I wonder if that gets more stable as they get older? I really don’t think I had that level of day to day variability on MDI as a pre-teen/teen, but I didn’t get diabetes until age 10. But also hopefully by the time he’s doing it on his own, the tech will be that much better for helping with basal adjustments. Also, it may be that when he’s playing a more active role in it all, his control improves because of that—he may be able to pick up on aspects of it and patterns that are harder to figure from the outside. I think part of why I took over control fairly early on is that I just got better at it than my parents were, despite the fact that they are both intelligent and involved parents. Granted, you all on here are so involved and self-educated that may well not be the case, but I don’t know. Presumably at some point, he will have the knowledge you do AND have the advantage of his perspective. Maybe it will help.
If my son is an indication, you won’t have stability until you stop growing. One place the girls win, because they typically stop growing earlier. My son’s are late bloomers and expect to grow into their 20’s. The growth hormone highs are unpredictable and vicious. Often taking 20-30 units to bring down. We regularly wake up at 1 and 3 to try to slay these.
My son’s uncle grew 6 inches in college. We aren’t done anytime soon.
Yes, my goal is that he gets MUCH smarter than me about Diabetes since this is his disease and no one is going to have ownership of it more than him. It makes perfect sense about him picking up on things that we can only speculate about (how he feels inside especially)…and our goal will be to try to get him to understand these “feelings” and associate them to specific events (lows or highs) so that he can be the expert.
We are able to keep him sleeping when he is mostly high: pump injections, and pen injections if a bad spike, don’t really wake him up. It’s the sustained lows that get him up: getting him to sip milk once is fine, but when you bring him milk every half hour for 2 hours he does wake up and is really tired the next day.
That is what I am worried about for college (beyond, of course, terrible night lows induced by drinking etc.) 
7 posts were split to a new topic: Teens, college, drinking and diabetes
IMO, to NOT do this type of controlled testing is setting your child up for failure…D-child or not.
Except then we have to deal with monthly hormonal chaos for most of our lives, and menopause after that… I’d take a slightly long growing period. 
I haven’t read this whole thread. I was diagnosed at age 9, but for me I feel like everything was delayed a bit because of my visual impairment. I couldn’t see to get a “hanging drop” of blood onto the “target area” of the old test strips, so it took a few months to figure out how to do that independently. I don’t remember my parents ever waking up to test me overnight, I just don’t think it was a thing most parents did in the ‘90s; if I woke up low, I’d go and treat it myself. I couldn’t see to measure insulin into syringes (pens were not common back then), so I didn’t do my first shot until I was 12 or so. I wanted to go to a summer camp when I was 16, and the caveat my parents made was that I had to be able to do shots independently. By that point I was making insulin dosing decisions, but still couldn’t measure insulin into a syringe. So we got some insulin pens and I could measure independently, but had to do some troubleshooting before I could reliably inject myself non-visually without missing. By the time all that was sorted out, at age 16-17, I was doing everything on my own but still with support if I wanted it. My control of course worsened at that point and stayed “bad” (A1c of 8%-9%…not really bad compared to other teenagers!) for about eight years until I decided I wanted to get tighter control and had access to MDI and the pump (up to that point I’d been using NPH).
I would introduce things as he shows interest or as the need for independence arises. I like @Eric’s idea about verbailizing thoughts aloud. One thing I feel growing up with diabetes is that I had to re-learn everything as an adult. As a kid, I wasn’t really ever provided with diabetes education and was just supposed to absorb everything via osmosis. So, although I knew to check for ketones when I was sick, it wasn’t until I researched diabetes on my own in my 20s that I realized what DKA was and why checking for and managing ketones was important. Maybe diabetes education has improved these days and they teach these things to young kids directly, but if not, it’s good to explain the reasoning behind all this stuff.
I wonder if this actually has to do with union regulations, or contract negotiations, and things that are “mechanical”. At least in the university system, if someone who is not a union painter picks up a paintbrush, the world comes unglued.
I’ll find out in March for sure and report back on it.
I have great respect for what the unions accomplished in the early 1900s. But my personal contact with them has not been so good. When I was a young engineer, I spent several years working on factory automation systems. I would come and test new installations in car factories with the Big Threes of the time (we are talking ealry 1990s). GM was particularly bad. I would install a new controller, drill a few holes, then I could not clean up the flakes (dangerous since somewhat flammable) until a union cleaner would come and clean it for me. The cleaner would go anywhere but by my work station, and I would often have to wait a hour or two. The guys would pass me by (I had to wear a white shirt) and spit on the floor in my back… I hated working on these factory floors 
It’s really bizarre what union means these days. As a college instructor, I am part of the union, and there are things about that which I really appreciate. But I am generally of the belief that we should be rewarded for what we are good at, what we work hard at, and so on. Your story is fascinating! So bizarre and probably spot on still.
I feel like Samson is more like 75% or 80% on feeling the low. But he’s 25% on caring that he feels low, if that makes sense. I can see his face and I’ll ask him if he feels low and he’s like “yeah mom, I do.” And then I’m like “so how come you didn’t tell me.” and He’s like “I’m playing with my LEGOs” or whatever…haha
There are great unions out there. For instance, in Minnesota there are a number of the trades are run through unions, but all the unions do is ensure a minimum wage is paid, collect some of the money and take care of the health insurance and retirement accounts for the union members. Within that structure each union member is still able to bid competitively on jobs and the union doesn’t dictate terms to large companies. This is a nice way to ensure a minimum standard, allow for competition and take care of the workers.
Having lived on the East coast for a number of years, I realize the most unions aren’t like that. But there is some hope around unions.