Diabetes Sucks

We swapped Arden's OmniPod last night after basketball practice, it was a little later in the evening then I would have liked as being tired combined with jabbing a hole into yourself, seldom goes well - but then, what does go well with piercing your skin with a needle?

After we finished, Arden asked me if I would "cuddle" with her for "ten minutes" when she went to bed, great offer, I of course said, "Yes!". 

As we climbed into bed Arden had to reposition herself a few times, she told me that it takes a little while to become accustomed to having a pod in a new site and that she was going to sleep on her side because of the placement of this pod. Even though I am aware that she uses different sleep positions based on pod placement, the look on her face as she tried to get comfortable, mixed with the mature way that she explained the annoyance, brought me a moment of melancholy. 

When we finally got comfy Arden kept talking, and she told me that she wished we didn't have to change her infusion site so often. My mind immediatly raced back to before we began using an insulin pump and those long sad days of giving my baby ten needles.

"I know it hurts", I began. Arden stopped me and made it clear that I didn't know what it felt like to have type I diabetes and then she added this exclamation to her sentence saying, "Diabetes sucks!". "You're right", I replied, "I don't know what it's like". I rephrased, "I imagine that it hurts to get stuck with a needle and I know that having it happen every three days must suck.

Do you remember when you received insulin with needles?". She did not.

I told Arden how I would give her two needles every morning when she woke up. I explained how we'd test and shoot insulin later in the morning for breakfast, how sometimes a couple of hours after a meal she would need more. Breakfast, lunch dinner and "You would eat a snack everyday around three in the afternoon and one before bed". "Did I get a needle at snack time too?", she asked. By the time I finished explaining how we managed her BGs with needles, we counted ten injection. Two in the morning (BG maintenance and slow acting), at times two for meals (Carbs and BG maintenance), an afternoon snack, evening snack and two before bed (BG maintenance and slow acting). We decided that most days she experienced about ten shots and then we did some math. When Arden realized that with injections she would get stuck about a hundred and forty times in two weeks, she looked relived. More math told us that two weeks of needle sticks was the equivalent to one year of site changes. With that news, she proclaimed that changing her pods wasn't "too bad" but, "it still sucks".

A car accident that results in a broken arm is certainly not a cancer diagnosis, but it may well be the worst thing happening in your life. Perspective is certainly very important to have, but not at the expense of your own feelings. I am elated that Arden knows that her insulin pump has made her life better without forgetting that needing to wear it, to stay alive, sucks.

I left her room feeling proud, the melancholy had left me. Diabetes may suck, but she owns it.

Your Favorite Posts: November 2013

Diabetes Awareness Month 2013 was the most popular month in the six year history of Arden's Day, surpassing April 2013 (The month my first book was released). 

After Arden's Day first appeared online in 2007, it took one year to reach 1,000 views and I was so amazed that I grabbed a screen capture to mark the occasion - a lot has changed since then.

The top five blog posts from November 2013 (ranked by views)

The Air Left The Room

When Things Go Wrong, They Go Wrong

The Blood WOn't Come Out: Day of Diabetes Deeper Look

Lace Up 4 Diabetes Shoe Laces GiveAway

Snuffleupabolus

Facebook

Most months, the popular posts on the site differ from what is popular on the Facebook page. This month however they were very similar, with the exception of this post (I think it was the picture that people loved)- After School low, meet Ben and Jerrys.

...and my announcement that I'll be reviewing the Prep Pad made many of you very happy (I'm excited too!).

Twitter

The most popular topics on Twitter had to do with the Novo Nordisk shoe laces giveaway and my 'Day of Diabetes' tweets.

Thank you all so very much for your continued support and for fervently reading the site. The guy who took that screen capture of the thousandth page hit... he would have fallen off his chair if he saw how many of you read Arden's Day in November of 2013. Seriously, I'm staggered, thank you!

Arden's Day is on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr and Google+. I follow back and love hearing from all of you through these various social media channels. Stop bye and say hello. I'm @ArdensDay or ArdensDay in all places.

Now for a shameless plug: My parenting book, 'Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal: Confessions of a Stay-At-Home Dad' is available everywhere that books are sold and would make a perfect holiday gift for the readers in your life.

Snuffleupabolus

The lovely people at Lauren's Hope are giving away two $50 gift certificates to their site along with two autographed copies of my award winning (I know, fancy right!?) parenting memoir, 'Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal". Just head over to their blog to read my piece about managing Thanksgiving day BGs, then you can enter to win the contest or do whatever else goes on over there.

Good luck in the giveaway! - Free Stuff Friday with Scott Benner

What do you want from Diabetes Awareness Month?

So November is Diabetes Awareness Month. Okay. Now what?

Aside from building awareness, which is a goal that I hold in high regard, what do you want to happen this month? What change, lesson or tidal shift would you like to see occur after the diabetes online community shines their bright light onto the life of people living with diabetes?

"Something tangible", is always my less than complete answer. But is it reasonable to expect that people who don't live with diabetes have the time or space in their busy lives to commit to understanding a complicated disease? 

Using myself as an example. I am a person who understands how difficult living with a chronic illness can be, I know how important it is to the people who are effected to get their story into the world. Yet, when I see a pink ribbon or a football player trying to kill another man while wearing pink shoes... I just think, "Breast cancer awareness", but I don't really know the first thing about breast cancer. I've never made a donation to a breast cancer charity, except to honor the passing of a friend, and I don't proselytizing about breast cancer awareness.

I'm as aware as I can be, and I can't tell you one thing that my awareness brings to the people whose lives have been forever changed by breast cancer. But maybe that's enough?

Maybe that's all the breast cancer awareness people can hope for, that I know they are out there and that their lives have been impacted in a way that makes them want to teach others about their plight. Perhaps their efforts are more about adding compassion to the world and empathy that is rooted in honest concern. 

Now, if you handed me a magic wand and put me in charge of diabetes awareness, I'd cast a spell on the world so that everyone would know what to do when Arden gets dizzy in the middle of her practice. I'd make it so that each person could feel the insane mix of pressure, stress and fear that I felt last night when I looked down at Arden's glucose meter and saw, "32". I would selfishly turn the entire world into care givers for Arden and each of you. I think that, if I'm being honest, that's what I want from Diabetes Awareness Month - full and complete understanding for my little girl and all of you.

What I expect however, is no more than my reaction to seeing a pink ribbon and maybe that's enough. I hope that it is.

Since I don't have a magic wand, in honor of Diabetes Awareness Month I'm going to dig even deeper and share our life with type I this month in as raw and honest of a manner as my soul can stand. 

It's diabetes awareness month. I'm diabetes blogger. That's my magic wand.

Link between Type I Diabetes and Coxsackie B Virus

I found this article particularly interesting because Arden was diagnosed with the Coxsackie virus prior to her diagnosis with type I diabetes. I was wondering how many of you also saw Coxsackie before type I?

The following is from The Scotsman.

A SPECIFIC virus family has been implicated in the development of Type 1 diabetes, raising the prospect of vaccinations against the disease. -

• by JOHN VON RADOWITZ

Scientists are encouraged by data from two studies that show a clear link between the condition and group B coxsackieviruses, which are known to damage insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

The potential breakthrough relates to type 1 diabetes which affects around 400,000 people in the UK, 29,000 of whom are children.

Researchers believe that, in time, it may be that with screening and a vaccine, they could prevent a proportion of diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease caused by the body’s defences destroying insulin-producing beta cells. But what triggers the extreme immune reaction in the first place has been an unanswered question.

Suspicion has fallen on enteroviruses, one of the most common infective agents in humans. They include the virus responsible for the common cold, as well as those responsible for polio and viral meningitis.

The new study narrowed the diabetes culprit down to one particular enterovirus population known as group B coxsackieviruses.

The remainder of this article a valuable read and can be found here.