Diabetes Camp Video

We just got back from Diabetes Camp.

It was wonderful...my diabetes love tank is now full.

But for some reason I just can't capture the experience in words...

...so I made a video instead...because if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video set to music is worth...a billion...?

Bottom line: find a camp in your area and GO!

Let it Ride

It was a red Wednesday which means that Mimi was watching the girls while Domestic Divo and I were at work.

I fed the girls breakfast around 8am - whole wheat cinnamon toast & strawberries
(sprinkled with ground flax seed, of course!) - before heading out.

Around 10:30am, Ella checked her sugars and she was 170-something and not hungry for a snack.

  

"Let it Ride, Mimi, Let it Ride"

And so, even though it was more than 2 hours after her last dose and she was slightly of range, Ella made the decision to not give herself a correction, but to let it ride. And good thing, too, because at 12:30pm she was low...and happily downed a QuickStick.

 Lessons Learned:

1. I can trust Ella more than I think I can when it comes to her diabetic care

2. Let it Ride is a 1989 film starring Richard Dreyfuss and, from what I can tell, would make a great rental 

3. I either need to do some adjustments to her morning basal rate OR force her to eat a snack around 10am regardless of whether she's hungry or not!

  

Quick Sticks Video

We recently placed an order to receive a free sample of Quick Sticks and had an opportunity to test them out when Ella had a low of 41.

Not only do we like the product, but I'm a sucker for freebies, so we decided to make a video and send it in to Quick Sticks in order to claim our free carton.

For obvious reasons, I think my kids are cute. But holy quick sticks did I die laughing during the making of this video and I hope it makes you laugh, too.

Check us out on Quick Stick's Youtube Channel:

www.youtube.com/ItsQuickStickTime

No Spike Chocolate Chip Cookies

I completely forget the original recipe from which these were inspired. That being said, I believe recipe etiquette is if you change 3 ingredients, you can consider the recipe yours.

Ella's Favorite "No-Spike" Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 3 cups almond flour (72 CHO)
• 1/2c butter
• 1/4c organic coconut sugar or xyletol (35 CHO)*
• 1/2 tsp liquid stevia drops (clear or vanilla - whichever you prefer)*
• 2 eggs (2 CHO)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 80g mini chocolate chips (~50 CHO)

Preheat oven to 375. Cream butter & sugar. Mix in egg. Add flour, vanilla, salt & soda. Mix. Add chocolate chips. Bake 10 to 12 minutes.

I make mine using the small pampered chef scoop, so I get ~ 48 small cookies using this recipe. I usually bake some up now and freeze the dough (already scooped) for later use as they are best fresh & hot out of the oven.

I calculate ~ 160 CHO total so each cookie = 3.3 CHO. Round down to 3 since I don't take any CHO out for the fiber in the almond flour.

*If you're not a liquid stevia fan, increase the coconut sugar or xyletol to 1/2 cup and omit the liquid stevia. Total carb count is increased to 195 = 4 CHO per cookie

Try it and let me know what you think!

Pampered Pedis & Tingly Tongues

I'm not a big fan of California, but once in a while we get weather that justifies the inflated mortgage prices, high taxes and "first to worst" public schools. This weekend was one of those weekends.

Ella and I spent some Mom/daughter time getting manis/pedis. After having worn flip-flops for the past 2 weeks, my feet were an absolute disaster so I paid the extra $7.00 for callous removal. This is when they bust out the dremel tool, known for its ability to carve stone, rocks, glass, granite and...nasty feet... and when they're done, they proudly show you all of the skin they have removed.

Yes, thank you. I know I'm gross.

With our newly pampered tootsies, we decided to hit up 7-11 and try out their sugar-free slurpee.

Disclaimer: I'm going to completely ignore the need to defend why I choose to give my child the sugar-free sucralose version versus the full-sugar High Fructose Corn Syrup version. If you're of the opposite opinion, please don't judge me. Or go ahead and judge me, but do so within the silence of your head.

Here's the kicker: Ella has never, in her 7 years on this earth, had a 7-11 slurpee. I know. What kind of Mom am I?? So I suppose it was time.

 There are 2 sugar-free flavors: Mango and Strawberry Banana. Lucky for us, Strawberry Banana was the flavor of the day. Nutritional info says 8 CHO in an 8 oz serving..and 5 grams of fiber...really? Fiber in a slurpee? Ella was in range at around 130 pre-slurpee so I dosed her 8 CHO for a 9oz serving and let her have at it.

"Mmm....it's good. Tingly on my tongue."

 2 hours later she was sixty-something. Perhaps next time we'll try out the 12oz cup. I suppose we'll just have to keep going to 7-11 on a daily basis until we figure out the perfect insulin-to-slurpee ratio. Oh, the sacrifices we make in the name of science.  

3 Wishes

As I was putting the girls to bed tonight, we were chatting about one of of the live shows we saw on the Disney Cruise ship called

BELIEVE

where the Genie from Aladdin grants some adult who's forgotten how to believe in magic

3 WISHES.

Ella was talking about what her 3 wishes would be and here they are 

(in her own words):

1. That I wouldn't have diabetes anymore

2. That you [meaning me] wouldn't be allergic to cats

3. That Livie would stay cute

Oh, Genie - where are you?



Peanut Butter Balliscious

We got the new Dishing It Up Disney Style Cookbook at the FFL Conference. My kids immediately flipped to the "snacks and desserts" section and chose Pocahontas's Peanut Butter Trail Mix Balls.

I just happened to have everything we needed to make the recipe so we whipped up a batch (making slight alterations) and let me tell you they are

Peanut Butter Balliscious

I'm pretty sure Domestic Divo ate at least half of them...

So, without further ado, here's the recipe.
I'm also including the alterations we made and carb count, too (what a gal!):

• 1 cup peanut butter (50 CHO)
• 1 cup honey. I used 3/4 cup and they were PLENTY sweet. (~200 CHO)
• 3 cups old fashioned oats (162 CHO)
• 1/2 cup ground flaxseed (20 CHO)
• 1 cup chocolate chips - I used mini chocolate chips. I just think mini is mo' fun. (~100 CHO)
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts of your choice. We used peanuts (22 CHO)
• 1/2 cup dried fruit of your choice. I omitted this.

Grab a big bowl and a sturdy spoon. Had I known how thick these bad boys were, I would have busted out my KitchenAid Mixer. Mix peanut butter and honey until smooth. Add in oats and flaxseed. Add in chocolate chips and nuts and dried fruit if that's your thing.

Roll into ping-pong size balls. Because I am anal detail-oriented, I like everything to be the same size (and therefore the exact same carb count) so I used my Pampered Chef Small Scoop. If you do not own these scoops in every size, find your local Pampered Chef Peddler and BUY THEM.

The recipe made 60 total so each PB ball was 9 carbs. Pop them in the fridge for safe keeping (makes them less sticky, too) or you can freeze them.

Go Peanut Butter Ball-istic and Enjoy!

Give Insulin a Chance

My husband, Clayton, is a firefighter so he works at the station for 24 hours. His schedule goes like this: on a day, off a day, on a day, off a day, on a day, off for 4 days...repeat...

Don't worry - I have a color-coded calendar to help me keep track of this. He works on red days.

I also work. I work in the office Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and from home, half-days, on Monday and Friday.

So if it's a blue or green Thursday, my husband becomes *Domestic Divo* and takes care of the kids and house stuff while I'm at work.

But...let's say it's a red Wednesday...who watches the girls?

Mimi !!! (aka my Mom)

Mimi with Ella

Mimi's gotten pretty good with all of this diabetes stuff, but it's pretty complex and unless you live with it 24/7, the small idiosyncrasies can be confusing.

Ella's insulin duration is set at 2 hours which means it takes about 20 minutes for it to start working, it peaks at about 1 hour and then after 2 hours it's pretty much out of her system. 2 hours is pretty aggressive...a lot of people set it at 3 or even 4 hours...but 2 hours works for us.

So let's say she eats breakfast at 8:00am. I really can't tell what her her true blood sugar is until the insulin has completed its job 2 hours later at 10:00am.

OK...onto the good stuff...So today Mimi was watching the girls and I suppose for fun (woohoo!) they checked her blood sugar 1 hour after eating and it came back at 196. In miracle diabetes world, Ella's supposed to be around 180 1 hour after eating. In real diabetes world, we're usually in the mid 200's 1 hour after eating, so 196 is about as close to a modern day miracle as it gets! However, 196 would be considered high if it was 2 hours after eating because there would be no more insulin working in her system to bring it down.

Still with me?

So Mimi sees the 196 flash before her eyes and says to Ella,

 "Let's go outisde and run around and play to get that blood sugar down"

and Ella says,

 "Oh, Mimi...it's only been an hour since my last dose. It takes insulin 2 hours to do its job. You've gotta give it a chance."

And an hour later, she was 117.

Two, one two three four
Everybody's talking about
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m.

All we are saying is give insulin a chance
All we are saying is give insulin a chance

Good job T1 Diabetic Diva, good job.

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

About a week after being diagnosed, it was time for Ella to go back to school. On the way there, I was explaining to her the new routine: blood sugar checks and insulin injections by the school nurse in the office and blood sugar checks pre and post-PE. I asked Ella what she thought about the new routine and she said, with a hint of excitement, "Well, I guess today is the first day of my new life."

I was still an absolute emotional wreck (I'm pretty sure I hadn't showered, eaten or slept since the day of diagnosis), so I was wearing these huge 1980's sunglasses that covered up the majority of my face which were able to strategically hide the tears that immediately sprang to my eyes as I thought, "Yeah, a real sh*tty one."

Growing up there was this plaque that hung on the wall of my childhood home:

Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life

  

As a kid, it never made much sense to me. I mean, wasn't my birthday the first day of the rest of my life? Yet here was my 6 year old daughter who had just been diagnosed with a disease that changes every single aspect of her day-to-day life not only grasping this concept but embracing it. And me, a grown adult at 34 years old, so overcome with grief and a bad case of the "why me"s still unable to do so.

You have to understand that at the time, I was unable to see the "life" in "today".  I was mourning some type of loss that I couldn't even put into words...still can't. Yes, my daughter was alive and yes, there's a treatment for it, but this wasn't the life I envisioned for myself or for her. It was almost as if I was mourning the loss of my "pre-diabetes" daughter. I couldn't look at pictures on the wall because every one I saw I would think, "Oh, that was Ella before she had diabetes."

 I remember asking a group of T1D Moms,

"...will I ever laugh again? Will I ever feel joy again?"

The reply I remember the most was:

YES!! Life WITH diabetes is not life IS diabetes

I didn't know how this could be true.

We're a few days away from being 6 months into this whole diabetes thing.  I'm happy to say  (and to re-assure those of you who are perhaps going through the initial grief and shock of diagnosis) that life WITH diabetes is not life IS diabetes! I laugh! I feel joy! And Ella is no longer pre/post diabetes Ella...she's just Ella!

 I'd be lying if I told you it was all rainbows and unicorns. I still have moments that hit me out of the blue...like when I started blubbering like a crazy person during Spin Class to Kelly Clarkson's "What Doesn't Kill You" single.  

But I know that my daughter's life is and will be anything but a sh*tty one. I know this because I won't let it be... and she won't let it be. Because diabetes will be the big fat loser in our household. Yes, we will have our bad days. Yes I will still have my pity-parties and yes, I will still from time-to-time think, "Why me? Why us? Why Ella?" But...

Today is the First Day of the Rest of Our Diabetic Life

So I'm going to do my best to get out there and laugh a lot, love a lot and to make the most of this amazing & crazy adventure we call life...come what may.