Now that I've gotten around to telling my "story", I'm finding myself drawn to blog about it, just so I can get through all of my thoughts on it and have it all down. It's kind of like sorting through the belongings of a lost loved one. It's hard to bring yourself to the point of beginning, but once you do, you feel a drive to finish and begin to feel a bit of a weight lifting off of you.
So, here's where my story starts to get interesting. Teen years are hell, aren't they? Even without diabetes, teen years can be pretty brutal. All that emotional turmoil, physical changes, hormones, acne. Oh, so much fun! And there's this interesting mind-set that teens have, where they almost believe that they're invincible. All those awful stories we hear of teens who drink and drive or text and drive? That stuff happens to someone else, but not to me! At least, that seems to be what goes on in a teen mind. Diabetes adds a very interesting element to the teen sense of invincibility. Keep in mind as I'm telling you of my teen years....it's not like this for every diabetic. Really, it's not. The more support you give your diabetic during these years, the better your child will make it through and the less likely he or she is to face some of these problems. Notice, I said support, not nagging and doing all the diabetes stuff for them! Be there to help them through, try to understand their difficulties and lend them an ear when they need to talk things out, and you'll be the best parent a diabetic teenager can have!
Early on in my teens, I went along with what I'd always been doing. Testing four times a day, insulin injections twice a day, eating as I should, etc. It wasn't until I hit my mid-teens that things really changed. I hit puberty. I suddenly gained a whole lot of weight. Somehow, my high metabolism slowed way down and I started having problems with being over-weight. Seriously, this literally happened over-night! At 14, I was 95 lbs. At 15, 110 lbs. At 16....150! I stopped taking care of myself. I turned to food for comfort. I was a quiet kind of girl. In grade school, if a teacher called on me or acknowledged me in any way, I turned bright red and clammed up. I was shy. I didn't like having people look at me. That didn't change much as I got older and hit high school. Food and putting on weight was one way of becoming less noticeable. I'm not blaming the diabetes for my weight gain, because really, it was my own fault. As my weight changed, so did my care of my diabetes. I stopped testing when I should and started "making up" numbers for my log book when it came time to show them to my diabetes care team. My mom had never paid any attention to making sure I was doing as I was supposed to, so it was pretty easy for me to ignore my diabetes as well. And here I am, at the point where I have to share two of my most profound diabetes memories. Remember, this is not how it is for all diabetic teenagers! These are a couple of moments in my life that I'm not proud of and would rather not have had....
When I was 13, I started to visit my father occasionally on Saturdays. I hadn't had much contact with him during my life, but when I hit my teen years, I started to feel that I needed some answers from him about certain things that had been done to my sisters and I. In pursuit of that, I started to spend time with him. I spent New Year's Eve with him, my step-mother, and their 2-year-old son, the year that I was 15. In those days, I was awful about taking the right amount of insulin. I didn't bother measuring out carbohydrates or calculating insulin properly. I very rarely took any insulin at all when I was visiting him. That evening, after celebrating, he brought me back home fairly late. I was feeling exceedingly high and took a rather large dose of insulin before falling asleep on the couch (my basement bedroom was freezing in the winter!). What happened after that, I can only tell you from what my mom told me. My mom woke up early the next day, found me in the living room, lying on the couch with my eyes open. She talked to me and I didn't respond, although my eyes followed her around the room. She thought maybe I was just so tired that I was sleeping with my eyes open. My mom went to take a shower. When she came back after showering and dressing, I started to convulse. My mom immediately called 911 and called out for one of my sisters to come help her. At the time, we lived more than 7 miles from town, in a rural area. While they waited for the ambulance to show up, my sister and mom spoon-fed me sugar straight from the sugar bowl. There's this interesting thing about extreme insulin reactions that no one will probably tell you. Glucagon kits aren't all that necessary. Your body kicks into survival mode and even if you're unconscious, chances are that you will automatically swallow anything placed into your mouth. The first memory I have from after all this is waking up in the ICU at the hospital, with glucose gel all over my face. The nearest doctors could figure out, my blood sugar was in the single digits when my mom called the ambulance. The rough estimate they gave was that my blood sugar was probably about 4! My sheer stupidity and disregard for my diabetes care nearly killed me and if it weren't for the efforts of my mom and sister, there would have been nothing for the EMTs to do when they got there. That being said, I hope it will bring some comfort to all of you to know that even with my blood sugar being that incredibly low, I did not wind up in a diabetic coma.
The second profound memory...I'm going to save for tomorrow. Honestly, it's one that deserves a post of its own! It's one that those with diabetic girls especially won't want to miss!
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Part II: My warped sense of "normal" for a diabetic child...
Before I start on part two....Sarah, you are so right in the incredible differences between "then" vs. "now". I was diagnosed nearly 24 years ago and the changes are just incredible! Back then, we would have tested our children four times a day, given them a couple of shots and would have expected them to fall into line with the very regimented schedule of a diabetic, regardless of their pint-sized bodies! I'm much happier with how things are now, even if that does include 3:00 a.m. blood glucose checks and random boluses throughout the day!
Reyna, your impression of how things were after I was diagnosed is right on. And it leads right into what I mean by my title tonight. I grew up with a very warped sense of what was normal for a diabetic child. My first sibling to be diagnosed, D, was my mother's favorite child. When she was diagnosed, she got special sugar-free chocolate (I know, fantastic, right? *sarcasm*) and low-sugar Christmas cookies. When C was diagnosed a few months later, they got special Easter treats. When I was diagnosed, my mom insisted that I have an angel food cake for my birthday. I HATED angel food cake. When Halloween rolled around, my mom continued to let us go trick-or-treating. But confiscated our entire bag of candy as soon as we got home (we learned to wear costumes that we could use to hid our favorites in!). After I was diagnosed, every time I got a stomach bug, the flu, anything at all, I was admitted to the hospital. I seriously used to think that was normal for a diabetic child! It wasn't until recently, when Lily was diagnosed and faced her first stomach bug, that I realized how abnormal that was. I don't recall my older sisters being in the hospital nearly as much as I was. I suppose that's because they were older, therefore more mature and more able to take care of themselves during illness. As a d-mom now, I know that I would do anything and everything in my power to keep my child in my care, no matter how sick she gets, unless it's honestly and truly something bigger than what I could safely handle on my own.
I'm really trying hard here to not point fingers and say that my mom was an awful mother. She's not awful, just different. She has some pretty deep scars that I think have played a large part in making her the person that she is and the mother that she was. To give her credit, having five children in five and a half years had to have been pretty hard. Not to mention that the father of those five children was abusive and not very supportive. My mother was remarried and had my half-brother before I reached my second birthday. Around the same time that my sisters and I were diagnosed, my mom's second marriage was falling apart and her father passed away unexpectedly. Just a little more than a year after my diagnosis, our family's home caught fire and we lost just about everything. My mom had quite a bit going on! Even without all of that, I can't imagine how hard it would be to focus any amount of attention on one child when there are always six others around who need something too. I probably don't need to say that I'm not the biggest fan of large families, right? I'm sure other parents do just fine with it and not every large family is the same, but as one of the "forgotten middle children", I can't imagine having a large family myself.
So, honestly, with all that was going on in my family, I don't think diabetes really made it to the forefront of my mind much. And it was kind of an "on the back burner" type of thing back then. You did what you had to do, had a very regimented schedule of when to snack, when to eat a meal, when to test, and when to take insulin. Diabetes just wasn't the same thing that it is now. But the prognosis wasn't as good back then either. People were astounded by diabetics who'd survived having the disease for 30 years. Now, 30 years is nothing! Most of my childhood memories have nothing to do with diabetes. The few I have that involved diabetes at all are those from summer camp and from traveling an hour and a half to get a diabetes check-up every three months. Diabetes didn't really become a problem for me until I hit my teen years. That, I think, I will save for Part III!
Reyna, your impression of how things were after I was diagnosed is right on. And it leads right into what I mean by my title tonight. I grew up with a very warped sense of what was normal for a diabetic child. My first sibling to be diagnosed, D, was my mother's favorite child. When she was diagnosed, she got special sugar-free chocolate (I know, fantastic, right? *sarcasm*) and low-sugar Christmas cookies. When C was diagnosed a few months later, they got special Easter treats. When I was diagnosed, my mom insisted that I have an angel food cake for my birthday. I HATED angel food cake. When Halloween rolled around, my mom continued to let us go trick-or-treating. But confiscated our entire bag of candy as soon as we got home (we learned to wear costumes that we could use to hid our favorites in!). After I was diagnosed, every time I got a stomach bug, the flu, anything at all, I was admitted to the hospital. I seriously used to think that was normal for a diabetic child! It wasn't until recently, when Lily was diagnosed and faced her first stomach bug, that I realized how abnormal that was. I don't recall my older sisters being in the hospital nearly as much as I was. I suppose that's because they were older, therefore more mature and more able to take care of themselves during illness. As a d-mom now, I know that I would do anything and everything in my power to keep my child in my care, no matter how sick she gets, unless it's honestly and truly something bigger than what I could safely handle on my own.
I'm really trying hard here to not point fingers and say that my mom was an awful mother. She's not awful, just different. She has some pretty deep scars that I think have played a large part in making her the person that she is and the mother that she was. To give her credit, having five children in five and a half years had to have been pretty hard. Not to mention that the father of those five children was abusive and not very supportive. My mother was remarried and had my half-brother before I reached my second birthday. Around the same time that my sisters and I were diagnosed, my mom's second marriage was falling apart and her father passed away unexpectedly. Just a little more than a year after my diagnosis, our family's home caught fire and we lost just about everything. My mom had quite a bit going on! Even without all of that, I can't imagine how hard it would be to focus any amount of attention on one child when there are always six others around who need something too. I probably don't need to say that I'm not the biggest fan of large families, right? I'm sure other parents do just fine with it and not every large family is the same, but as one of the "forgotten middle children", I can't imagine having a large family myself.
So, honestly, with all that was going on in my family, I don't think diabetes really made it to the forefront of my mind much. And it was kind of an "on the back burner" type of thing back then. You did what you had to do, had a very regimented schedule of when to snack, when to eat a meal, when to test, and when to take insulin. Diabetes just wasn't the same thing that it is now. But the prognosis wasn't as good back then either. People were astounded by diabetics who'd survived having the disease for 30 years. Now, 30 years is nothing! Most of my childhood memories have nothing to do with diabetes. The few I have that involved diabetes at all are those from summer camp and from traveling an hour and a half to get a diabetes check-up every three months. Diabetes didn't really become a problem for me until I hit my teen years. That, I think, I will save for Part III!
Friday, August 27, 2010
Let me take you on a journey....
It has occurred to me over the last couple of days that my sense of humor has become pretty warped. I have a "funny" moment to share with all of you. During our visit to Camp Needlepoint, Lily was given one of the extra backpacks that Eli Lilly donates to the camp. A wonderful L.L. Bean pink backpack with several spots for important information to be written down. Inside the backpack was a deck of cards that have diabetes-related questions on them. A sort of game. I explained to Lily that they were cards about "diabetes". Last night, she was searching through her new backpack, opening all the pockets. She looked up at me with this little forlorn expression and says, "I want diabetes." My husband and I cracked up over this. Yup, my mind is warped enough to find that funny. And no matter how many times I tried to tell her that she already has diabetes, she insisted that she didn't. Turned out she was looking for the cards.
On to the real post! I finally went in to see my own diabetes educator (I detest adult endocrinologists!) and she asked me a question that I found surprising, in an odd sort of way. When discussing my frustrations with trying to manage Lily's diabetes as well as my own, she asked me if I'd bothered to talk to my mom about how she had dealt with having 3 children who are diabetic. You know what? The idea of talking to my mom about what she did had never occurred to me! For good reason, to be honest with you. But, the question got me thinking about my own diagnosis. I've been feeling to need to share some of my diabetes experiences through my blog, but I hadn't really thought about sharing my own diagnosis story. And the question of how my mom handled it brought me to some rather startling revelations. So, I'm going to share my own diagnosis story and move on through some of my key diabetes experiences. Before I do though, I have to share just one bit of a warning....I come from a severely dysfunctional family with an atypical mom. I love my family, I love my mom, and I've come to accept my parents' shortcomings. No grudges and no anger left over my childhood experiences, because feelings like that aren't worth dwelling on! That said....
Part I: Diagnosis
I have four older sisters. Two of them were diagnosed with diabetes before I was. So my diagnosis story starts a bit earlier than actual diagnosis. The three of us were diagnosed within a 14-month period, if my memory serves me correctly. It's a bit hazy, to be honest. The first to be diagnosed, D, was sometime just before Thanksgiving, around her 12th birthday. The second, C, was diagnosed several months later, not long after her 11th birthday. D was hospitalized when she was diagnosed, in order to give her and our parents time to learn all they needed to learn about the disease and its management. C was not hospitalized, as the doctors didn't feel it was necessary since we were already familiar with the disease at that point. To be honest with you, in my little 8-year-old brain, all I understood about diabetes was that my sisters were getting special treatment. In a family with 7 children, special treatment and extra attention were extremely rare. I was jealous. I wanted diabetes too, so I would get special treatment and extra attention. And then came my diagnosis, just a bit more than a year after D was diagnosed. I was 9-years-old and I remember it being the middle of December. I don't remember much about being sick before, but I'm guessing my mom must have caught the signs fairly early on. This time, my mom decided that hospitalization was a good thing. I spent a week in the hospital, learning to draw up NPH and Regular insulin and inject it into an orange. I was told I couldn't leave the hospital until I learned to give myself shots. THIS is why it never occurred to me to ask my mom how she handled things, how she managed blood sugars for three children. Because, really, she didn't. I cannot recall a time when my mom ever gave me an injection. Even in the hospital. I can't recall her ever testing my blood sugar. From diagnosis on, I was self-managed. And so were my sisters. I have to give my mom some credit though. I'm sure it was difficult to go through diagnosis with three children. By the time I was diagnosed, she was probably about ready to throw in the towel. Throw up her hands and walk away from the reality of it all. Taking care of seven children, even if they're completely healthy, is a challenge all on it's own! .Add in chronic illnesses for three of them and I'm sure it pushes a person right over the edge.
Not the most interesting of diagnosis stories, I'm sure. I honestly can't remember too much about it. I do remember that I was always a very small child, but at diagnosis, I was a whopping (insert sarcasm here) 45 lbs. Three months before my 10th birthday. I think I'd lost about 10 lbs while I was sick. I remember having a nurse who was diabetic and told me she'd been diagnosed when she was 13-months. And I remember really enjoying having control of the hospital television in my room! A rare luxury for me! I don't think the reality of being diabetic really hit me for quite some time. I was happy to get a bit more attention. Back then, diabetes meant testing your blood sugar four times a day and taking insulin injections twice a day. Wow, have things ever changed!
Stay tuned for Part II....
On to the real post! I finally went in to see my own diabetes educator (I detest adult endocrinologists!) and she asked me a question that I found surprising, in an odd sort of way. When discussing my frustrations with trying to manage Lily's diabetes as well as my own, she asked me if I'd bothered to talk to my mom about how she had dealt with having 3 children who are diabetic. You know what? The idea of talking to my mom about what she did had never occurred to me! For good reason, to be honest with you. But, the question got me thinking about my own diagnosis. I've been feeling to need to share some of my diabetes experiences through my blog, but I hadn't really thought about sharing my own diagnosis story. And the question of how my mom handled it brought me to some rather startling revelations. So, I'm going to share my own diagnosis story and move on through some of my key diabetes experiences. Before I do though, I have to share just one bit of a warning....I come from a severely dysfunctional family with an atypical mom. I love my family, I love my mom, and I've come to accept my parents' shortcomings. No grudges and no anger left over my childhood experiences, because feelings like that aren't worth dwelling on! That said....
Part I: Diagnosis
I have four older sisters. Two of them were diagnosed with diabetes before I was. So my diagnosis story starts a bit earlier than actual diagnosis. The three of us were diagnosed within a 14-month period, if my memory serves me correctly. It's a bit hazy, to be honest. The first to be diagnosed, D, was sometime just before Thanksgiving, around her 12th birthday. The second, C, was diagnosed several months later, not long after her 11th birthday. D was hospitalized when she was diagnosed, in order to give her and our parents time to learn all they needed to learn about the disease and its management. C was not hospitalized, as the doctors didn't feel it was necessary since we were already familiar with the disease at that point. To be honest with you, in my little 8-year-old brain, all I understood about diabetes was that my sisters were getting special treatment. In a family with 7 children, special treatment and extra attention were extremely rare. I was jealous. I wanted diabetes too, so I would get special treatment and extra attention. And then came my diagnosis, just a bit more than a year after D was diagnosed. I was 9-years-old and I remember it being the middle of December. I don't remember much about being sick before, but I'm guessing my mom must have caught the signs fairly early on. This time, my mom decided that hospitalization was a good thing. I spent a week in the hospital, learning to draw up NPH and Regular insulin and inject it into an orange. I was told I couldn't leave the hospital until I learned to give myself shots. THIS is why it never occurred to me to ask my mom how she handled things, how she managed blood sugars for three children. Because, really, she didn't. I cannot recall a time when my mom ever gave me an injection. Even in the hospital. I can't recall her ever testing my blood sugar. From diagnosis on, I was self-managed. And so were my sisters. I have to give my mom some credit though. I'm sure it was difficult to go through diagnosis with three children. By the time I was diagnosed, she was probably about ready to throw in the towel. Throw up her hands and walk away from the reality of it all. Taking care of seven children, even if they're completely healthy, is a challenge all on it's own! .Add in chronic illnesses for three of them and I'm sure it pushes a person right over the edge.
Not the most interesting of diagnosis stories, I'm sure. I honestly can't remember too much about it. I do remember that I was always a very small child, but at diagnosis, I was a whopping (insert sarcasm here) 45 lbs. Three months before my 10th birthday. I think I'd lost about 10 lbs while I was sick. I remember having a nurse who was diabetic and told me she'd been diagnosed when she was 13-months. And I remember really enjoying having control of the hospital television in my room! A rare luxury for me! I don't think the reality of being diabetic really hit me for quite some time. I was happy to get a bit more attention. Back then, diabetes meant testing your blood sugar four times a day and taking insulin injections twice a day. Wow, have things ever changed!
Stay tuned for Part II....
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
When does the "easy part" start?
I so haven't been in the mood to blog lately. My husband and I have both been sick for what feels like forever now. But really, it's only been about a week or so. Nothing too seriously, but we've both had fevers and chills and been horribly exhausted. Of course, it's one of those things that the doctors can't do anything about and you just have to wait for it to run its course and be done with you. Ugh!
The "easy part"....I've come to the realization that there's a popular misconception in our society. It seems to me that people think that they work hard, put in their time, and eventually, life will magically become "easy". My husband has even complained about this several times, that no matter how hard we work, it just doesn't seem like life is getting any easier. Really though....is life supposed to get easier? Who in the world told you that it would? Random people you meet on the streets, fellow parents whose children are much older than ours. They tell us all the time, "it gets easier." When? When does it get easier? So far, I'm not seeing when it will. Life is a struggle. We work hard, we put all our efforts into raising children, teaching them the right values and lessons so they'll be just as beautiful inside as they are outside. We pay our bills, clean our homes, organize our lives, and just generally go about our daily activities. And you know what? It never gets easier! You know why? Because it's not supposed to! Seriously. Life isn't supposed to be easy.
That's coming across as depressing, isn't it? It shouldn't be though. It shouldn't make us feel bad that life never gets easier. We shouldn't get frustrated and upset as we continue to struggle towards our goals. Here's my reasoning....have you ever walked around your block? Did you feel like you'd accomplished something when you did? No? Of course not! You didn't have to work for it! Talk to someone who has run a marathon and ask them the same question. They'll tell you that they felt like they were on top of the world! They accomplished something. They did something that took effort and determination. That's what life is. It's not a sprint or a stroll around the block. It's a marathon. It requires endurance, patience, determination, drive, and all those other things that are more difficult to come by. Life is not meant to be "easy". If it was, we wouldn't appreciate all the good things life offers us. Instead of sitting around, complaining about how difficult it is and waiting for it to be easy, we need to get up and appreciate all of our daily accomplishments. My big accomplishment today....Lily was low at lunch and didn't eat much. I went with my gut and didn't give her any insulin because I knew we'd spend the afternoon running around. Two hours later, she was an awesomely fantastic 93! Love that!
Okay, so on to the reason why I'm sucking it up and blogging tonight. I wanted to share our day. When I was growing up with diabetes, I attended a camp on the western edge of Wisconsin. Camp Needlepoint. How appropriately named, right? Camp Needlepoint was awesome! Fantastic! The absolute best thing about my childhood. Seriously, I think camp was my true home and I just stayed with my family, waiting for the next year when I could go back. I loved, loved, loved camp! A few years back, the camp hired a new director. Best thing that could have happened to the camp. The director they hired was a former camper herself. She frequently tells the story of how her parents dragged her, kicking and screaming, to camp her first year. And then dragged her away from camp, kicking and screaming, every year after. A camper after my own heart! I call her the best thing to happen to the camp because the previous director had been missing a very vital component of camp. The HEART of it. Only a true camper-for-life can appreciate what that means. One other very awesome thing about the camp director...she has a niece, just a little younger than Lily, who was diagnosed with type I just a few weeks after Lily was. So, this incredibly awesome camp director invited her sister to bring her niece and invited me to bring Lily to visit the camp today. Oh, how I missed camp! Going back for a visit is like going home again. My heart was missing that piece that I left behind at camp!
I showed up to the camp just after 11:00 this morning, with Lily and Leo in tow. I've been talking to Lily about Camp Needlepoint, what it is, and the fact that all of the kids who go there have diabetes and do "pokies" just like she does. I wasn't sure how much of it she understood though. We toured the camp. Wow, has it changed since I was last there! It was so beautiful to see how much it has thrived though! The HEART is there again! The campers are there because they LOVE camp. The same doctors and nurses and dietitians who have worked at the camp for years are still there. Because they LOVE camp. There's something about Camp Needlepoint that calls to your soul. There's just no way to describe how incredible it is. We had such a lovely day there. Lily got to run around the camp, playing with her friend who also has diabetes. The two little girls became honorary members of one of the cabins of younger girls. Lily got to see all of these children, poking their fingers, pulling out their insulin pumps, and running and playing just like every other child who goes to camp! And my absolute favorite part of the day...as we were getting ready to go home, after a good four hours of visiting, Lily said to me, "I can go to Camp Needlepoint?" With all the awe and wonder that I feel every time I get to go back for a visit at the camp!
The "easy part"....I've come to the realization that there's a popular misconception in our society. It seems to me that people think that they work hard, put in their time, and eventually, life will magically become "easy". My husband has even complained about this several times, that no matter how hard we work, it just doesn't seem like life is getting any easier. Really though....is life supposed to get easier? Who in the world told you that it would? Random people you meet on the streets, fellow parents whose children are much older than ours. They tell us all the time, "it gets easier." When? When does it get easier? So far, I'm not seeing when it will. Life is a struggle. We work hard, we put all our efforts into raising children, teaching them the right values and lessons so they'll be just as beautiful inside as they are outside. We pay our bills, clean our homes, organize our lives, and just generally go about our daily activities. And you know what? It never gets easier! You know why? Because it's not supposed to! Seriously. Life isn't supposed to be easy.
That's coming across as depressing, isn't it? It shouldn't be though. It shouldn't make us feel bad that life never gets easier. We shouldn't get frustrated and upset as we continue to struggle towards our goals. Here's my reasoning....have you ever walked around your block? Did you feel like you'd accomplished something when you did? No? Of course not! You didn't have to work for it! Talk to someone who has run a marathon and ask them the same question. They'll tell you that they felt like they were on top of the world! They accomplished something. They did something that took effort and determination. That's what life is. It's not a sprint or a stroll around the block. It's a marathon. It requires endurance, patience, determination, drive, and all those other things that are more difficult to come by. Life is not meant to be "easy". If it was, we wouldn't appreciate all the good things life offers us. Instead of sitting around, complaining about how difficult it is and waiting for it to be easy, we need to get up and appreciate all of our daily accomplishments. My big accomplishment today....Lily was low at lunch and didn't eat much. I went with my gut and didn't give her any insulin because I knew we'd spend the afternoon running around. Two hours later, she was an awesomely fantastic 93! Love that!
Okay, so on to the reason why I'm sucking it up and blogging tonight. I wanted to share our day. When I was growing up with diabetes, I attended a camp on the western edge of Wisconsin. Camp Needlepoint. How appropriately named, right? Camp Needlepoint was awesome! Fantastic! The absolute best thing about my childhood. Seriously, I think camp was my true home and I just stayed with my family, waiting for the next year when I could go back. I loved, loved, loved camp! A few years back, the camp hired a new director. Best thing that could have happened to the camp. The director they hired was a former camper herself. She frequently tells the story of how her parents dragged her, kicking and screaming, to camp her first year. And then dragged her away from camp, kicking and screaming, every year after. A camper after my own heart! I call her the best thing to happen to the camp because the previous director had been missing a very vital component of camp. The HEART of it. Only a true camper-for-life can appreciate what that means. One other very awesome thing about the camp director...she has a niece, just a little younger than Lily, who was diagnosed with type I just a few weeks after Lily was. So, this incredibly awesome camp director invited her sister to bring her niece and invited me to bring Lily to visit the camp today. Oh, how I missed camp! Going back for a visit is like going home again. My heart was missing that piece that I left behind at camp!
I showed up to the camp just after 11:00 this morning, with Lily and Leo in tow. I've been talking to Lily about Camp Needlepoint, what it is, and the fact that all of the kids who go there have diabetes and do "pokies" just like she does. I wasn't sure how much of it she understood though. We toured the camp. Wow, has it changed since I was last there! It was so beautiful to see how much it has thrived though! The HEART is there again! The campers are there because they LOVE camp. The same doctors and nurses and dietitians who have worked at the camp for years are still there. Because they LOVE camp. There's something about Camp Needlepoint that calls to your soul. There's just no way to describe how incredible it is. We had such a lovely day there. Lily got to run around the camp, playing with her friend who also has diabetes. The two little girls became honorary members of one of the cabins of younger girls. Lily got to see all of these children, poking their fingers, pulling out their insulin pumps, and running and playing just like every other child who goes to camp! And my absolute favorite part of the day...as we were getting ready to go home, after a good four hours of visiting, Lily said to me, "I can go to Camp Needlepoint?" With all the awe and wonder that I feel every time I get to go back for a visit at the camp!
Saturday, August 21, 2010
No break, but a good day anyway!
I did not get my "break" today, but I got a different kind of break. And it turned out to be a really good one. One of the major joys in my life, besides the obvious children and husband, is yarn. Seriously, I love yarn. The textures, the colors, the variety. It's all just too fabulous for words. I love going to a specialty yarn shop and just looking through all that they have to offer. This just happens to be one thing that Lily actually really enjoys too! So, during Leo's nap time today, we left him sleeping with his daddy and Lily and I took off on a date. To the yarn store. I started a pair of baby booties recently and upon seeing them finished, Lily insisted that she MUST have a pair of slippers too. It's so much fun to make things for Lily because she always loves what I make her. I just happened to have one very small ball of Plymouth Oh My yarn. Oh My is so appropriate! It's a super, incredibly soft yarn. It just feels heavenly. Unfortunately, the one ball was about 1 yard shy of what I needed for a pair of slippers for Lily. So, we went hunting for another ball. And just happened to find a funky yarn to use for the finishing touch too. Here's Lily's first pair of slippers from mommy:
She's very happy with them. I might just have to whip up another pair for her too. They're just too cute and so quick and easy!
After the yarn, we stopped for ice cream and walked down the road to our absolute favorite bookstore in the entire world, Wild Rumpus. Seriously, if anyone ever comes to visit us, we'll have to bring them to this store. It's fantastic! They have cats and chickens roaming free, and cages of chinchillas and ferrets and lovely birds. Even a tarantula, named Harry (in honor of Harry Potter) and a lizard. So much fun! We finished our date off by picking up my favorite Indian food for dinner and bringing it home to eat with Leo and Daddy. Leo LOVES Indian food. Seriously, it's hilarious to watch him shoveling Malai Kofta into his mouth as quickly as he possibly can. He actually nearly finished off the entire order of it by himself! Between yarn shopping, books, and Indian food, it turned out to be a pretty fantastic day! Even though I didn't get the break I deserve, I got some special time with my favorite little girl, and that's infinitely more precious!
She's very happy with them. I might just have to whip up another pair for her too. They're just too cute and so quick and easy!
After the yarn, we stopped for ice cream and walked down the road to our absolute favorite bookstore in the entire world, Wild Rumpus. Seriously, if anyone ever comes to visit us, we'll have to bring them to this store. It's fantastic! They have cats and chickens roaming free, and cages of chinchillas and ferrets and lovely birds. Even a tarantula, named Harry (in honor of Harry Potter) and a lizard. So much fun! We finished our date off by picking up my favorite Indian food for dinner and bringing it home to eat with Leo and Daddy. Leo LOVES Indian food. Seriously, it's hilarious to watch him shoveling Malai Kofta into his mouth as quickly as he possibly can. He actually nearly finished off the entire order of it by himself! Between yarn shopping, books, and Indian food, it turned out to be a pretty fantastic day! Even though I didn't get the break I deserve, I got some special time with my favorite little girl, and that's infinitely more precious!
He trumped it!
My sleeping in this morning was trumped before it even started. At midnight last night, after my husband had sent his friends on their way home, he decided he needed to take his temperature. Yup, 100.5. I guess that trumps being so completely worn out that I could sit in a corner and cry while curled up in the fetal position.
Just to set your minds at ease, my husband is usually pretty fantastic. He's awesome with helping with the kids and is usually really good about letting me have a break. It's just when he lets work wear him down to the bone and then gets sick as a result that his mad husband/daddy skills really suffer.
Oh, if only I had a fairy Godmother! I'd wish for a fabulous babysitter who understands diabetes, loves the kids, and who I could trust 100% with the safety of my children, diabetes and all!
Just to set your minds at ease, my husband is usually pretty fantastic. He's awesome with helping with the kids and is usually really good about letting me have a break. It's just when he lets work wear him down to the bone and then gets sick as a result that his mad husband/daddy skills really suffer.
Oh, if only I had a fairy Godmother! I'd wish for a fabulous babysitter who understands diabetes, loves the kids, and who I could trust 100% with the safety of my children, diabetes and all!
Friday, August 20, 2010
I've HAD IT!
Seriously, I need to throw a temper tantrum quick so I can head to bed with a clear mind. This has been The Week from Hell! Actually, it's been a couple of weeks from hell. I think it all started a couple weeks ago, when my husband asked me if I minded taking the kids to Lily's endo appointment by myself. Yes, of course I mind! But, if there's really that much stuff that you need to be at work for, then fine, I'll take them alone. I do understand, my husband's job is important and he's nearing the end of the project he's currently working on. It's CRUNCH TIME! And the expectations are high. So is the amount of work to be finished and all the kinks need to be worked out. So he's stressed. I get it. And I love him, so I put up with the side-effects that follow him home. He's cranky. He's tired and worn out. He's run down. My husband is a perfectionist and a tiny bit of a work-a-holic. Not just with the work he does at work, but with the work he does at home. He rarely relaxes. So he gets stressed and tends to lash out. He gets resentful sometimes because I'm not like that. I like to relax. If the floor is messy and the dishes still need to be washed, it doesn't bother me as much as long as I've spent my day interacting with my children. The quality of care my children get from me far outweighs the amount of housework I do. So it's okay, as long as I get around to cleaning eventually, right? So....endo appointment with two small children, followed by a blood draw for Lily, since the doctor runs a battery of tests once a year. Followed by a drive home with one very unhappy little girl and one very tired little boy. And then a busy weekend without much of a break. And a busy week without much of a break. My husband got together with friends and family several nights in a row last weekend, which meant I was left alone to put the kids to bed all three of those nights. I was sick, running a fever, and not feeling well. But, I did it, because it's what moms do. And when Tuesday rolled around and I told my husband that I needed a break....he responded with, "I'm not feeling good." Apparently, I was supposed to interpret that to mean, "I'm unable to care for the children on my own." So, after a big argument, I gave up on my break and helped with the kids. End of the week, and still no break. As I'm typing, my husband is downstairs, laughing with two of his friends, as they play board games and listen to Angry White Man Music (Pantera, maybe?). I have spent my night crocheting on the couch in between testing Lily's blood sugar every hour and a half because she isn't feeling well and her blood sugars are running high. That was, of course, after I put the kids to bed by myself again. After being disappointed because my husband refused to wait for our favorite Indian restaurant to make a take-out order for us. He decided Little Caesar's was good enough.
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thought a virtual scream might help, since I can't do a real one. It didn't. I'm going to bed after I test Lily one last time. But I will be sleeping in tomorrow, whether my husband wants to get up with the kids or not! And I will be getting my break. Because a stressed, tired, cranky mommy is not a good mommy! He'll just have to deal!
AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thought a virtual scream might help, since I can't do a real one. It didn't. I'm going to bed after I test Lily one last time. But I will be sleeping in tomorrow, whether my husband wants to get up with the kids or not! And I will be getting my break. Because a stressed, tired, cranky mommy is not a good mommy! He'll just have to deal!
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