Blog Week: Admiring our differences

I think when I signed on for this, I must have spaced everything that's going on this week!  Lily's birthday is Wednesday.  I can't believe she's turning four already!  My husband is on vacation from work, but not vacation from home.  In fact, he's supposed to be demolishing and rebuilding our bathroom.  So far, I've pulled every teeny tiny little thing out of our bathroom and pried a dozen or so tiles off of the walls.  That's as far as we've gotten.  My father-in-law is coming bright and early tomorrow morning with the idea that he'll help my husband rebuild the walls.  Let's hope he doesn't mind helping tear them down first!  Anyway, with all that going on, I'm going to make a huge effort to try to keep up with this blog week thing.  I may not be posting until later in the day, but I'll be posting!

When I first thought about this topic, I had a hard time figuring out where to start.  I thought...how am I going to talk about learning from someone from a different diabetes perspective when I'm both a person with diabetes and a parent of a diabetic?  And in the middle of thinking about that, I noticed from my peripheral that there was a bit of a to-do in the DOC.  I won't pretend to know what was going on because I'm still not sure what happened or who said what, but apparently someone offered up a comment that seemed to judge, quite harshly, how a parent was choosing to manage their child's diabetes.  It occurred to me that even here, among the other type-1 bloggers and parent-of-a-type-1 bloggers, there are so many differences!  So, I thought I'd give you a few examples of some of the differences I've noticed....

1.  As a parent of a teeny tiny diabetic, I find myself most comfortable with Lily's A1Cs staying in the 7.4-8.5 range.  I don't like it when they go higher than that and I'm not a fan of when they go lower either.  I want her body to have enough to grow on and not run her so tightly that we have lows left and right.  I hate lows in my child!  I don't particularly like them for myself.  I know other parents are happier with A1Cs in the 6-7 range.  That works for them and their child and I'm totally cool with that.  They're obviously doing a fantastic job when they get numbers in that range!

2. As a diabetic myself and one who is trying to be active, I've chosen to let my own numbers run just a tad bit higher.  I used to try to keep them in the 70-110 range.  With exercising so much and the subsequent lows that come with that, I've chosen to adjust my range to 90-140.  It's not a ton higher, but it cuts down on how many bad lows I get.  Other diabetics choose other methods of avoiding the lows.  I heard from a fellow type-1 diabetic that another type-1 diabetic told her that she chooses to use 10u of glucagon before a workout in order to avoid a low and so she won't have to eat a snack first.  I do not recommend that one!

3. I hate setting temporary basals for myself with my workouts.  I do it, occasionally, but I manage to deal with it in other ways.  Tony Cervati, the type I diabetic rider (find him on Facebook!), posts all the time about what temporary basals he's got going.  I don't know how he finds the energy and brain power to figure all that out!

4. When Lily was diagnosed at the ripe old age of 27-months, I pushed to get her on an insulin pump ASAP.  It's what works for us and it was so much better than MID.  It's a lot of work, but it's worth it for us.  Joanne from Death of a Pancreas manages her little girl with MID.  She gets fantastic A1Cs for Elise and it's what works for them. 

There are a whole plethora of other differences.  I could go on and on about how different we all are and it would be for many of us to fall into a funk and lash out in judgement on others who see things differently than we do.  But the fact is, when it comes down to it, no judgement is needed.  No matter how cranky and addle-brained we get from all the thought and effort that goes into managing diabetes in its many forms, we're all the same in our intent.  It all boils down to doing what we feel is best for our own health, for the health of our child, for the health of our family.  We're all muddling our way through, trying to make the best decisions possible.  And for that reason, none of us has the right to judge anyone else's methods or choices.  Instead, we embrace the differences, the different paths, the different choices.  We're all headed for the same destination, the Health and Well-Being of our Families, and just taking different paths and detours to get there!