Monday, October 18, 2010

D-101

Here's some important information regarding Bryson and D. These are things you will hear about if you continue reading :) and these are a part of our everyday life.

1st and most important: Bryson's Bag-  right now it is a insulated football bag. This contains very important things:
His FreestyleLite Glucose Meter with testing strips (yes the butterfly ones)
Additional Lancets
Alcohol Pads
Glucagon (More about this in a minute)
Fast Acting Carbs ( JuicyJuice box, Glucose Tabs, Starburst)
His daytime insulin (Humalog)
Syringes
Logbook
Book for Dummies(a little notebook with everything and anything you should know for Bryson)





Glucagon- A bright orange kit that goes everywhere we do. Contains a vial with a powder tablet, and a syringe filled with water. Squirt the water in the vial, shake till dissolved, pull half of the liquid out and inject in stomach area. THIS IS ONLY DONE IF BRYSON CANT SWALLOW LIQUID (he's passed out). Glucagon lets the liver release the stored sugar.


Lows- Anything below 80. This can cause shakiness, confusion, irritability, sleepiness.... We treat these with fast acting carbs( juice box, glucose tabs, 3 starburst) then we check BG 15 minutes later. If Bryson passes out, we check BG, call 911 and administer Glucagon.

Insulin- The hormone that turns food into energy, Bryson doesn't have any..therefore we must inject it. If we don't his body will eat itself..and he will lose weight, produce keytones, etc.

Keytones- This is what happens when the body begins to eat the muscle and fat stored. If Bryson's BG is higher than 300 we must check for keytones by doing a simple urine test. If moderate to high we call his doctor and may be heading to the ER.

StomachVirus- Stomach viruses are very hard on T1 kids. They will make their sugar do crazy things. If Bryson throws up, we are to call the doc and head straight to the ER. You would think we could give him meds to prevent the nausea and vomiting, but they will make him sleepy and he will already be low and this could result in him passing out.

Insulin: We take Humalog during the day and Lantus (Long acting Insulin) at night.

Carbs: Carbohydrates are what our bodies use as sugar. Every carb that goes in his mouth must be counted and given insulin for.

Carb Counting: We must count every carb he eats. This is easier said than done..what happens at that pot luck dinner? We have no clue how many carbs auntie puts in her chicken pies! If we guess the amount of carbs we could send him low! So we are slowly learning how many carbs are in everything and reading every nutritional label in site! He gets one unit of insulin for every 25 carbs.

He gets a couple of snacks a day as well. If these are below 15 carbs he doesn't have to get insulin to cover them! This means no shots for snacks, woohoo!!

Our schedule: Our days begin at 3:00am..with our first finger prick, then at Breakfast we check our BG and give insulin to cover breakfast. Snack about 10:00, then lunchtime check at 11:45 and insulin to cover lunch, check BG before P.E/Recess and afterwards, snack about 1:45, another snack about 3:45, dinner check and insulin to cover dinner, snack about 7:30, bedtime check and LongLasting Insulin. Whew... this doesn't count any checks we may do if he is showing signs of hypo or hyperglycemia...

This is our schedule day in and day out. No days off, no remission, no cure....yet at least.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing the blog with me, I will definitely follow. There has been a lot of fund raising efforts for Juvenile Diabetes in our area.

    Big hugs go out to you!

    - Kat

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  2. Thanks for sharing and being so brave! Love you guys more than words can say ! Makes me so proud that you want to help others by posting this.

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