Throughout the Spring, Andrew had strange episodes of highs with ketones & yet still lows other times. I struggled with the frequent feeling that things weren't right. Vanderbilt tested for celiac & other reasons that he wasn't regulating better. Thankfully, those results all came back fine. Finally, I got to speak with Ann, who has always been the best nurse for Ann. She asked us to raise Andrew's basal & do a basal check & email her the results. So that Saturday morning, we raised Andrew's morning basal rate from .075u/hr to .375u/hr, which is a huge jump, but was closer to his other hourly rates. Andrew skipped breakfast that morning & let us check his BG every hour. His BG actually drifted up a little each hour showing he actually needed a little more insulin each hour.
As a reward for skipping breakfast & doing the basal check, we promised Andrew we would go to Shoney's and let him eat the breakfast buffet. We let him eat whatever he wanted, but he had to have sugar-free syrup & drinks. Please don't ask how many carbs he ate!!!
This was a wonderful experiment for us! It explained so many of Andrew's problems. The lack of sufficient basal insulin was why he had gotten so ill with strep. It was why he kept having ketones. We had lots of opportinities to test his basal during the summer, and we were able to finally get it right. I found some pictures of him around his diagnosis & he looked so frail to me. He got better, but it wasn't until this past summer that I noticed him putting muscle back on & looking more like himself!
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