Here we are again...

I thought we had passed a turning point today - R's blood levels have been really high for most of the day - way up in the 20s. Normal blood glucose levels are between 4-6mmols, so a reading above 10 isn't good and over 20 often makes people feel very ill. R felt fine all day. As soon as the sun went down so did his blood. So, here we are again feeding lows with small cans of full sugar coke, dextrose tablets, glucotabs or lucozade. The upturn will come between 3.00am and 4.00am and then he'll continue to rise again until it gets dark tomorrow.

All of this without any insulin being injected. Clearly his pancreas is doing something odd because it's not working in the same way that non-diabetic's would.

You know the worst thing about this chronic condition?
How it fills up our lives so we don't talk or think about anything else.
How every time someone asks about how R is I turn into the biggest bore in the world with details about the differences between Type 1 and Type 2, the importance of regular blood tests, the need for an insulin pump, the fears every parent has about overnight hypos, the dangers of extended high blood levels and on and on and on.
It's like when you become a new parent - all you want to talk about is your beautiful baby and unfortunately some parents become baby bores. Let's face it, most babies look like Winston Churchill and while they're cute, they're not the best conversationalists. As they get older most parents remember other things in life but some continue to live through their children. Diabetes turns us parents into diabetes bores because it consumes our whole lives.
I really don't want to talk about this horrible condition all the time. I don't want to write about it either. I'm tired of living with it and I'm not the one who has it.

My apologies to those of you who have read this - if you're a fellow D parent you'll know only too well how consuming it is and if you're an interested 'civilian' I'm sorry I've bored you.

Now it's time to do another blood test and hope he's risen above 5.0mmols. Why? Because his pancreas doesn't know to stop pumping out its own insulin right now so he needs to have a high blood glucose level to go to sleep on - that way he won't drop so low during what's left of the night and he'll wake up in the morning. Did I not mention that? Too much insulin kills.