Hi, I'm Jenny, a single Mom of 4 and 1/2 (lol), with the middle one being a Type 1 Diabetic. She's 6 and her name is Raven. She was diagnosed when she was 2 1/2, so this isn't anything new to me, it's become routine and just another part of every day life. She isn't on the pump, she takes 4-7 injections a day (2 of the baseline and the rest all fast-acting). She is in school (oh boy we have had problems with that one, let me tell you, we actually had to get a lawyer to get the school system here in chicago to cooperate) and just came off a recent 2 week hospital stay with pneumonia.
Our docs here are AWESOME! I don't know what I would have done without them. It helps too that the older kids take an interest in her and like to help out with monitoring her glucose and keeping an eye open. We do have the problem that Raven seems to be VERY hard to stabilize and she has a lot of lows and highs. We also recently found out she has a growth hormone deficiency and haven't decided what to do about that yet. I have been researching and trying to find out info about maybe getting a diabetes alert dog, but there are none that really deal with Chicago and a 6 year old, unless I had the $4,000-10,000 to be able to purchase one. Does anyone have any info or suggestions???
I look forward to being able to discuss issues that come up with a kid with T1 with people who are in the same or similiar situations.
Thanks for sharing your story and hope you will get lots of support and good information from participating here.
As far as lows and highs, we had quite a bit of problem with my son until he started on a pump. Then we could very his basal rate (the baseline insulin) throughout the day and it has helped so much. For instance he needs a 4x more basal from 8pm -12am than he does from 7-11am. It is crazy, but he usually has pretty steady numbers - some highs, but not many lows. It helped him a lot (and me with much less worry now!)
I have not looked into a Diabetes alert dog, but I have heard other stories of just 'regular' dogs being able to alert, especially if it is really severe low - like in the 40s or lower. We are probably going to get a dog later this year and so maybe we'll find out if that is the case for us. I kind of hope so. :)
Hi Jenny :) I'm a single mom as well. It's hard sometimes isn't it, but we're tough and we can handle it! I'm glad that you love your doctors...that is sooooo important. I too don't know what we would do without them and the NPs and the PAs and the psychologists and God...their whole staff! We live in central Wisconsin and Asha's doctors are at Children's Hospital in Milwaukee, which is about 3 hours away. They have a satellite clinic at a closer location only around an hour and a half away that we go to as well but the truth is...I would go to the Moon for them. Aaaaanyway...good to meet you, hope you make lots of friends here and can find some healthy support!