Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Andrew had a good birthday! His BG didn't, but he & his BG are not synonymous. Andrew was happy most of the day. A friend who couldn't make it to his party came by in the morning & dropped off a stunt remote control car. It is a hit with all the boys! He got the lunch of his choice followed by gifts from grandparents and his great aunt & uncle. He had the afternoon to enjoy those, and then he had a party in the evening at Pump It Up. He enjoyed his day, and the rest of us did, too! I thank God for nine years of blessing through Andrew! Although I am about to share with you how diabetes affects a birthday, neither Andrew nor I will probably remember the diabetic details soon. Birthdays are still about thanking God for blessings and enjoying friends and family. Those are the memories we cherish & diabetes is just one of the things we try to take care of so that the important things can remain important. I do think it is interesting though that Andrew's birthday (November 14th) is World Diabetes Day!

Andrew wanted "lots of Domino's pizza" for lunch. Pizza had high carbs & high fat, which is always hard to handle. The high carb needs lots of insulin, but high fat takes longer to digest, so the insulin need is spread out. The pump has a great combo feature where you can give say 65% of the dose now & the remaining 35% over the next 3 hours. It's great - once you have it figured out! The lunch ratio had been 1:18, but Ann recommended 1:20 with the changes. After Friday night, we changed it to 1:19 instead. It still wasn't enough. He ran high through the afternoon. When the party started, he was jumping around & falling often, so I had him take the pump off. Soon all that exercise kicked in, and he was low - BG 48. He doesn't mind being low at home. It is a good excuse to eat sugar. He will sit & talk to us or watch tv until his BG comes up. It was a lot harder to be still at a birthday party! He said he felt better & retested in efforts to convince me he was coming up. BG - 50. The time stamp revealed that it had only been 6 minutes. I agreed to a glucose tablet to help him get up faster. In a few minutes, he looked better & went off to play. I didn't worry about complex carbs because we would be eating cake in less than an hour. I probably should have because he ended up low a second time. He had some more sugar & soon it was time for cake. He reconnected his pump in the party room & ate cake like everyone else.