No CGM, No Problem
Arden turned ten years old in July but in softball years she is consider to be nine. 9u Little League all star play is a one tournament and done setup -- district play does't begin until 10u when it is then possible to play in a District, Section, State and finally Regional tournament (The World Series only exist at 12u).
Arden's team won the 9 tournament in our district and with that, softball was to be over.
Until she tried out for the 10u team and made it as a sub. Now you know, if you already didn't, that the "u' in the age bracket stands for "and under".
Arden's 9u tournament began in early June before school was over and they practiced for weeks before the Father's Day tournament. SO she had already been playing for a while when..
The 10u practices started just days later in June and on the evening of August 8th, the 10s played their last game. Three straight months of softball. There were practice almost daily and games when there weren't practices. It's been a mild summer here but at times the heat has been grueling. Blood glucose levels have been mostly stable during play but late night lows have been more common this year than in the past. We are handling it well.
With three games left in the Regional Tournament, oh yea by the way... they won the whole thing (Arden had the winning hit in the championship game). Anyway, with three games left in the fourth tournament Arden showed up at the field without her CGM. Too far from the hotel to go get it, we went old school diabetes and never missed a beat.
With DexCom we test after warmups which is about thirty minutes before the game begins and make any adjustments that are necessary. After that Arden uses hand signals (she holds up her fingers) about every two innings to let us know what her DexCom is reading. If there is an issue, we handle it.
Without DexCom we tested after warmups which was about thirty minutes before the game began and made the necessary adjustments (she needed a few carbs). After that Arden used hand signals (thumbs up or thumbs down) about every two innings to let us know how she felt. We tested before the fourth inning. There were no issues.
Why did I blog this non-story about not having Arden's CGM?
I completed a rather exhaustive set of parent, user and creator interviews last week about CGM in the Cloud (I'll be explaining CGM in the Cloud soon for those who aren't aware) and if I'm being quite honest, I'm still wrapping my head around all that I learned. So much good stuff there, between having better access to data and comfort for parents, but there's something about it that makes me uneasy and I'm trying to find the words to share that feeling without diminishing the joy that I felt hearing the parents talk about their peace of mind and the people who are using the data to better their health. But there is a conversation to be had about fear and I want to have it... just need to find the words.
More great blog posts of Arden's Day