Hannah had a situation happen to her this summer where she was in the care of strangers ( to her) at a Vacation Bible School at her cousins church. The plan was to have her uncle come help Hannah at "snack time" to make sure her blodd sugar was tested, the correct carbs were counted and insulin was given. Before he could get there, snack time was already in progress, and the teacher knew she has diabetes. So she offered Hannah a different snack than everyone else. Instead of Oreo's she got Goldfish crackers. This is just an instance of someone that is uninformed . I dont blame her for not wanting to give Hannah sugar, but Gold fish crackers have CARBS, which turns into sugar in the body. Hannah's pancreas can not process carbs, and does not produce any insulin ( type 1).
Therefore she needs insulin for Goldfish crackers just as she would for Oreo's. I know she would have much rather had Oreos, but she didn't speak up. So she got crackers without getting insulin. It all worked out in the end, since diabetes is not a perfect science, so at lunch time things were corrected in her insulin doses, and Hannah did just fine and had fun. I always hope as she grows that she speaks up and can educated others on what type 1 diabetes is and tell someone, I can have those Oreo's too as long as I know the carbs and give myself insulin for them.
It's not just a matter of watching her sugar intake, even so called sugar free foods have carbs!!!! She needs insulin for everything that has carbohydates in them. So all in all, people view diabetes as one catagory, but type 1 and type 2 are totally different, even though they both have the hormone insulin in common.
I also am concerned about what could have happened, if things just don't work out and Hannah doesn't speak up, not getting insulin for carbs could potentially have negative side effects, but in this case it was a small snack, and not a full meal and either way it could have caused issues, but thankful it worked out, not every time will it work out though, and that is why I want to make people aware the structure of a type 1 diabetic.
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I copied and pasted a blog entry I read that really got to me-- it was taken from http://t1family.blogspot.com/. They have a girl around Hannah's age, who is a type 1 diabetic. I find many similarities when I read her stories. Hannah also has told me several times that she has to eat fast at lunchtime at school, but never have I known Hannah to have something happen to the degree it did in the blog below and would hope and pray that is never does happen to her. I felt the emotions this mom did as if it were my daughter, the anger, the frustration....... I have always told Hannah, since I know they often times get very little time to eat lunch, that she always needs to eat what she was given insulin for, and if she is not allowed to she needs to tell the nurse or her teacher.
Read below what this other mother wrote.
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"This has been a rough week.
Numbers all over the place.
Almost
zero sleep.
The fatigue. The emotions. Expending so much effort 24 hours
a day.
Complete exhaustion and seriously, I just need a freakin
break.
Thursday: I rush home in between meetings to pick the girls up
from school in order to get everything ready for the babysitter. I am greeted
with Jessica visibly upset. "Get me out of here...I just want to go home." I
quickly usher her out of the building. She is in tears before we reach the car.
In the safety of the car, the floodgates open.
"They told me I couldn't
finish my lunch. They told me I had to throw out my food. I told them I had
Type 1 diabetes, and I needed to eat my lunch, but they wouldn't listen. My
friends told them I had Type 1. She said she knew I had Type 1, but lunch was
over and I had to throw out my food. Mom, I had over 30 grams of carbs left...I
was afraid if I didn't eat it I would get so low I would pass out." More tears.
"I was so scared, mom."
Jessica stood strong. She refused to throw out
her food. And, so, the lunch aid went to her teacher.
Luckily, her
teacher handled the situation appropriately and took her to the nurse, where she
finished her lunch. Although, why she couldn't have just finished it on the way
to her classroom is beyond me.
The day devastated Jessica. Having to
stand up to an adult and say no. At the age of ten, this is not an easy feat.
She was so upset by the time her teacher came, that she cried in front of her
class. Embarrassment, Humiliation, Fear. All over some uneducated adult's
decision not to listen to a child who knows her own health condition better than
anyone else.
I was filled with so many emotions. Extreme Anger. It took
all I could to go home and write a polite but assertive email, rather than
rushing into the building and screaming and yelling. But, also Pride. Jessica
knew what the right thing to do was. And, when challenged she held her ground.
She did what she needed to do to make sure she was safe. And, although it cost
her humiliation, fear, and embarrassment...she did it.
But, it angers me
she had to. Despite all the hours and effort we have put into making sure she
is safe at school, things like this still occur. And, they will continue to.
Her school is amazing. Her teacher, the nurse, and even the principal handled
it well. The principal even came to check on her later in the day and make sure
she was ok.
And, it is not the first time she has been treated wrongly at
school. At her old school she was forced to check her blood sugar in stairways.
The nurse would psychoanalyze her sugars..."Now, Jessica...what do you think
could have happened to make you 200?"
We have always responded quickly
and assertively, but the truth is that these things will continue to happen and
I know it. A 504 plan, while a good start, can not fully protect our children
when we are not there.
November is National Diabetes Month. A time to
remember to educate, advocate, and fundraise. These are the tools we have to
help our children. We must educate those who don't understand. Many will never
"get it," but we at least need to know that they have enough knowledge to keep
our children safe when we are not there. And, we must advocate. We need faster
FDA approval, we need more funds dedicated to Type 1 research, we need life and
health insurance policies that are fair and not based on lumping life
expectancies of Type 2 and Type 1 diabetics together. We need school policies
that keep our kids safe, and that don't allow discrimination based on a health
condition that is difficult to control. And, we must fundraise towards a
cure.
But, until then, we must support each other in this journey. We
cannot do it alone. We are stronger, and our kids are stronger when we stick
together. Our life was changed by finding Children With Diabetes. I wait
impatiently for the next conference in February, where for one weekend we will
once again be enveloped in support. And, where we will have the chance to
support others.
Together, our children will grow up healthy and
strong.
Together, we will support each other.
Together, we will find a
cure."
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Another bump in the road for Hannah...............
Sunday night into Monday Hannah had a rough time. We changed her pump site on Sunday afternoon, it was supposed to happen Saturday sometime, but we were out and about and not able to get it done until Sunday. It all worked out. But then Sunday night, around bedtime (of course), she started climb higher with her blood sugars. At first I generally dont count one high number a big deal, we correct it with insulin and move on. At 7:45pm was the first indication something was wrong....BS was 375. I just figured I counted carbs wrong at supper, which I think I really did. She had these crescent rolls that was hard to figure out since I cut each roll in half and she ate more than I thought....but anyway... we corrected for that at 7:45, but then had her typical bedtime snack of ice cream. Typically this isn't an issue, but in this case I think it was the wrong choice for a snack.
I tested her again, just as she went to bed at 9pm she jumped to 449 within the hour. UGH!! was my reaction I believe. So I put her to bed gave her another dose of insulin to correct her high,( it was a small correction since it only had been an hour since last insulin dose, but felt I had to do something more being that she was in the mid 400's) and just said it's gonna be a long night.
When I tested her at 11pm, she was 371, so basiclly things didn't change much, although it was lower, it still was not good at all. At 2am she was back up to 443. I shoulda at this moment changed her pump site, but its 2am and I still wanted to hold out hope that we have never had a failed site with these type of sites since we started using them over a year and a half, I just had a hard time believeing that our problem was a failed site. So another correction was given and back to bed for another hour. 3:30 am came really fast and she tested at 327, so dropping....at 3:30 am and being extremely tired, and probably not thinking the best I thought that was a good drop in less than 2 hrs....still not good but still had hope that things would normalize soon.....back to bed. Another hour later 4:30 am and she was 306. At this point I pretty much realized our problem was she was not getting insulin through her site I think I might have tried another correction and I decided to let us sleep until 6:15am, get up for school and hope things were better. At 6:20am her blood sugar was 367.....we were both exhausted from the night. It was time to take action though. I gave her an injection of 3.5 units at 6:30am.....this should have been done probably around the 2am mark, but I didn't want her to go low either, always thinking that the pump was working and she was getting at least some insulin.
Decided at 6:30am that the site was in fact NOT working. She resisted the injection, but I told her we waited too long already and this is what she needed NOW. I reassured her it would be a quick poke, and it would be over. I had to sort of just do it with her kinda of in "not ready" mode, but she let me do it, and it was over quickly. Deep breath as she finally had insulin in her after probably not much of it in 10 hrs. I am guessing she had a small amount of ketones starting, but never got the chance to check since I would rememeber to check after she had already peed. She was drinking alot and peeing alot several times during the night.
Within the hour we had the new site in and pump reattached. At 7:30am we checked again and she was 268. So we are going in the right direction now, and she ate breakfast. At 9:15am she was 203 and by 10:45am was the glorious affirmation that we were on the right track at 104. Her tummy always hurts after a long night of being high, plus she was just so tired. She took a nap. At 11:45am she was 143 and she ate a small lunch. She spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and sleeping as I had to go to work. Steve was home a few hours after I left and she felt well enough to go to dance later. All her numbers since 10:45am yesterday have been good. Such a wonderful relief. Diabetes always surpises us even though things were going so well, we had another little bump in the road.
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