I was sitting at my desk today when I heard Arden walk upstairs. I made that subconscious T1 parent note, "Arden upstairs" and with that I glanced over my shoulder to see where Cole was... "on the sofa". Last, I wonder where Kelly is (she is on vacation, so home with us). All this happend in an instant of course and I do stuff like this all day long, quietly "managing" almost everything that happens in our home. For example, if Cole is sitting on the sofa, "should he be reading for school, does he have practice today?" When Arden goes upstairs I'll think, "do I know what her BG is and how long until I should check on her?". I'm sure you know what I mean. In the past I've likened this to people as the parental equivalent of being an international spy. Checking all of the exits when you walk into a room and figuring out what on the table can be used to kill the bad guy.

I digress...

Arden walked upstairs, Cole was in the room with me and Kelly was somewhere in the house. Moments later a huge BANG came from above my head, I looked up perplexed at where the noise seemed to eminate from and thought, "why would Kelly be jumping on our bed?" Then my eyes fixed on the ceiling above me and I began to raise my voice to tell whoever was destroying my poor bed to stop but as I did, I noticed that the exterior wall of our house was swaying back and forth and I began to feel a bit woozy.

Even though I've never been in an earthquake, I knew that was exactly what was happening. I immediately did the following things, in this order.

 

• Brought Cole close to me
• Called for Kelly
• Called for Arden, told Kelly that Arden was upstairs and yelled for everyone to met in the family room
• Began taking insulin, OmniPod, DexCom, battery, FreeStyle test strip and even ice inventory in my head

 

I instantly began to wonder how many days of insulin we had, considered where pharmacies near us are (we use Medco mail order) and just as I was about to spring into emergency level daddy action, the shaking stopped. The entire moment lasted all of 30 seconds. There wasn't even time to seek shelter before it stopped and thank goodness that wasn't necessary!

In that moment I wanted my family to be safe but that urge was being overwhelmed by a more guttural instinct, a reaction that made me feel as if someone was trying to kill Arden... by separating her from insulin.

My entire world felt smaller in the hours after the shaking but not becasue the earth may one day splay open, that I could deal with. If the earth does open and swallows me, well that would suck but it's not what I'm afraid of.

It's the idea that the refrigerator may get warm and Arden's insulin with it or that Medco may not be able to get Apidra to my house in 24 hours - that stuff absolutley terrifies me. We have created a world for ourselves and in that world Arden has what she needs, if that enviroment of mailorder drugs and food being available at every corner went away... that's my idea of a disaster.

Honestly, an earthquake felt up and down the east coast is a dramatic way of making this point but it's how I was reminded today of how lucky we are to have access to the things that Arden needs, when she needs them.

This moment also prepared me mentally for our next adventure, the one where we drive toward a hurricane. That post is coming Friday and has wonderful photos of wild horses.