Butterfingers

My kids are all at the ages that they LOVE Halloween. I have to be honest, I'm not a huge fan. Okay, the theme of candy might be part of the reason, but I don't love dressing up, and I'm kinda a home-body, so going out and walking with the masses on a dark and cold night while trying to not loose one of my children isn't quite my idea of a good time. In fact, it's a little stressful.

But, I do love butterfingers (and Reese's chocolates) and the little packages make me feel like I'm not being too bad by eating a few. (I usually stop counting after three ;) And I want my kids to love the fun, especially while they are young and it is all so innocent. So this year I put on my happy face, along with a Snow White costume, and went along for the festivities.

This year my daughter almost broke my heart. After my kids went through all their candy, my 7 year old daughter came over to me and said, "Here Mommy, you can have my butterfingers, for when your blood sugar is low." Her willingness to share with me was sweet, but the fact that she knows what I need when my blood sugar is low blew me away. I know I've talked to her about diabetes and about low blood sugars, but I hadn't realized how much she's already processed and how much she truly understands this disease.

I wish my kids didn't have to worry about their mom. I wish my daughter could share as much candy with her mommy as she wanted and not have to think about blood sugar levels. I wish I didn't have to explain how to call 9-1-1 or why I can't share a juice box with my toddler. I wish I could keep this disease to myself and not worry about passing it on to my children in some form or another. But that's not the way family works, and it's not the way diabetes works. Like it or not, my kids, my husband, and all of my loved ones live with this disease too. They support me in so many ways, with their love, with their encouragement, and sometimes even with their butterfingers.

How do you measure a year?

It's world diabetes day and I've decided to try this whole blogging thing again... No promises but maybe once a week? Or every other week? Hopefully more than once a year.

Last year when I was testing my blood sugar one night before bed my husband asked me, "I wonder how many times you test your blood sugar in a year." Sooo, I decided to keep all of my test strips for one year, and well, you can see the results. I kept almost every test strip from November 1, 2010 until October 31, 2011. (I threw some away while on vacation and some of those suckers fell out of my little black meter bag, but for the most part I kept every one of my test strips.) Looking at all those little butterflies on all those little test strips, it hit me (again) how much living with diabetes affects us everyday. This is just one piece of the daily work it takes to manage this disease and gets me thinking... How many infusion sets for my pump, bottles of insulin, sensors do I go through in a year? How many times am I poked between blood sugar tests, inserting new infusions sights, sensors, and not to mention the blood draws for my A1C, cholesterol, etc...

I'm reminded of that song from the musical Rent "Seasons of Love"

In daylight, in sunsets, in midnights,
in cups of coffee, In inches, in miles
in laughter in strife,

In Five hundred twenty five thousand
six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in the life


Somehow we manage to do it, squeeze in this very demanding disease into the busiest of days. I've been humming the "Seasons of Love" song to my own lyrics lately... "In test strips, in sensors, in cups of coffee, in lullabies and laughter, in hopes for a cure. In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, How do you measure a year in the life?"