Diabetes Christmas Conundrums

How is it that I can measure, weigh and cook a meal from scratch and calculate with Pythagorean  precision the carbs in Jenna’s portion and still have her blood sugar go rogue;  yet we can go out to a fine dining establishment, eat a fancy meal, totally guess at carb counts, administer multiple boluses for food eaten in increments, and somehow have pristine, single digit blood sugar readings all night long thereafter?  I’m talking, unbelievable numbers.  Devine intervention numbers!  Holy crap she’s cured numbers!

We went out for Christmas dinner for the first time ever.  It was magical to tour the Butchart Gardens before hand then eat a four course Christmas feast with all the trimmings.  I don’t know how I can explain the spot on blood sugars Jenna had afterward.  Perhaps it was a perfect combination of activity - walking (running) through the gardens - along with fantastic carb counting guess work.  Whatever it was, it worked.  Somehow it just  worked.

And while we are on the topic of diabetes conundrums, here’s another puzzler:  Why does Jenna’s pump battery decide to end its three month long shift in the wee hours on a Christmas morn, after a rare night of excellent blood sugars led me to the false assumption that my midnight check would be the last time I would have to get up until morning?  I was hoping for a 7am wake up time, but the diabetes gods had other plans and were conspiring against me and my constant quest for more sleep.

Butchart Gardens at Christmas time is pure magic.

The girls were nestled all snug in their beds by 8pm, Christmas Eve.  They had no trouble falling asleep after stories were read to them.  Last year, Jazmine was up sometime between 1 and 2am, jacked up on Christmas hype.  I had to talk her down and settle her back to bed explaining that it was still time for sleeping. This year was no different, except for the time.  She was kind enough to wait until 3:30am before she entered our room excitedly announcing that Santa had visited.  For the second year in a row,  I got up to settle her back to bed then crawled back into my own still warm covers.

About 20 minutes later, I heard Jenna’s bedroom door slowly crrreeeaaak open.  Now she was awake and curious to see if Santa had visited as well.

“Go back to bed.  It’s too early,” I stated firmly from my warm cocoon.  The sound of little feet retreating back to bed followed by silence prompted me to breath a sigh of relief.

A while later, perhaps a half hour or more, I had just drifted blissfully into that surreal state of semi-lucid limbo, the one where you still have auditory awareness but your subconscious is spinning its strange little yarn of weirdness...

...BEEP...BEEP.

In an instant I was yanked back into full consciousness.

“What was that?”

“Mmmfph---wzz wut?” groaned a groggy J who, having just been awakened from his long winter’s nap,  hadn’t yet managed to regain full control over his verbal abilities.

“I heard a beeping sound,” I replied as I glanced at my phone’s clock, making note of the time.  It was 4:30am.

J mumbled something about not hearing a thing as I whipped back the covers - again - to investigate.  Of course, my first stop was Jenna’s room, since the sound I heard eerily resembled the sound her pump makes after a bolus of insulin is administered.

As I entered her room, she raised her head off her pillow to look at me and I wondered if she was still awake from when she had gotten up not long before.

“Hi honey...I heard a beeping sound,” I began whispering my explanation as I approached her bed.

“Maybe Santa is here!  Maybe it was Rudolph’s nose blinking!” Jenna whispered back excitedly.

I giggled and gave her a kiss for being so darned adorable.  “No sweetheart.  Santa has already come and gone.  I think what I heard was your pump.”

I began searching amid the bedsheets and pajamas for her pump which resides at her waist .  When I finally retrieved it and pressed a button, the low battery warning text appeared on the display.

Lalaloopsie dolls were a big hit!

So a battery change was done, albeit clumsily, and a prime/rewind sequence performed.  Afterward,  I returned to Jenna’s bedside to reconnect her pump.  I found her sitting up in bed, all wide-eyed and  smiles.  I tried to explain that it was still too early to get up but I knew my efforts were in vain.  She agreed to stay in bed but her little clock radio that is always serenading her at low volume while she sleeps was softly cranking out familiar Christmas tunes.  She remained in bed but she didn’t sleep.  Instead she sang.

We were all up - the coffee was brewing, the tree lit and the camera poised, ready to capture the magic of Christmas morning - all before 5am.

But those stellar blood sugars?  They more than made up for the lack of sleep.