A1c’s and Other Woes

Monday morning I took Philip for his quarterly appointment with his Endocrinologist.  He is a leader in the field of Pediatric Endocrinology/Diabetology; his wife is the former PTO president of the kid’s elementary school, and they live right down the street.  (Not that we abuse that privilege by banging on the door at 2 am if we have a scary blood sugar reading).  (Although I would be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind).  Dr. Rodriguez, along with his wife and two kiddos, spent half the week at camp with Philip (not actually with Philip, but at the same facility).   They are such a great family, and we feel extremely blessed to have such an amazing doctor helping to care for our son. 

Anywho…I was a little worried going into the appointment that we were going to see a higher A1c reading on Philip.  A1c is a test that shows the average blood glucose levels in a patient over a two to three month time frame.  In essence, it shows how well you (or your parent) is handling diabetes treatment.  A normal person (remember, normal  is relative) would have an A1c reading of 4-6%.  A great reading for Philip would be 7-8%.  Monday, he was over 10%.  Can I just say, I felt like a complete and utter failure as a mother?  Because I did.  In between Philip coming out of his “honeymoon” stage, another bad round of asthma/allergies  and a broken hand in May, we have seen some crazy high numbers for Philip.  His target blood sugar range is 80-180.  Anytime his body is experiencing stress, his numbers will go up.  When he has a rush of adrenaline, his numbers go up.  When his mother isn’t doing a good job of increasing insulin to adjust to these situations, his numbers go up.  Needless to say, after seeing numbers in the three to five hundreds on a fairly regular basis, the lower two hundreds seem to not look that bad.  Unfortunately, that had probably been his average over the past couple of weeks, and it was still way too high.  I thought, when we sent him to camp, we would see a lot of lows on the report that showed all his numbers and insulin doses.  To my surprise, he only had two lows while he was there.  In fact, he ran pretty high during his week at camp as well.  (This makes me feel a little better because medical professionals were overseeing his treatment, not just some average mother who is a complete novice at determining correct dosage equations for insulin).  The fix?  More insulin.  Seems easy enough.  I will say, it has already made a huge difference in Philip’s activity level.  He was literally hurdling the chaise lounge in the living room tonight.  Actually, hurdling the chaise lounge stacked with an additional seven pillows on top.  He was flying through the air.  Driving me insane, flying through the air.  Making me think, “should I go back to school and become an orthopaedist so I can set all my children’s broken bones because I know he is going to break something doing this” while he was flying through the air.  I guess not having to deal with thick, sugary blood flowing through your system makes it much easier to do things like climb doorways, hurdle furniture, chase your younger siblings through the house while screaming at the top of your lungs, and not be able to hear your mom tell you the same thing over and over for the one hundredth time in one day.  I’m just guessing.  I love to see him full of life and full of energy, but I absolutely hate to see him deal with all the things he has to deal with each day.  I told him as we were leaving the hospital that I wish I could switch with him.  He said he was glad I couldn’t.  He “wouldn’t want anyone to have to go through this if they didn’t have to.”  Hopefully one day there will be a cure.  One day soon.

When Philip and I got home, Anna E. told me all about her first private swim lesson that I had missed.  How she went under water and got something off the bottom.  How she practiced her strokes – “no bending your arms, Momma!” and her kicks – bicycle and straight leg.  How it went by way too fast, so she couldn’t wait for tomorrow.  And, how her ears really hurt.  I figured we might as well make another trip to a medical facility, because you know if we don’t get our weekly quota of doctor’s office or hospital visits in, we might actually not have to take money out of savings this month,   have time to do more fun things like library visits or playtime at a park,  not know what to do with ourselves.  Turns out, Anna E. has “swimmers ear” and what may be the beginning of another ear infection.  We were told to stay out of the water for at least 24 hours - which was just great for the whole swim lesson thing, and our first day with temperatures over 90 degrees.  She did start on some ear drops so hopefully she can pick up where she left off on Wednesday, and maybe even squeeze in a make-up class sometime before the week ends.  I can’t wait to see her go under water and swim.  This is the same girl who wouldn’t go into water any deeper than her belly button a few short months ago.  I’m amazed!

In other news, we all made it out to Nathanael’s baseball team’s first tournament playoff game tonight.  Wayland coached, Nate manned the dugout – rooting on his teammates the entire time – giving high fives and knuckles with his brightly casted left hand.  Anna E., Luke, Philip and I all cheered them on as well – with a bit less enthusiasm.  It’s just not quite the same when one of your own kiddos isn’t playing.  Good news though – they won.  They’ll have another game on Thursday and the championship will be Saturday.  That will wrap up the 2009 Spring baseball season where Nathanael completed 0 practices and only 4 games.  (One and one half of those where he played with a broken bone).  What a season!  You can just imagine my reaction when he told me he wanted to play Fall Baseball starting in mid August.  It evidently doesn’t interfere with football, so he thinks it would be a great way to make up for all the playing he has missed so far.  Do you think I’m crazy for only picturing neon pink casts???

Our little Luker is keeping us all in stitches.  (Thankfully, I mean that figuratively and not literally)  I’m not sure I have ever known a child with such a funny personality.  You know, Proverbs says “a merry heart does good like a medicine.”  I guess Luke is our daily dose of slapstick serum.  From funny faces, to outlandish impressions; from witty one liners, to some seriously sick dance moves (I actually meant to type “slick,” but now that sick also means amazing, I think I like it better), Luke provides us all with some much needed laughter to our day.  I love to see all three big siblings gathered around him cracking up again and again over his same silly action.  What a treat!

Well, once again, I’ve blogged right up to the 2 am blood sugar check.  (Why do I do this???)  I’m praying for a great number and the ability to get as much sleep as possible before that alarm clock goes off in five hours.