I’ve heard two so far that just tear me up inside…
“You gonna bolus me, papa?”
“You dropped the PDM, papa.”
For any 3 year old to know these terms/phrases is just…depressing, and sad, and tears me up inside.
What has your child said that’s garnered some emotional response from you (the caregiver)?
“I hate diabetes.”
I don’t hear it often. But it’s a hard one to hear for me.
“I feel low” is the worst for me, because he obviously feels crummy in that moment.
Also early on Samson would do a lot of play-acting with finger sticks and shots. The way he manhandled his stuffies and viciously “checked their blood sugar” definitely put a lump in my throat.
It breaks my heart every time I hear of the tribulations your children have to face on a daily basis. I can’t even imagine…
Funny how we all are:-) When I joined a diabetes forum, I met all these great people with diabetes that had dealt with it for many years, such as you, Doc, and I started thinking: “what the heck am I doing, wallowing in self-pity, when all these people have had it much harder and for much longer?”
I don’t know how you all managed so well for so many years before any of our fancy technology came along!
@Michel @ClaudnDaye Honestly, having been diagnosed later than childhood has only affected me in one way-- I’m probably healthier now than I would have been had I not had diabetes. I did not make any compromises in career choice, or in having a family of my own.
It was never more than a minor inconvenience to me, not a total life shaking experience. You parents of young T1’s, and your children are the ones who deserve sympathy and kudos for the burden you bear. What you deserve most is a cure.
It’s what we all deserve! I would love for these forums to be shut down one day due to no longer being needed. What a reward that would be…
If it is any consolation, I think it was easier for me to be diagnosed at an early age. I didn’t have to re-learn habits. It was just always a part of life and seemed natural. I think it would’ve been harder if I got it later.
I know it’s super tough now for the little ones, and tough on the parents. But it will become instinctive.
We aren’t super restrictive parents though (low carb etc)… So I’m not sure how that will correlate for him later.
Low carb is not a necessity. You can do quite well eating whatever you want, once you get the timing and amounts figured out, and when he is not growing so quickly!
The important thing is to develop awareness for BG ups and downs and how different foods work and insulin timing and those sorts of things. And being active will be super helpful for him too.
Me: "It’s time to change your sticker."
Luke: "Is it the easy one, or the hard one?"
Me: “The hard one.”
When Luke was 2, he was toddling around when I noticed him approaching my wife and I. There was something in his hand. Upon closer inspection we saw bloodied fingers clutching a lancet. “Look mama, I did it!”, he said. I was both proud and sad at the same time.
this!
They make “Dummy” Pods, that you can wear. I wore a Dummy pod around for weeks after Liam started wearing the Pods just so that I could say “Look, papa is wearing one too!”. I only wore it a few weeks though after he became more accustomed to having the Pod on.
As far as site rotation goes, here’s a chart I created when we first started using the POD for Liam.
Since this chart, we’ve removed spots “3 and 4” because his abdomen wasn’t working for us. But we added 2 more spots to his thighs. Our son has chubby thighs so we use both his “side” thigh as well as his “upper” thigh in placement.
We also rotate the canula direction each change out time (i.e., if the POD is placed on his right side thigh and the cannula was facing “up” toward his head last change out, then the next time the POD goes on his right side thigh, we put the cannula in the “down” position…facing toward his feet.) We do this because providing lots of locations for the pump and moving the pump around frequently helps prevent skin absorption issues, scar tissue, occlusion issues, etc., The most “spots” you can find, the longer the skin will remain healthy and be capable of proper insulin absorption. If you “over use” a single spot or two, they may not be available for your daughter when she gets older due to one of the aformentioned issues.
The only issues we have as far as a device being “slept on” is the occasional lapse in CGM data due to Liam laying on the transmitter while he sleeps. It’s a minor issue, though…when we see this, we just reposition him. It is very infrequent that this happens.
We don’t use diluted insulin although the recommendation has been made. The Omnipod allows .05 doses and we’ve found that we’re able to be effective most of the time with this dosage amount.
We’re here if you need us!
My son prefers thumb, but we NEVER do the pad…we always do the side of whatever finger we’re sticking as we’ve read it’s a lot less sensitive, and after having tested myself multiple times I tend to agree…the pads (flat surface) of each finger is much more sensitive then the sides of each finger.
Yesterday we were trying to get a family “birthday photo” and I tried to pick up Samson and put him on my lap and accidentally ripped his site out. He was crying so hard and saying “mommy you hurt me!” Times like that are the worst. 
Splitting this thread to Different BG in different Fingers. You will finds your posts on BG testing there!
