a year has passed

Hannah had her 1 year diabetes check up on Jan 14. Hard to believe we've been on this journey for a full year, and yet when I look back, it was one long year. There have been many struggles, it really has changed us. I'm not sure how things would be today without diabetes in our life, but it is what it is, and we can't change it, for now. Hannah has accepted the fact that this is a part of her life, but not without continued frustration. There is not a day that goes by that she is not angry, frustrated, and physically hurting. I want her to grow to be physically strong, but this really has set her back. She has alot of emotions to work through everyday, and that part I don't think she is handling very well. She has had alot thrown at her at age 7 and 8. I have difficult days in dealing with this and understanding, I can only imagine how she is feeling. God allowed this in our lives because we CAN handle it, to bring us closer to Him, by laying it all in his hands, and we will be stronger because of it. I hope one day Hannah will not be afraid of diabetes and can focus her energy not not being angry, and be of support to others with diabetes. We also pray and hope that one day everything will be fine, and a cure will be found.

Hannah had some blood drawn at her appt. for some yearly lab work. That also was not fun for her, but she held still and was reassured that it's ok to cry......so she did!!!
Everything came back normal, besides her A1C level is elevated which we knew from the finger poke. We still don't have her blood sugars under good control, which is where the insulin pump comes in. It will give her smaller, more precise doses of insulin 24/7, which should help her A1C come down. We will get going on that very soon.

She continues to have tummy aches off and on pretty regularly, so we took a few steps in that direction to determine the cause. Her labs on celiac disease came back negativ, which they did last year so I didn't think that was the cause-- had a very low number (0.5), which in this case I believe the lower the better. Celiac is very closely related with diabetes, and I hope we never have to deal with more eating control, counting carbs is plenty. Thyroid and cholestrol levels were also normal. Kidney function is not tested for, until further down the road. In the attempt to solve another issue we believe we also found the cause of her tummy aches.

Over the past year Hannah has had burning while peeing, and most recently itchiness. It comes and goes and we've been to her family doctor three times with this issue. She was never examined, had her urine tested twice, once it was told to me she had a bladder infection, and when it reoccured a few weeks later, her urine was fine. It was suggested then that she was most likely constipated and needed more fiber along with some Miralax. We tried that for a few weeks and I guess I didnt think that was the problem, so I didnt keep up. The next time I brought it up, was at her 8 yr old check up and I was told to keep the area dry ( use powder if needed), and can always bring her in to check a urine-- once again she was never looked at. In between those visits, I had her endocrinologist look at her last April and she thought maybe yeast, and to use destin and monostat creams. We've been doing that for about 8 months...with no real longterm results, and when I brought it back up to her endo doctor a few weeks ago, she looked and still thought maybe yeast, but decided to refer us, after I said the cream wasn't helping long term and this has been going on a year.

So off we go to Minneapolis to the pediatric gynocologist the next week. We were referred to Children's Specialty Clinic's, Dr Rachel Miller, who upon examining Hannah informed me that she has a condition called lichen sclerosus, which is a chronic skin condition, causing itchiness, lesions, and scarring. (if urine hits the affected area can also cause burning) and if not treated, can cause significant scarring not to mention how uncomfortable that is. We got some steroid cream to apply daily, twice a day at first. It will come and go, and it's something we'll have to keep an eye on until puberty, maybe her entire life. Her immune system is the most likely cause. She also informed me that yeast takes more high levels of the hormone estrogen and in a girl her age, is very uncommon to have much of. Hannah seems to be taking the news well and doesn't seem to mind we have another thing to take care of, she just wants it to not burn and itch. They also took an x-ray of her tummy while we were there, because along with this condition, it can bring about constipation. So we think we have her tummy aches figured out through the xray, as proof. We are trying more fiber and Miralax again. She is not good at drinking much at a time, so the Miralax seems to be going to waste, but she is getting some, she bearly drinks 4 oz at a meal time, and that may even be playing into the constipation, not enough fluids, but I can't force her to drink, so we keep trying.

We are excited aboutour first JDRF walk for a cure coming up on Feb 27. It will be a good time surrounded by those hoping for a cure someday.

fresh fruit smoothie

In my attempt to get healthy, today I made myself a homemade fruit smoothie-- orange pineapple, mango to be exact, and it tastes oh so yummy.

See?




The handy tool that I used to core my pineapple is great and makes the task of slicing a pineapple oh so easy! I never enjoyed cutting up a pineapple and thanks to my mom I got a pineapple slicer for christmas. Like pineapple?, so gotta have one of these.

See?

lack of words

just do not have any creative juices flowing to form any posts lately. Took these pictures this morning. It was pretty, dont you think?

our family on Christmas Day 2009