As our children get older our family is sometimes required to split up to accomplish everything on our calendar. You know, our son Cole my have a baseball game on one side of town while Arden has a game three towns over, stuff like that. Kelly and I never like to miss the kids stuff but it happens.
Last week presented us with a twist on that theme when Kelly's job took her to London the day before I was to leave for a Florida based college baseball recruiting weekend with Cole. Kelly left on Wednesday and was returning late on Friday night. I was leaving early Thursday morning and not returning until Sunday evening. Arden had school on Thursday, she was off Friday - okay, you following the set up? Kelly in London, Scott in Florida, one day of school and a day off to cover before Kelly returned home... what ever should we do?
My first inclination was to take Arden to Florida but that would mean her missing a day of school and to be honest, I didn't want to buy her a plane ticket and drag her from one hot baseball field to another, she would not have enjoyed the trip and I wouldn't enjoy spending the money.
Too expensive + too boring + too much school missed = Arden stays home.
The only person available to stay with Arden at our home was my mother and she knows exactly zero about managing type 1 diabetes, but did it matter that she didn't know anything about the day-to-day of type 1? Not if I can see Arden's BG on my phone it doesn't.
I thought about all that could 'go wrong' while I was gone and wondered if I could control the variables remotely, the possible issues that I could image were:
Could Go Wrong
- OmniPod insulin pump could need to be changed (Arden can do this on her own.)
- Dexcom sensor could need to be changed (Arden has never done this but without the Dexcom, none of this works.)
- Overnight (Arden wouldn't wake up overnight if a tugboat crashed into our house.)
- School (I can run school remotely as we normally do... as long as my plane had WiFi)
Plan for Could Go Wrong
- If a pod needs to be swapped Arden will do it but we don't keep insulin at school so I sent Arden to school on Thursday with pods and insulin and wrote to the nurse explaining what was going on. CHECK!
- Having a working Dexcom is the lynchpin to this entire plan and neither I or Kelly can come home if it stopped working. Arden has never changed a sensor by herself. Hmmm, wait... a boy in Cole's grade wears a Dexcom! I called his mother (who I know at best tangentially) and explained the situation. I told her that it was unlikely that Arden would let her try to put a sensor on her but asked if she could be there to oversee if necessary. She rocks and agreed to help if needed! CHECK!
- Overnight what I really needed was an adult to answer the phone and wake up Arden for me, my mom can handle that. CHECK!
- I booked a flight on an airline that has WiFi. Kelly was prepared in London to take over while I was in the air should I encountered a connection issue. CHECK!
Best laid plans and all, but how did it go in the real world?