Oh, what a wonderful day! A whole day dedicated to celebrating what amazing fathers our children have! And while I may be just a bit prejudiced, my kids have the best dad! Lily has been on a kick lately, determined that she is going to marry her daddy when she grows up. Never mind that Mommy is already married to Daddy. She's got a plan to take care of that. Mommy is going to marry Leo and then Lily can marry Daddy. Can't tell that she's a Daddy's Girl, can you? He really is pretty incredible though. They crawl all over him, use him as a jungle gym, run circles around him, talk him into just about anything they want, and just plain adore him. The kids both run for the door when they hear his truck in the driveway and wait, bouncing, on the step for him to come up to the house. I'd be a bit jealous of their adoration except they still need their mommy when they have an owie or want to snuggle!
Before I give you the impression that I'm a huge puddle of mush for my husband (although, quite honestly, I am!), I do have a bit of an issue tonight. My husband and I share almost equally in the substitute pancreas duties. I take care of everything for the kids during the day, as that's my one and only job. But on the weekends and in the evenings, we share it all. Sounds great, right? Just one problem with that....we have very different management styles! Let me explain....my husband and I lived together during college. When we first moved in together, I was pre-pump. My care of my own diabetes wasn't at its best. My poor husband woke up to find me convulsing on a couple of occasions. Being the incredibly intelligent man that he is, he managed to spoon-feed me sugar straight from the sugar bowl both times and no ambulance was necessary. But the experiences have scarred him for live. Literally. Fast-forward to the here and now and Lily's diabetes care and my husband tends to err on the side of caution. Extreme caution. I can always tell when I look at our logbook who determined how much insulin to give Lily. Tonight is a perfect example. We took the kids swimming for a couple of hours and followed it up with a late dinner, immediately before bedtime. My husband and I discussed the carbohydrate count. Because Lily was 90 at dinner (great number!), my husband decided to subtract some carbs from the final total. Lily is now 434 (gasp!)!!! I hate those numbers!
All you other d-moms out there...do you deal with anything similar? Have any tips on how to reconcile the differences in our diabetes management styles?
This is probably more common than we think. Men just do things differently. Since J was so little, 8 months, when he was diagnosed my husband and I had very different ideas about what "high" was. Back then we just tried to keep him under 300 as much as possible. It took a long time for both of us to reprogram our brains to new expectations. If Lilly has a pump, than maybe you can talk to him about how different the pump makes things for her...that it signifiacantly lessens the chances of her passing out. He sees things from the old perspective, it is going to take awhile to find a new one. It wasn't easy for me either. Back in the day, 90's terrified me. Now they are my best friend. :) Good luck!
ReplyDeleteWell, the truth is that I do most of the diabetes management in our house so this is not an issue for us. My husband doesn't do much of the insulin or carb counting. My issue is that I need to start handing over a little more of the responsibilty to my hubby...just a little bit :)
ReplyDeleteMeri just wrote a post about that and it inspired me to try to get my husband back into the swing of things with D. It is a talk I will be having with him soon :)
I hope that you and your husband can come to a good middle ground on this, I know how important it is to you and eventually as he gets used to your way he may find it much more comfortable for him. I do understand his fear though...nightime lows scare me a lot.
Good luck to you :)
Fred and I almost always discuss that we're going to do before we do it when it comes to Elise's care. But for the times I'm not there, I do find he doesn't take everything into account when making a decision (for example, if Elise is high at her mid-morning check, then he'll forgo her snack, but won't take into account that Elise has been running around like crazy with her friends, and ends up dropping low before lunch).
ReplyDeleteBut I know I have the type of brain that thinks of every single scenario that could EVER happen, and my husband doesn't think that way. I am just so grateful to have a husband that is involved (and WANTS to be involved), I try to not come across as control-freaky (is that a word?)
Although, I definitely explain to him why skipping her snack is not a good idea... in the nicest way possible of course!
Sorry for the long comment, I'll be quiet now.