A1C, New Dr., Some Changes

I was at McDonald's with Jada this afternoon when Jeff called me and said, "6.8". My first thought was- earthquake??? We have had some shaking going on here lately, but I would have noticed an earthquake of that magnitude!!! He repeated himself and said rather loudly--"Jada's A1C!" I almost dropped the phone! I wasn't expecting THAT! I was thinking it would be somewhere in the 7's. So- yes happy with the A1C- and Dr. W overall was very encouraging, but said that she would like to see her more in the 7-8 range because she is still so young and those low blood sugars can be so hard on a little body.

Speaking of Dr.'s- we obviously have a new one. We'll call her Dr. W. Being as we live in a "remote" area, there are no endocrinologists in Fairbanks and no pediatric endos in Alaska period. The closest endo is 6 hours away- which could be an option for us if we weren't happy with our options here. Dr. W is a pediatrician who has taken on Type 1 Diabetes as her "specialty" and she really impressed me on our first visit. She's very thorough- asked me lots of questions about our life, routine, eating habits, and very carefully looked through Jada's blood sugar logs. I was SO glad to see that she loves what she does and takes it very seriously. She was great with Jada, too. Jada is always shy in new situations and Dr. W took it very slowly with her.

We are making a couple of changes that I'm excited about! We are going to start doing her Lantus at night rather in the morning. One of my frustrations has been our middle of the night checks. If Jada isn't at last 200 at midnight- she'll wake up dangerously low. She may be 271 or 300 at midnight and still wake up only at 70. If she is under 200 at her midnight check, I give her a juice box, because it would be disastrous if I didn't. Her daytime numbers are overall very good, so Dr. W didn't want to change the dosage- just the time she takes her dose of Lantus and hopefully, it will help in the way that she is peaking and falling quickly. In order to do the transition, we'll have to do one day on NPH. I'm going to pick a day next week that we don't have a lot going on and do it then, because I am little nervous about it- just because it's "change"!
We are also going to start using the NovoPen Jr. for her Novolog. Dr. W gave us a NovoPen and I should be able to start using the pen after I pick up all of Jada's prescriptions in the next day or two. It's going to be so much easier to just "dial" the right dose and move on. Fewer syringes to deal with, too!

Last but not least--the pump!! I talked with Dr. W about it yesterday and she was in agreement that Jada would do great on a pump. She would like some time to get to know us and Jada before she'll go ahead and prescribe one- which is perfectly okay with me. She indicated her time line would be in 3-6 months. I guess it's time for me to start doing my research on pumps-- at last! :)

So- I'm feeling pretty good tonight. I LIKE knowing that my sleepless nights and frustrating days are paying off. I LIKE knowing that Jada is doing great and that even though those numbers tend to bounce around ALOT- that she is, over all, a healthy little girl. Most of all- I LIKE knowing that we haven't let diabetes control our life. My little girl is a testament to that!

In Wendy's words--- "TAKE THAT- DIABETES!!" (whack)"AND THAT!" (punch) "AND THAT!!!!" (karate chop)

Silly Paranoid Rant

So...lately I've been paranoid that Jada has celiac disease. I know it's quite common among Type 1's and maybe I just feel like I'm waiting for the hammer to fall somewhere else. She's never had a screening done and I really think we need to.
Now...I'm not seeing any signs--all of her BM's look "normal" (sorry if I gross anyone out), she doesn't get bad tummy aches but I think what got me to thinking was her rate of growth. And of course, I've compared her to Mary Beth, who is built different and has grown several inches in the past couple of months. Jada has been wearing the same size of clothes FOREVER (4T) and I have kept wondering when the heck she was going to get a growth spurt. About a month ago, I had her try on a pair of 5T jeans and they were way too long. Tonight, I had her try them on again and they fit- perfectly! Finally. I was so relieved.
So...I know this all sounds pathetic and obviously, I can't diagnose her by looking at her poop! I'm just amazed at how my mind can take something and just run with it! All this to say, she has an appointment (finally!) in 2 weeks with our new doctor and I'm going to ask them to do a screening-- just so I know for sure and I can either get it out of my mind or deal with it if I need to.
Okay. I feel much better.

Kind of.

End of Summer/Start of School Pics

Happy Birthday Eli! 9 years old!

David's first year of playing football! He's done AMAZING!

The summer of '09 will go down as one of the smokiest in the history of Fairbanks due to wildfires surrounding the town!

This is what it looks like when blogging friends meet for the first time! Welcome to Alaska Rocksee and Hubs!! SO happy you are here!

The Tanana Valley State Fair signals the end of summer for Fairbanksans and ALWAYS brings rain!

My boys are up there somewhere!

This is as exciting as it got for the girls! :)

First day of school for the boys!

And.....a week later, first day of school for Mary Beth!

We could hardly get her to say goodbye to us!

End of the first day....she had a blast!

Seasons, Numbers and Change

The lazy, crazy days of summer in the north are over and FALL! Yes- fall has already arrived. Our leaves are changing and our highs most days barely make it to the lower 60's. Lots of rain. And I'm loving it! Yes, summer is short here and our fall is way shorter than most, but after a summer of smoke and record heat, I'm happy about it.

Summer here is crazy- sunny, late nights and little sleep make for wacky blood sugars! I have dealt with what seems like a TON of late night low blood sugars.....like in the 40s and 50s and we are suddenly dealing again with a mid-morning spikes that are just way out of range. The late night lows I think are due to eating dinner too late, then is too high to have a snack before bed and then when I check her at midnight, she's too low. Her mid-morning spikes have occurred for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, she wakes up on the low side and starving, so we don't always wait 20 minutes before she eats. That will do it nearly every time. Or we've woken up late, breakfast late and then is spiking when it's time to eat lunch. This summer has been a huge reminder to me how important a schedule is in order to keep Jada's numbers in range.


Change has occurred in a big way for our family this year! We have mostly homeschooled our kids- with the boys doing both public and homeschool. The plan had been for David to go the our neighborhood elementary school, Eli to private school and I would homeschool Mary Beth.

The week before school started and I was beginning to work on Mary Beth's curriculum, I just had the biggest knot in my stomach. I just didn't feel right about it- which is strange to me. So, I began to pray about it and just was not feeling any peace about it. I think my long days of being home alone with the kids have finally caught up to me and I am desperately needing a break. There's a whole lot more to it than that, but that's all I'll say for now. :)

So....with the instability of Jeff's job, it was quickly decided that private school for Eli wouldn't be the wisest financial decision that we could make. All three of them are in our neighborhood school and so far, we very happy with our decision. I miss them SO much, but they are doing great!

That's the short of it. With our schedule getting back on track, hopefully more blogging will come along with that. Be on the look out for more pictures of our beautiful Alaska summer in the next few days!

Quiet....for a Few Minutes

The house is quiet for a little while. Jeff has taken the four kiddos to pick up the now repaired lawn mower and to take David to football practice. I thought I was going to lose my mind several times today as my children just have had a hard time getting along with each other and making messes that they don't want to clean up. Today is one of those days that I would just like to take off and not come back until I felt like it---which may not be until next week!

Part of the reason today has gone poorly is the lack of sleep that I had last night. With no shot at dinner time-BG 155- (after an extremely active day and eating approximately 30 grams of carbs for dinner plus a tootsie roll and half a tootsie pop) Jada went to bed at 10 pm with her BG at 189. No snack because I just wasn't sure which way she was going to go. At her midnight check she was 54!! How in the heck that happened I'll never know. It just seems if she is on the go, she burns up that blood sugar almost faster than insulin could! She was hard to wake up- scared me- and I finally managed to get her to wake up for some glucose tabs and then a glass of chocolate milk. Needless to say, I couldn't get to sleep. I finally just brought her into bed with me and just knowing that I could listen for her breathing and put my arm around her was enough for me to finally relax. She woke up at 101 (yay!) and has had great numbers all day.

We are in a bit of turmoil with Jeff's job. Seems like there is always some sort of drama in our life- which I am totally tired of ! :) He went to work for these people knowing that the restaurant was messed up and that the investment company really didn't have a good understanding of what it takes to run a good restaurant. As the summer has gone on, time has revealed just exactly what kind of people these folks are, which is less than desirable. I really can't go into details, but we are beginning to wonder if they are going to be able to keep the doors open. Jeff has more than done his part- the restuarant was losing thousands of dollars a month (like $80 grand) and Jeff has brought it to turning a profit in 3 months time- but they are STUPID when it comes to how they spend their money. He's been working approximately 70 hours a week and yet, the home office just can't get their stuff together. We would appreciate any prayers as we walk our way through this. We don't want to just up and quit- but don't know how much longer he can continue to work this kind of schedule. It's draining all of us!

Prayer Request Update

It's very late-way past bed time- but thought I would give an update on my previous requests for prayer.
Sienna- the MRI was inconclusive- the shadow they saw on the cat scan was possibly a pool of blood which could have come from hitting her head pretty hard. Right now, she's doing fine- no more seizures. She has a follow up MRI in a few weeks to see if it has dissolved.
Dellie- Her surgery was successful! They ended up operating on both of her eyes because the retina on her right eye was showing early signs of beginning to detach. A few weeks of lots of rest and the doc says she should be good to go. We're looking forward to helping out them in the next few weeks with meals, helping with the kids and whatever else needs done.

Prayer Requests

It's one of those nights....I'm super tired....but my brain is rattled. I have a couple of prayer requests.
One of Jeff's cousins has a sweet little girl around the same age as my boys. Her name is Sienna and her mama's name is Mary. Today, Sienna had a seizure and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. A cat scan revealed a "shadow" on her brain. There was an MRI done as well and the results will be read in the morning. Please pray for her mama, who has had a great deal of burdens to bear in her life and just when things seemed to be looking up for them, this happens. It's so hard to understand these kinds of things, especially when they are so little.
One of my dearest best friends is on her way to Anchorage tonight for emergency surgery. The retina in her left eye is detaching and if it comes completely detached, they most likely won't be able to save it and she will be blind in that eye. Over the weekend, she noticed some loss in her peripheral vision and called for an appointment yesterday. Her name is Dellie-- she is actually our pastor's wife and is an amazing woman. She has five children ranging in ages from 13 all the way down to 1. I'm feeling helpless, too, because of having company here this week and I'm so limited at this point in what I can do.
Thanks friends, for praying.