Most of us at one time or another (not you, Mom!) have been aware that our bank statement would only provide us with the bad news that we already knew - that we didn't have enough money in the account, and there were still bills that had to be paid, gas to be bought, and food to be picked up from the grocery store.
Rather than face reality, some of us might go ahead and buy the groceries and fill the gas tank. Then we would figure out what was left (if anything) to pay the bills.
If you are one who has had this experience, then by the end of this post you will feel a lot of sympathy for M.
When I returned from my trip to Spain, I of course asked M how her blood glucose had been while I was away. She said, "pretty good."
Not completely trusting her memory, I asked her to Carelink. The printout did indeed show some pretty good bg, especially starting a few days before my return. I was pleased and relieved that she had done so well without me.
As I was, evidently, not satisfied with leaving the country for two weeks, I did my laundry and packed up. M and I headed to Manomet, MA for a week of fun and sun at the beach with Auntie, cousins, Nana and Papa.
There is typically a lot of tempting food with high carb counts when we go to the beach with the family. But I have always felt that M had to learn how to cope with situations where the food selection was less than ideal, rather than force her diabetes-style diet on everyone else while they are on vacation.
Despite the breakfast sandwiches, the potato chips, the candy, and the ice cream, M reported that her bg numbers were generally in the high 100s (173, 157, 144 etc.) "Not bad," I thought. "I guess that walking-along-the-beach thing is really keeping her numbers in check."
But as a few days went by, M didn't have any bgs over 200.
I began to grow suspicious.
"When exactly was she checking her bg?" I wondered. I wasn't seeing her do it. Was she doing it in her room so that it wouldn't bother her cousins at the dinner table? Or was she not checking it at all?
To test her reaction, I asked M to check her bg in front of me.
She checked it. Then she told me the results, but didn't show me.
I asked to see her meter so that I could see the results from the previous days. I tried to sound casual.
This is where it hit the fan.
When we asked her bg meter to "show all results", it showed only 5 readings from the past 7 days.
One of them was the one she did right in front of me.
That's right, folks. M had only checked her bg 5 times in the last 7 days! The pump manufacturer recommends a minimum of 5 tests per day.
Needless to say, this is not healthy diabetic behavior!
M tried to convince me that she had been checking her bg several times every day, that there must be something wrong with the meter.
HA!
I was a teenaged girl myself, once. Covering one's butt is high on the list of priorities when one makes a bad choice.
What I didn't know, was how, exactly, M got the Carelink readings that showed up on her printout?
I learned the answer when, later during our vacation, circumstances required that M enter her bg manually into the pump itself.
Aha! M had been estimating (aka guessing) what her bg was, then entering it into the meter so that it would administer the appropriate bolus. The printout comes directly from the pump, not the meter.
So on any given day, M might think to herself, "Hmmm. I would like a snack. I will have a cheese stick and some grapes. That's about ten carbs. And I feel fine, so I'll enter 143 for bg levels and take whatever insulin the pump decides I need."
For all of you out there in blog land, in case you didn't know, this is a BAD IDEA.
If you guess too high on your bg levels, you are in danger of going into a bg low, for which side effects include, shakiness, dizziness, weakness, and, oh......death.
If you guess too low on your bg, you will not get enough insulin into your system to keep you healthy. Long-term side effects include kidney problems, loss of vision, poor circulation, and, of course, death.
It was time to have a talk.
M and I had a heart to heart. It included my understanding how it feels not to be in control of your life; to be tired of knowing that you must always be thinking about your health, and not wanting to talk to your parents about it.
When we returned home, I let Bill know that we had been snowed. We had pulled back from our responsibility, and allowed M to monitor things herself. In pulling back, we allowed M's choices to go unchecked for a couple of weeks. Now it was time to bring down the hammer. Sympathy and empathy aside, M's health is too important for us to let it go.
Accepting our decision, and our sense of urgency, M has had a (probably temporary) turn around. Her attitude its better, and she is checking her bg 6 times per day. It is too high, but now that we know truly what we are up against, we can put together a plan of action.
Together.
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| Not anymore, M. But it was a nice try. |
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