We arrived home last night after Cole’s baseball practice around 9 pm.  I was answering an email when I heard Arden say the following, “Dad can I have this”.  Arden had been complaining about being thirsty before we left baseball so I expected to see a can of diet iced tea or a diet soda in her hand but when I turned around I saw what can only be described as a horror.

She was holding milk and strawberry syrup.  Now in the past at moments like these my heart sinks and then it ascends to my throat.  Sinks because I have to tell Arden that she can’t have a glass of milk before bed, especially not a glass of milk with a tablespoon of high fructose corn syrup mixed in it.  Then it jumps into my throat because milk raises your blood glucose fast and drastically and it hangs around in the blood for a long time - it’s not exactly the optimal night time drink for Arden.  The strawberry syrup raises Arden’s BG rapidly as well but it dissipates (with insulin) faster.  The two together would pose a proper challenge for any person managing a child’s diabetes in the middle of the day but 30 minutes before bed it’s just out of the question.  In the past I’d have said no and I would have felt horrible saying it.  But last night I decided to trust the pump...

“Trust the pump” is my mini-mantra this week.

Things have changed in regards to how insulin is measured and delivered so I have to trust the numbers that we’ve entered into the pump and the math that it’s doing based on them.  So I trusted the pump, mixed a tablespoon of pink liquid sugar into a glass of milk and gave Arden the insulin that the pump indicated was proper.  I would have never,  let me repeat never have felt comfortable giving Arden that much insulin before bed in the past and I would have stayed up all night checking and rechecking her blood glucose if I did.  My expectation would have been that I’d either have to wake her up to eat (if I gave her too much insulin) or administer more insulin and sit up all night checking her BG (if I gave her too little).  That however seems happily to be a thing of the past!

This morning when I checked Arden’s BG at 8 am she was 108!  You may have no idea why so I’ll tell you but typing that last sentence makes me so happy that I could cry.  Arden got to drink milk like a normal kid, I got to wake up this morning not exhausted like a normal person and the hours that fell in between those two seemingly innocuous events didn’t hurt my little girl’s body. There was no sugar in her blood last night hurling her towards kidney failure, heart disease, amputation, blindness or early death.  

Today because of the OmniPod milk is just milk, yesterday it may as well have been rat poison.

**

The following are archived comments from this post. You can post new comments below.

AmyK

Oh, how I can relate! My daughter's insulin start on the OmniPod was just a week ago today, and this weekend, after nine months of my waking her to eat breakfast at 6:00am, she slept until almost 9:00am...and her BG was in range! - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - 02:07 AM

Tandy

Reading this made me tear up! My son has been pumping for over a year now and I remember the moment he got to eat without worry even more emotionally than I remember 9/11. What an amazing moment! - Friday, November 5, 2010 - 10:33 PM

Scott

Thank you both for reading and for commenting! - Monday, November 8, 2010 - 07:22 PM