What Is The Right Response?

I heard the words today that I didn’t think I would ever have to hear or respond to. Words that many of my DOC friends kid’s say. I always say since Vince was diagnosed as a baby, he says he knows no other life, so being Diabetic doesn’t stress him like it may others. Well today is different. Today, he finally told me what he has been holding in. He is a very quiet and private person with his feelings. When something huge is bothering him, he holds it in until I drag it out of him. If it concerns me, he is usually more verbal about it, but if it is personal, he doesn’t always tell me right away. Today he actually told me he is tired of being Diabetic. I didn’t know what to say. It was on the phone. I just sat there as the tears welled up in my eyes. What do you say to that? How do you respond and make it all better? I was running through my brain for the right response and all I could come up with was, “I know”. I think all of his complications are finally getting the best of him. Between his poor eye sight and the neuropathy pain with numbness and muscle weakness, let alone the day to day care of the Diabetes, I think he is just overwhelmed. Although he has been Diabetic, practically since birth (we are actually trying to find out EXACTLY how old he was, as he has always been told about 6 months and I will share when we know) he has never had to deal with the complications on top of the daily care until recent years. I wish I could just take it all away or say it will only last another week and then it will be over. Like the flu. But no. This will last a lifetime. The good thing is some days are better than others. It may not and probably will not be this bad forever. I am sure, as with all things, his body will change, and the neuropathy will change and hopefully it will be for the better. That is what I try to remind him of. He is so strong but when everything piles up on him, or certain things happen in his life, he is reminded of his struggles and it all comes crashing down. I guess he can’t be strong 100% of the time. I wish he could, but he isn’t Superman, is he? He is my Superman. He is always strong for me, but it shouldn’t be like that. He needs to be strong for himself.

An Early Start to the Day

So I am awaken at 4:30AM by Mr. Beeps. I try desperately to turn on the back light of the pump but failed. I got out of bed, and flicked on the light. Low Battery and low sugar. Great...okay so I go to the kitchen, grab a butter knife and a battery and head back to the bedroom. Sounds like a horror story! I change the battery out and look at the sensor numbers. Yup, dropping low. The sensor read 88 and falling with active insulin, so I got up and tried to wake Vince. He opened his eyes and I told him he was going low and I shoved a glucose tablet in his mouth and proceeded to yell "eat it, chew it, don't choke!" over and over until he caught until he on and chewed. I asked him over and over, (or more like demanded) and kept shaking up until he came too, why he had active insulin at this hour of the morning and he wouldn't answer me. I got out his tester, and pricked his finger: 73. I yelled, "your not that weak! Answer me!!!!" I went to the kitchen again and this time got a cup of ice tea for him to gulp down. I brought it to him and told him to drink fast. He gulped down the entire cup in a few minutes and I started again. "why do you have active insulin?!" he finally said it was because he was high when he went to bed and that he must have overcorrected. This is a big thing with Vince. Overcorrecting. With all of his complications, he overcorrects because he is afraid of being to high, and then we have lows to deal with. Anyway, I asked him why he wasn't answering me even though he wasn't that weak. He then explained that since he hasn't been weak in a little while, the 73 hit him harder than usual. Then the tears started. His first, then mine. I asked him what in the world was wrong. He said he knows taking care of him is a full time job of mine and he doesn't like being sick. He doesn't like that I have to take care of him and wonders why I married him. This is when my tears started. I am thinking in my head, "what can I say to that, to make it all better" I just told him that I love him and that is why I do it and that is why I married him. I asked him how HE puts up with ME while I am yelling at him. Although I am not yelling at him. I am yelling at the stupid situation that is no ones fault really, except D. All I could do was hug him and tell him it is what it is and we will get through it. What else can I say? so I finally calm him enough and he falls back to sleep. The light got turned off somewhere in the crying and I lay back down but of course my mind gets the best of me when I am trying to go to sleep so I just think and think. How none of this is fair. I figure if I get out of bed and write it down, then maybe I can clear my mind and get a little more sleep before going to work. Well it is now 5:30AM so I am going to go to bed and try to rest.

All Registered!

The Sugar Free Floyd's have registered for this fall's JDRF walk! Exciting!

The fine line between low and too low

This evening Vince and I visited his Neurologist. It was a pretty quick appointment, with little change recommended from the doctor. He could see that Vince was looking good and had lost some weight. He said he doesn't want to change anymore medicine for the time being. I think I like that idea. I think it will help him to take time and let his body adjust without increasing his topamax, as the doc has been doing for the last few months. Since Vince's good days are getting better, he wants to give him a few months to see what happens. Although the bad pain days are still frequent, when he has a good day, the good day is really good, so we will see. He also explained that even though his sugars are controlled at an A1C of 6.7, he thinks that if we can mange to get it even lower, that eventually the pain will give a little and the nerves may start to calm down. It is a tricky game though. He has had plenty of times in the past that his A1C was around 6.3 but there were lots of hypo low reactions. That is the hard part of this game. To try to keep him as low as possible without to many low episodes. So we agreed to try to correct him more often and be as strict as we can to see if we can get it lower, but try to avoid the hypoglycemia episodes as best as we can. I think with the two of us watching it around the clock, then we should be able to do it. It will just take more monitoring day and night. A lot of times, I will check his sensor before I leave for work and if it shows 160, I won't correct him since I will be calling him to wake him to take his medicine later in the morning. I think from now one we need to carefully and cautiously correct him and just really keep an eye out for the lows. We will see if we can do this and see how it works. He also said that if he can get his A1C even lower, he may have MORE pain at first before it gets better since the nerves will try to calm, a process that also causes pain. So pain all around but hopefully with this approach, we can continue to try to get hubby feeling better as the days go on. We will see the doctor in a few months for another check up, after he has had 2 more A1C checks. The doctor made a big point to say we are both doing a great job in doing everything we can to help Vince feel better. It is nice to hear these encouraging words from the doctor!

D has to make it's appearance all the time...

I thought I would share something with the rest of my DOC buddies. Vince and I proved something this weekend. Not that we didn't know this, it just kinda refreshed us on how much affects D. Vince had a stomach bug Saturday afternoon and is still trying to get over it today. I think it's on it's way out. Anyway, no matter how much we bolused throughout the day on Sunday we couldn't get him under 200. He didn't even eat anything until the evening and he was still high. I actually wasn't quite sure if somehow his neuropathy was causing the stomach ache (not that it has in the past, but I try to think of all the possibilities) or if it was actually a virus. Once I realized his sugar wasn't coming down, I was convinced it was a virus. It's bad enough to feel under the weather. Why does D make everything so much more difficult! Stupid D!!

He is starting to get over it tonight, let's hope it doesn't return by morning. Time to get these numbers back to normal :)