This is What High Looks Like
Do you feel high? Words I mutter to her often. Not something I ever thought I'd be asking my little girl.
Diabetes is cyclical. It ebbs and flows and just when you fall into a comfortable zone of in-range-numbers and uneventful days it smacks you in the face. After weeks of freakishly good blood sugars we've been struggling to keep her under 300 for days. We go through the process of elimination. Is her pump site good, did the insulin go bad, did our carb counting go horribly wrong? But it's almost never any of those things. It's just diabetes being a pain in the ass.
It's usually related to an impending illness or growth or puberty hormones. Things completely out of her control. This leads to missed classes, extra time spent in the nurses office, and Caitlin feeling generally horrible. Not just because she's getting sick or her numbers are high. But because she takes the numbers personally and feels guilty when she's out of range. As if she has any control over it.
Last night's dinner reading threw us both for a loop. We both stared at the screen with eyes wide. HIGH? As in, so-high-that-I'm-not-even-going-to-give-you-a-number, high? We go through the motions. Was your finger clean? Let's check again. Do you have ketones? Let's check. Three finger sticks, one subq injection, a changed pump site, and one little girl whose spirit has once again been broken by diabetes. And what goes up must come down so a day filled with highs is followed by a night full of lows. So we hang out and snack at 10pm checking and waiting until we're happy and safe. And then the rat-a-tat-tat at the door comes at 1am. "I'm 55." And the cycle of eating and checking begins again.
Diabetes is hard. But most days she makes it look easy. I carry her worry and fears for her while she goes about her business of being a carefree twelve-year-old girl. And I will carry that for her as long as she'll let me because she has more important things to focus on. Like fun, and friends, and school, and boy-bands.
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