Summer arrived very soon after K’s diagnosis and we signed up for a whole series of classes (OK they were mandatory) that are designed to take you from Diabetes 101 to more challenging control techniques. We learned about different types of food and how they are absorbed by the body, about insulin to carb ratios, and the impact of exercise in addition to food. We learned about nutrition and how to deal with sick days – basically all of the things you need to know to handle diabetes on your own terms instead of molding your diet and treatment choices to a specific pre-defined plan. Kaelan was still on MDI (multiple daily injections) but he had more tools in his belt now. We all did.
As it turns out pizza is a particularly problematic food due to the triple threat of high carbs, protein, and fat, so we spent significant time in one class learning how to deal with it. Because honestly, the two most important foods a middle school T1d has to learn to deal with are pizza and cupcakes.
And I will say that in addition to the classes you find yourself doing a lot of research and reading on your own. My husband, who is a kind of research-aholic, became, I am sure, one of the foremost experts on every study ever done on the long term consequences of diabetes, while I found myself more focused on the present. But both of us were VERY interested in the current state of technology and how to ease the effort it takes to measure bg and dose in a seemingly endless cycle. You join forums, and facebook groups and you start attending local JDRF chapter meetings. There is so much information out there and you learn very quickly that there is a whole T1D support universe and many people who are willing to share and offer tips and tricks.
The classes were good, but in talking to the instructors, and in our own independent research, we were starting to hear a lot about more recent technologies that sounded pretty good. Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) where you actually wear a device inserted just under the skin that provides a continuous readout of bg levels was one of them. The other was using an insulin pump to dose instead of injecting every unit of insulin yourself. I think we would have skipped right to those techniques, but there is a certain sequence and order that is imposed in the treatment process which doesn’t really encourage you to jump to point C before you know what the heck you are doing in points A and B. And it does make some sense to get yourself really well grounded in the basics.
Also, Kaelan was not quite so excited about wearable technology as perhaps my husband and I were. So we had to be patient. It’s his body and his diabetes, and everyone’s journey is a little different.
Growing up T1D 