To make a long story short, I’ve been overwhelmed with: trying to keep my house after estranged husband left me with high five-figure IRS debt, increasing work hours frequently up to 15 per day to pay said debt, #Resistence work (marches, demonstrations, Twitter, calls to Congress), struggling with almost-15-year-old Type 1 daughter who has essentially shut me out of her D-care. This has resulted in plummeting A1c’s. I am not exaggerating:
3rd most recent endo appointment: A1c = 6.5.
2nd most recent endo appointment: A1c = 7.0
Most recent endo appointment: A1c = 7.5
I don’t feel hopeless, but I’m overwhelmed and exhausted.
Thank you for listening and I hope everyone is doing as well as possible during this difficult time in our history when our Constitution is being upon by our illegitimate president and GOP-majority Congress.
I think the forum actually has more parents than T1’s. They can tell you more about the parenting stuff.
I know that I always tried my best to have good control when I was younger, simply because it felt better. Nobody wants to feel crappy. Having good BG always felt better, so I did it for that reason.
Taking care of D is not fun. There is no motivation in it by itself. But feeling good is always a motivation.
There are possibly some easier ways to deal with it. Counting carbs for everything you eat and trying to calculate the correct dose is not really easy. It’s simpler to look at what you ate and realize that if you went high after the meal, you either didn’t take enough or didn’t take it soon enough. And just make an adjustment the next time. I don’t think every meal needs to be spent looking at a bunch of numbers.
Also, higher basal and just grazing throughout the day when low is possibly easier for a teenager. As long as there is some discipline to not eat the whole bag of cookies.
And then there is always the thing of - Car? Driver’s license? You want to get your learner’s permit? Get your A1C below 7.0…
And finally:
Give this up for a bit. @Sam and @docslotnick can take over for you, while you focus on helping your daughter get squared away.
Hey! I remember being a 15 girl with diabetes. I know part of why my control got worse around then was all the emotional and social turmoil in my life, only a fraction of which my parents were aware of. My suggestion would be to avoid something that could feel punitive like the drivers permit approach (would have just made me angry and deepened the divide, probably without solving whatever the issues were), and ask her what she thinks could be helpful in at least keeping things from getting more out of control (staying at 7.5 for now is better than going higher after all). Also, does she have a therapist? If not, any chance she could see one familiar with diabetes? And/or have more appointments with a teen-knowledgable NP who could meet with her more regularly to strategize? Sometimes taking parents out of the picture makes teens more willing to open up about what’s going on and to problem-solve, just because that’s the nature of teens. Good luck!
Glad you are back Rose, in whatever capacity you can manage. Can’t help on many of the fronts you are dealing with, but can absolutely commiserate on the D-care front. My 14.5 year old son, has taken over complete control of his D management. He is doing a good job right now, but we are always on the lookout for the cliff. He will ask to confirm once in a while, but often it seems like it is too much to even tell us that he treated a low. He is like “you can see the dexcom data, so you shouldn’t worry.” Like the Dex tells us if he treated…
Glad to see you back, Rose! I hope you realize that although there’s a lot of stress in your life, some of it can wait… I’ve had to come to the same realization myself…
It’s kinda like that when I ask my 15 year old about homework.
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
original source unknown, often attributed to Mark Twain
Hey, look who’s here! Nice to see you, Rose. Sorry to hear about your troubles, nothing spells F-U-N like a T1 hitting adolescence. But you’re back among your peeps–hope you can stick around!
upon by our illegitimate president and GOP-majority Congress.
