see her. (a fact that has saved her cute little butt on many occasions!) 



Sunday also marked the three year anniversary of my daddy's passing.  It's impossible for me not to include something about him.  He, too, was amazing.  He never met a stranger in his life and would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.  I have so many wonderful memories of him and Bean, and I am thankful that she does, too.

July 2004, Bean about 6 months old


So, Happy Belated Birthday, Bean!  
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post, but strep throat has kicked me in the butt and has kept me down for the past three days.  
I am so proud of the young lady you are becoming...and I know Papaw would be, too!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Wordless Wednesday ~ Baby, It's Cold Outside

First, my apologies if the song is now stuck in your head...especially if you finally got it out of your head from the holidays!



Monday, January 16, 2012

Drawing a Blank

I have been at a loss.

Just can't seem to wrap my head around much of anything, D-related or not.

I feel like I'm in a fog and can't quite make out the path ahead of me.

I am still doing the long term sub that was supposed to be over in November. Loving that I'm still teaching; loving (well, liking some of) the kids; enjoying the needed pay check. However, I feel like I'm just going through the motions most days. Biding my time until the full time teacher starts. And I don't like it.

I just went through some stuff (I'll spare you the details) in preparation for an IUD that I won't be getting. All is well, but the process and waiting in between appointments had me almost numb, apathetic to whatever may or may not come as a result of the tests and ultrasounds and biopsies. Oops, sorry, those were details. ;)

I have been coming up with nothing inspired when looking over Bean's BGs. Lots of things are off: overnight basals, afternoon basals, or could it be correction factors and I/C ratios. I just don't know for sure. Yeah, I've been doing adjustments and tweaks, but they are not resulting in the desired results.  And is frustrating in and of itself, but it's not pushing me towards any epiphanies.

And then there's the fact that it's January. It's cold, it's dark (although we are gaining daylight, yeah!), and it's the anniversary of my dad's passing. It's impossible to keep that tucked away in the back of my mind, where I keep...shove...it most of the time. It seeps into my thoughts and takes me back to three years ago, whether I want to go or not.

So, here I am. Drawing a blank. In a bit of a fog, unable to clearly make out where my next step will take me.

And to a certain extent, I'm OK with it; and that kinda concerns me.

But then there's the control freak inside me that starts screaming at me to snap out of it and take back that control.  Problem is, I'm getting too good at ignoring that screaming at the moment.

Ugh!

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Santa's Second Delivery

As you may remember, Bean asked for a doll that looked just like her for Christmas.

And as you may remember, Santa took it further and equipped said doll with a pod and dexcom receiver.


Of course, Bean is your typical seven year old who is never completely satisfied with anything and felt that Bean (the doll) was missing a few critical items...a PDM to control her pod and a Wilma (what we call the dexcom receiver) for her dexcom sensor.

Being the diplomat that I am, I told her that Santa would probably be dropping off those items at a later date as he was most likely swamped with the Christmas rush and would then need some down time to recover from the festivities.

While we were waiting on Santa, Donna, the amazing T1Mom behind Tallygear, was working in her own little workshop creating the most awesome doll sized belt and headband.  Yeah, she TOTALLY rocks like that!  So, Bean was tided over by their arrival to a certain extent, but was still patiently (kinda!) waiting for Santa to come, again.

Today, the magic that is Santa struck again!

the matching Beans!

close up of doll sized 'dexcom reciever' and 'PDM'


FYI, all the items were made from oven baked modeling clay.  The 'dexcom reciever' and 'PDM' were then painted with 'regular' crafter's acrylic paint and then sealed with clear nail polish...didn't have any polyurethane and wasn't going to go get any for two little items.  Even Santa has her limits!! ;)

Sunday, January 1, 2012

2012 ~ No More Coasting

2012.

2012.

It just doesn't seem possible that it's the year two thousand twelve!

Wasn't it just yesterday that we were all expecting our computers to freak out and turn the world back to 1900?  Seriously?!?!

And wasn't it just yesterday that it didn't seem possible that a decade had gone by and we were in the 1990s?

Among the fireworks and toasts and celebrations of this new year, I find myself longing for a quiet place to reflect.

A place to escape from the constant barrage of numbers and thoughts and decisions that I have to make sense of to keep my Bean alive, healthy, and 'normal.'

I've been coasting lately.  Just kinda going with the D-flow and taking the numbers as they come instead of digging in with the oars and navigating this class 5 rapids D-river.

I need to start logging BGs and carbs again.  Need to pay more attention and make more adjustments and focus on getting those Wilma (Bean's dexcom) graphs less like mountain peaks and more like rolling hills and plains.

There are other things that need less coasting and more oaring in my life.

Me, for starters.  I need to pay more attention to me.  Not in a selfish, 'I'm more important' kind of way.  But in a 'I need to take care of me so I can offer a better to those I love' sort of way.

So, here's to making 2012 (seriously, can it really be 2012?!?!) a year of active oaring. 
Of taking control and navigating the route instead of having life or D or whatever push me along.

God has the route all planned, I just need to pick up the oars and trust His map to lead me through all the rapids that this year has in store.