Finally I’m going to update you on Sarah and her diabetes clinic… finally! As you can see I haven’t been blogging that much, sorry about that. Things have been busy, but not terribly exciting. It is a little strange trying to get reacquainted with regular life. In all honesty, I guess I’m finding ‘normal’ living a bit uninspiring. The kids are all in school and yes I have a house that needs reorganizing etc, but after the stress and craziness of the life we were living, life now seems a little flat. But I’m not complaining, however I am side-tracking. Back to our story.
So Sarah, our dear brave little diabetes girl. Jason and I took Sarah to the diabetes clinic at the Children’s Hospital last week, where she goes every three months to see the endocrinologist. She gets weighed and measured and they sit and have a chat with us about how things are going, and they also check her A1C levels. Now I just had to Google ’A1C‘ to make sure I really understood what it is all about, and basically it is a blood test that shows your average blood sugar over the past three months in percentage values. Even though the Dr and nurses can see your daily blood glucose numbers (that you’ve recorded faithfully in a little book) the A1C gives a nice over-all picture of how your blood sugar has been in the past three months.
In Sarah’s case – her result was 6% and that is perfect, and maybe actually be in the range of you and I. It’s really just a testament of how well Jason has controlled Sarah’s blood sugar (thank you Diabetes Dictator! Image may be NSFW.
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) and it’s a relief because the better her sugar is controlled, the better her health will be in the long run. Now, we are being helped a little by the fact that Sarah is still in the honeymoon period with her diabetes. When you have type 1 diabetes, your body is actually destroying your beta cells that make insulin, and that happens over a period of time. Sarah clearly has a few of her beta cells left and so is able to still make a tiny bit of insulin, and it helps a tiny bit with controlling her blood sugar.
We also found out at the clinic that we can start down the road of getting an insulin pump for Sarah – yahoo! In Ontario, if you have had diabetes for a year and have kept your numbers under control as based on three good A1C numbers, the government will fund an insulin pump for you. A pump will be a whole new ball game for us, because it will replace Sarah’s needles and instead will attach directly to her and constantly give her a steady trickle of insulin. When she eats meals, you tell it how many carbs you have eaten, and it will then give you a bolus dose of insulin to help with your meal. I’m sure a pump will change everything for us, in good and bad ways, but I’m ready for the flexibility it will offer Sarah and our family. The only downside is that we have to wait a while, and likely won’t be able to get one until the new year. But as we are currently managing just fine with how things are, a few more months won’t hurt us.
And Sarah is doing really well with everything… she is a trouper and one tough little cookie. When she was first diagnosed she often didn’t want her needles and would make a stink about getting them, but now it’s just life. Once in a while they hurt and she cries, but generally it’s a non-issue. She is even good with food and that is the hard part. She can only eat at certain times of day and can only have a specific number of carbohydrates at each meal and it’s limiting, but she seems to have accepted it. And she knows what she can’t have and there are times when others are eating things she can’t and that’s not nice, and I feel bad for her, but if she gets upset I remind her that eventually she will get the pump! She does all her finger pokes by herself to check her blood glucose levels 4 times a day and she never makes a fuss about doing those… I think she’s proud of the fact that she can do so much independently and so she should be.
Image may be NSFW.
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Sometimes I look at her and I feel sad because she seems so much older than 6 years old. She was forced to grow up so much this year with all the happened and I know it changed her. She was diagnosed with a life changing disease, and had a very sick baby sister all at the same time. And she loved Ava so much and then had to lose her. It makes my tender mother’s heart just want to break for her. But then again I don’t know what God has in store for her, or how He is going to use this to mold and shape her. I’m glad God knows best because if it was left up to me I would shelter my kids from every negative thing in this world, but then they wouldn’t have the opportunity to grow and be strengthened. God has a plan for her just like He had for Ava and for all of us, and even though it’s hard to see your child with a disease that won’t go away, I know I can trust Him. And I do. Hasn’t He proved Himself faithful over and over and over again?
So here is to our dear brave Sarah – such a monkey who is so strong but can also be so sweet. We are truly thankful that everything is going well with her and that she is healthy and strong and we just praise God that she is in our lives.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
