3 month Endo appt...

Well the time has come for yet another check up for Alivia with the Pediatric Endo. Leading up to the appt I was looking through her log book and although most of her numbers were in range  they were pretty much on the higher end, it wasn't until a few weeks before the appt that her numbers were coming down into the range I preferred. Current 14 day average on the meter...139, 90 day average...214! I figured were were looking at an A1c of 8.1 and was really surprised when it came back at 7.5! I thought for sure all the time it took us to get adjusted to the pump and getting the basals set would of done a number on her A1c but I guess when you check and correct every 2 hours around the clock it doesn't do much damage.

The Dr. looked over her numbers and decided not to change much except the target range and to up her basal just a tad. He said we have great control but if we wanted to could even get it a little better. I'm all up for better!

We changed her target from 150 to 130 during the day and from 150-200 to 130-150 during the night. Already her numbers have been great! We chatted a little bit about her weight again, she's now up to 50 pounds and is following the growth curve but just above it. He's not too concerned about it yet. After our appt we took the advanced pumpers class and learned about cool features of the pump like combo bolus!!! We tried it out on our Saturday morning Starbucks hot chocolate and it worked great! Such a cool feature!

-Enjoying a S'more with no high blood sugar spike!-

On our appt/class days Tony takes the day off and we try to make the day special for Alivia, all our attention is on her and we let her pick where we have lunch, This time she picked the hospital cafeteria of all places! Silly kid!

After lunch we met up with a fellow D-mom Amy and her kids at Cafe Sip-n-Play (best invention ever!). We got to sit and chat while the kiddos played, it was so amazing to talk with another D-mom face to face. I long for the day when I can chat with all you guys face to face too!!!

-Holding baby Addison-

-Giving baby sister a bottle-

3 month Endo appt and PUMP CLASS!!!

Endo Appt... I guess I'll start with the Endo appt because it just happened to be first up today...

This was only our 3rd appt and it was the first one that I didn't worry myself sick over the A1c. I knew the last A1c of 6.8 would be history and I was truly ok with that. August- October was so easy...too easy! November-January have been much much harder, I knew I tried my best but the D Monster put up a darn good fight, no matter how much I adjusted she had random highs everyday and random lows once or twice a week, there was never a pattern! I was actually a bit surprised that it was 7.5 (her current 30day average on the meter was 219...yikes!). Her Dr was pretty happy with that, he agrees that she's definitely coming out of her honeymoon period and expected the rise in her A1c because of that. He looked over our log book and couldn't find a pattern for her crazy highs either and didn't want to make any changes. He did offer up a few suggestions for us to try out on our little guinea pig to see if we could fix the problem. Well give them a try, hopefully it won't lead to lows!

If you've been reading my blog for awhile you'd know that we were all getting pretty concerned about her weight, at dx in May she was 27 pounds just 4 months later in September she was 40 pounds and only a month later at our last appt she was up to 45 pounds!!! I was so excited today when he told us she was 46 pounds, she's still off the chart for weigh but at least the gaining is slowing down!

And best of all he went ahead and gave us the green light for the PUMP!!!

PUMP CLASS!!!!!...
Can you tell I'm excited about this part????
As much as I liked meeting the reps during the in home hands on demos, I really felt like they were just trying to sell their product, mostly because they were!!!

It was SO nice to have an impartial person going over each and every pro and con for each of the pumps. In the end we just had to pick, there wasn't "the perfect" pump (someone needs to make it!!!!).

I wanted the good remote,
I wanted the linked CGM,
I wanted the tubeless feature...but which one did I want more???
I wanted the Ping, yes it has tubing, no I can't have a linked CGM, yes it will take a few more steps to deliver insulin, but it is waterproof, it can deliver the smallest amount of insulin which Alivia will need, it has the good remote, I can give insulin directly from the pump if needed, it keeps track of IOB and most importantly it comes in pink! We meet with the rep tomorrow to start the paperwork!!!
Honestly though if Medtronic had the good remote (they currently only have a tiny one with 3 buttons, no screen) I would of gone with them. With an active 3 year old I felt like we needed the remote, at least until she does it on her own.

If everything goes well with the insurance we should be pumping in a month!!!

Dreams do come true!

A while back I posted about my meltdown when I finally realized my "dream" of finding a perfect insulin to carb ratio for Alivia and getting on with our life wasn't ever going to happen. She'll grow, get sick, stressed, exercise and so on.

Well... dreams do come true! They don't last forever but I'll take what I can get! About 9 weeks ago Alivia had been running high at EVERY blood sugar check, so being that I just took the "insulin adjustment" class I played around with her ratio all on my own and after many tries figured that instead of the 1:30 ratio she was on it needed to be 1:20. We put that into effect and had 8 weeks of PERFECT numbers! Not just 70-200 but 70-150!!! For the first time since being dx I didn't cringe while I waited for the meter to count down I knew it would be perfect. I can't tell you how much of a blessing it was! Alivia was doing great those 8 weeks but I was horrible, my morning sickness was so bad, I ended up losing 15 pounds from throwing up no matter what I ate. I really don't think I could of handled being that sick and fighting with the diabetes monster at the same time. Someone was definitely helping us out!

At the end of our wonderful 8 weeks we had our 3 month endo appt on 10/30 and her A1c was 6.8%! I at first thought we'd be in trouble because it was low but the Dr looked though her log book and only found 1 low (45) so he was really happy with it and so were we! We talked about the pump and he said based on her A1c she didn't need it right now but if I wanted it I could sign up for the classes and get started right away. I compromised and scheduled my classes for 3 months out. I would really like to have the pump established before the new baby comes that way hopefully some of my family members will feel comfortable enough to watch her while I'm in the hospital.

Well at some point you have to wake up from your dream, and that we did when Alivia woke up at 250 last week and spent 3 days in the 300-550 range even after countless corrections. She never had any ketones, fevers or acted sick so she just must be growing or the end of our honeymoon. Either way back to the drawing board for me not only for the insulin to carb ratio but also for the corrections I guess... oh the joy! The good thing is that I'm finally starting to feel better, although I'd take a few more weeks of being sick if that meant I didn't have to fight the diabetes monster! But like I said I'll take what I can get!

Here is my cute little Kitty on Halloween!

Alivia's 3rd Birthday!

Oh my gosh...I can not believe my baby is 3!!!

Seriously though this year has gone by SO fast!

I swear the older I get the faster my kids grow up!

Well this year Alivia chose a "Princess Party", it was mostly family but she had a few friends there. We had all "free" foods to eat and cake of course! I timed it so we would eat the cake at her afternoon snack time so that she'd actually be able to have some, and that she did! She was actually low when we checked her before the cake so we even let her have a little of the frosting.

(Daddy helping Aunt Christy check her blood sugar)

Alivia opening her presents...

And of course every birthday brings the well child visit. It was actually the 1st time seeing her pediatrician since before being dx. She apologized for the advice nurse not putting together all the symptoms I had mentioned during my many many calls to the clinic in the days leading up to the dx and explained to me how really rare it is to see diabetes in a 2 year old, Alivia was the youngest both the pediatrician and the on-call Dr we saw that day had seen with it.

Alivia was right on target for all her developmental goals, except for staying dry through the night. Alivia has been potty trained both day and night since 15 months old, we had to put her in pull-ups at night a few months before being dx and we haven't been able to get her to stay dry at night since! Is this a normal diabetes thing or just a stubborn child?

Well the bid shocker of the day was that she was 40 pounds!!! She was 27 pounds only 4 months ago! She also grew 2 inches since then. This put her in the 50% for height and over the 95% for weight! The Dr was a tiny bit concerned and wants me to talk with her endo about meeting with the nutritionist again.

The Dr was really impressed with how quickly Alivia has adjusted to the whole thing! And how well she just does what needs to be done without any kind of reward other than a verbal praise. She picks what finger she wants poked, actually pushes the button on the lancet to poke herself and picks where she wants her shot (usually one of her arms unless I tell her is the Lantus then it goes in her tummy). She was also amazed that her A1c went down from 14.1% to 7.7% in just 2 months!

It was only a dream...

After sitting and crying while reading everyones blogs this week about scary lows and crazy highs I completely lost it...I must of been in some sort of dream world...I really had it in my mind that if I could just hang in there and get past this crazy honeymoon period things would actually get better, we'd find her perfect insulin to carb ratio and we'd be on our way never looking back to all this craziness! Well the dream is now gone and I'm crushed! ********************************************* In other news I forgot to post that Alivia's celiac disease test came back negative! YAY!!! Her 1st A1c...14.1 ummm...not so good