The fall
Scott Benner
Last night around 7 pm Arden experienced a spike from dinner that required a bolus. Even though I asked myself if cutting the amount of insulin by a third might not be a good idea (since we were so close to bed time)... we were covering a big number and all the math added up so I gave the bolus. Two hours later Arden was getting into bed and we were chatting about the weekend.
I checked her CGM and she was 90 with a diagonal arrow down. I tested, shut off her basal insulin and got her a glucose tablet. Her BG got as low as 75 at one point but I was able to control things with some more basal magic and I’m happy to report that she awoke for school today at 133 and had a nice steady line all night.
But that’s not what got me blogging today...
What got my to the blog machine today is this. Arden had just finished the glucose tablet and I was touching her hair, trying to help her to sleep. In a quiet moment she said in a whisper, “I can feel the fall”. When I asked her what she meant (though I knew and just wanted to hear it in her words) she said, “I can feel the insulin making me fall...” I asked, “where on your body do you feel it?”. “In my head, I can feel the insulin in my head make me fall”.
I don’t have any words of wisdom and at the moment I can’t see any lessons to take from this. I just wanted to share that Arden can, “feel the fall” and that it makes me sad. Even though I knew this already and I use those words when talking to the school nurse at least weekly and even though it helps her to avoid lows... to hear Arden say it made me sad. I’m not bummed out, just sharing. I hope everyone has a great day!
One good thing about all of this is that there isn’t much time to look back... you just have to keep moving forward. huh, look at that, there was a lesson in this. I’ll be damn.
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In our "6 Things" video Q talks about how she feels when she is low, like she could flop down.
Sometimes she tells me she feels low and when I check her she isn't. Surely it's the insulin kicking in and she's on her way down. Sometimes she's said she's low and he number is fine and we recheck her in a while and she has dropped dramatically. Maybe she can feel it way before it's reflected in her numbers. (And this is where I can see that having a CGM would be helpful.)
I guess the good thing to take away from it (if there is ever a "good thing") is that Arden has hypo awareness, some kids don't.
Thank you for sharing.
Arden totally feels the drop.
You're very welcome, transparency is the key to advocacy. Thank you for yours as well!