Honeymoon Over

this was not a set up prop

I didn't think I was ever gonna type here again. I still clicked back here in the past two months just to look at my pictures. But nothing to say. Too much to say. But maybe day by day is the best way to do this. Blogging and life, both.

Diabetically speaking, Riley is doing pretty well. He's had an Endo appointment during my blog vacation. His A1c is up one whole point to 7. That surprises me. I can't imagine that seeing so many 300's on his glucometer could still produce an A1c of 7. On Memorial Day, I thought the Honeymoon was Over, but it was not. Another great step toward a completely disfunctioning pancreas was taken this past September. Right when Riley was benched for not keeping his grades above passing, his blood glucose numbers skyrocketed. Tricky Diabetes. Perhaps the lack of daily exercise is causing high numbers or maybe it's the stress of not being able to play with the team/pressure to improve his grades PDQ. His carb ratio went from 1:25 to 1:15 to 1:7 in days. So for the last four weeks he has been using two units of insulin for every 15 CHO. His evening insulin, Lantus, is up to 9 units. But as the endo explained, for a kid his size it will probably triple. So indeed, he still has a partially functioning pancreas.

Our own perfect storm is not Hurricane Sandy, but Just Riley. Starving -fourteen -year -old - TD1 -teenager. See it there. All of those converging. 'I'm just so hungry', 'I'll dose for it', 'I'll run around to burn it off', 'No I didn't eat anything', 'I have no idea why it's 321'. These are real quotes happening real (ly) often.

My mom is the other part of the Life of Riley here at our house. She's moved back in with us. We're glad to have her. I don't have to worry about her being alone at her house at the beach in Delware where she would prefer to stay. She's had a recurrence of uterine cancer. It is not really a recurrence. She had it removed last year with a full hysterectomy. But this time, it is a completely different cell, a different type of uterine cancer - which is weird.  She began chemotherapy treatments two weeks ago and will continue a three week cycle here in Pennsylvania next week. I'm specifically praying for no side effects from the therapy and a reduction in the discomfort she has been experiencing in the last month since her diagnosis.

Hurricane Sandy came through slowly Sunday night and is still passing by. The kids' school closed for two days, which meant I didn't work on Monday at the school and the local military installation was also closed (unheard of), so I didn't work today either. Everybody wins, except my paycheck and Tim, because working from home does not have weather related cancellation perks. We experienced no flooding or downed trees or loss of electricity. I'm grateful, but a little disappointed. I really wanted to be warmed by the gas fire place and eat out of cans by candlelight.

Varsity Soccer

Tonight was the first home game for the Boys Varsity Soccer team. Riley got it in the game! I was flagged down while working in the concession stand. A sweet friend came in to relieve me of my duties so I could watch him. It was a great game. They won! That's all 3 games WON!

Then I realized that I had relaxed about his games. We didn't review the process before games like we do for practices. Practices are two full hours of running both short and long, constant drills and then scrimmaging. He is supposed to test his bg before he begins and make sure it is between 130 and 150, eating a 15 - 30 g carb snack and drinking Gatorade 2 throughout the practice.

There were no expectations of actually getting to see some game time, so when I got a call half way through the second half from Riley sitting on the bench on the other side of the field, I was concerned. Blood glucose was 119. Pretty good, but not if he went into the game again. I sent a Powerade (35 g of carbs) across the field. He drank it all and didn't get back in the game. When he tested at home around 7:30 pm, his bg was 110.  "It was all the nervous excitement", he said.

I must post a picture of him, but with the new phone/camera, I am having some difficulties. Same reason I didn't post pictures of First Day of School 2012-they're on my husband's phone and something about saving them from his phone to my computer disallows me to rotate clockwise!

First Day of School

It always comes way sooner than I plan. This year, we just arrived home from a week at the beach on Saturday, attended the annual church picnic on Sunday and started school on Monday, August 27.

Both kids were excited to see their friends again all back in one place. Meet their new teachers. Riley started high school, 9th grade, a freshman! Reid, 5th grade.

I began Monday morning at the high school office's front desk. Two days a week this year. It's fun because of all the students coming in and out and hectic because of all the students coming in and out. So, I'm near my kids in case of any emergencies, diabetic or otherwise.


Both kids are playing for the school's soccer team. Riley made the Varsity's reserve team-meaning he can practice with the team and attend the home games. He is in a position to learn so much from a great coach and be ready next year with full playing status! Reid is playing for the middle school team. This year they didn't have enough participation across 6th, 7th and 8th grades, so they opened it up to include the 5th graders. They got 5 interested girls! The schedule is jammed packed. I'm looking forward to a great season for both kids.


first day of school 2006

first day of school 2007

first day of school 2008
 

first day of school 2009

There's more since we are already in 2012. To be continued...

Vacation 2012

We're on vacation and have been since Saturday. And still have five
 more nights to go. I'm beside myself.

Sunday: swimming in the bay just after high tide. I'm not sure what that means though it was explained to me in depth. What I do know is that you have to swim pretty hard just to stay near our dock and it's chilly water = fast low. 154 at lunch with five units to cover at 12:41 pm. Swim for 12 minutes about and check bg at 1:19 pm = 74.


Sunday night: ice cream cone. Springer's delicious homemade ice cream. Worth standing in line for and paying a small fortune, too!  Since we're talking about it, I picked the Amaretto Almond- wooo weeee. Daughter's Vanilla Peanut Butter Brownie was close second.


Monday: Inspired by Kadima bg drop from Katy, purchased proKadima set at 5 and dime store here and headed to the beach. No
low go. Not even the jumping waves dropped Riley's bg. Tomorrow
we'll try harder. Surely when he plays against me. Granted I couldn't
get him to draw the lines in the sand to make a real court.

Slacker + Little G

I haven't kept Riley's food intake/insulin log since he returned home from camp - camp where he rocked it and kicked diabetes butt!

It might be time to get the log book out. Right before dinner last night he called down to say that he felt weird, tested and his number was some ridiculous number like 400. He corrected along with his dinner insulin (10 units) and was 168 within an hour and half. I believe he was 89 and dropping by 7 pm.

The day before had a very similar story line. Theme was exactly the same.  Granted - after testing for his dinner of Sweet Frog frozen yogurt with the kitchen sink on top, he did need a few extra units of insulin to cover the high and the yogurt.  Why frozen yogurt for dinner, you ask?  Well...Riley just had his annual physical, the kind at the pediatrician office where they check you out for mundane stuff like myopia. We hadn't been there in almost a year. Riley remembered the parking spot we were in that day, Septemeber 20, 2011. The day he was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.


It all went well. Better than well. On the way to frozen yogurt paradise, Riley said that was the best doctor appointment he ever had. The doctor swore (without signing a promise note) that Riley would be at least 6 feet tall. After I picked up my jaw from the floor, I asked how he knew that. The dr. asked me how tall my husband was "6 feet right?" Uhhhh ... no, more like 5'9" on a good day. Then he asked about my family. All males are at least 6'4" or 6'5". Oh yeah...Riley is definitely going to be more than a mere 5'9" probably closer to 6 feet!


Riley is the shortest kid in his class except for Sam who is a little shorter but an amazing soccer player so Riley might as well be the shortest. So while all his classmates are possibly done growing or will be in the next year. Riley is just getting started at 5'3". This means the world to him. And he didn't need any booster shots, whew... He did suggest that he could do it himself were they required.

He's now being referred to as LG at our house, Little Giant.

Breakfast Cookie + Glucerna Shake

Is this a good healthy breakfast?

I found a breakfast cookie recipe in Martha Stewart Living magazine this month. The ingredients look a lot like my granola recipe except it calls for 1 cup of olive oil and 1.5 cups of maple syrup compared to the cookie recipe which has 4 sticks of butter  and 3 cups of brown sugar. ( I thought that was way too much sugar even though the recipe calls for 2 cups of whole wheat flour, 2 cups of white flour and 2 cups of rolled oats. So I used Coconut Crystals for the last cup of sugar when I realized after tasting the dough that just 2 cups of brown sugar wasn't enough)  The important thing is that Riley doesn't eat my granola even if I put chocolate chips in it, but he does eat the breakfast cookies.

The recipe calls for all kinds of dried fruits. I eliminated them and used cinnamon chips. I did however add handfulls of flax seeds and wheat germ.

This recipe makes a huge amount of cookies. I've gotten 30 so far and I'm a little more than half way through the dough. I haven't figured out the carbs yet. For now I am counting them as a regular cookie (15 gr).

Glucerna shake. 15 grams of carbs. He's been drinking these as his breakfast for the past few days. I think because he wakes up late (around 9 or 10 am), drinks the shake without covering with insulin, then eats lunch around 11:30 or noon. I've warned him that when school starts in a few weeks he will need to eat something with the shake like breakfast cookies and a banana.  This is what he did this morning and it seemed to work well with a couple units of insulin.

I Survived Camp and Riley Did Too

It is Saturday morning! We are leaving to pick up Riley in 25 minutes. His numbers looked great. His activity level got his nightime insulin (Lantus) down to 3 units-that was the only insulin change I needed to make all week.

He called me on Wednesday night from the health aide's phone because his bg was 250. I loved hearing his voice. He asked if he should increase his Lantus because it was around 10:30 pm. That was awesome, he saw a number and had an idea of how to adjust it.  I reminded him that his before breakfast number was 120 that morning, so it was not necessary. Because they had just finished Capture the Flag or such activity, his bg number would drop on it's own.

Also, the pictures the camp posts online during the week look like Riley was having an awesome time.

When I stopped by the camp to drop off some sugar-free drinks/Crystal Light drink packets AND did not talk to him, all the kids had just finished dinner and were heading to the pool for noodle sparing. Two kids from different teams stand atop inner tubes with some mesh across the hole and spar with noodles, basically trying to push the other off their inner tube. I was there standing 30 yards from the pool and was able to see Riley win - on a technicality - but win, nonetheless.  And then eat a few starbursts without testing.

I can't wait to hear all about the week, by asking a million questions in rapid fire style. To which he will put on his headphones and pretend not to hear me.

NOTE: I will not be bringing his headphones.