Author: westofpecos

Honeymoon Luckily, after diagnosis we have a period called honeymoon, where, once we are on insulin, our remaining beta cells work well enough that they are able to do the correction work (with “endogenous” insulin, i.e. our own, generated inside our body)  while we do the basal work and the meals (with “exogenous” insulin, i.e.… Continue reading Hospital times: honeymoon

Supplies: a quick overview We’ll talk in detail about necessary supplies soon. But, as a first cut, when I went home, this is what I took home with me:

Days after we got home, life didn’t turn back to normal. My first day back at school, I felt shy arriving at the curb. I was late; I slept in today, so thankfully no one would see me outside. I hadn’t been in class for over a week, from staying home sick to going to… Continue reading Back to school

When we were released, we headed home with our heads full of new concepts. We were put on a sort of diabetes 101 regimen. Every meal was supposed to be roughly the same number of carbs so that dosing would be easy, and every low would be treated in the same way – with 15g … Continue reading Back to school: my mom

Friday Kaelan came back from the hospital. He spent a three-day week-end at home, then, on Tuesday morning, went back to school. The weekend was extraordinarily busy. There were many choices to be made, about the gear he needed to bring to school, but also about how he would live the school experience. We had… Continue reading Back to school: my dad

My T1D life is full of small details: as a T1D I have to do consciously everything that my pancreas does without asking any help from my brain. The pancreas of a glucose-normal is seriously good at this! But we aren’t. There are tons of details to deal with, so we live a life of… Continue reading Back to school: injections every day

My daily life with insulin When I went home after the hospital, I was a very naive T1D. My endocrinologist gave me a very simple set of rules to use–that was really great because it was already more than I could tackle to start with. I was an MDI user, using both basal insulin and… Continue reading Back to school: my daily life with insulin

Glucose meter Electronic glucose meters will be your best friend when you get diagnosed. Before you make any correction, either with carbs, or with insulin, you need to test. That’s not only going to tell you if something is really wrong, but also how much you need to correct. But, before we get into analyzing… Continue reading Back to school: testing testing testing!

What I feel when I have a low BG What other people see when I have a low BG (written by my parents)