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)