Thursday, September 3, 2009

Cyclebetes part deux

I'm back to real life after my Accu-Check Cyclebetes national relay experience. I've been feeling withdrawl from the awesomeness that was the Cyclebetes relay, but am still quite busy organizing our local Cyclebetes 200 ride in support of JDRF. Our ride is on Saturday, September 12th. The donation cheque presentation and photos will take place at 7:45 am at Mike's Bike Shop in Dieppe. The ride leaves at 8 am sharp. Drop by to say HI and show your support ! You can even make a whole morning of it by going to the Dieppe market afterwards.

This past weekend, I took Adele and her friend to TreeGo at Centennial Park in Moncton. After a brief training session, they started climbing up the first obstacle which was a climbing wall. I was following them from the ground. Before starting, I asked the staff how long it would take them to complete the kid's course. They told me it took about 1 hour which meant that Adele would be up in the trees for an hour and I would be on the ground unable to physically do anything to manage her Diabetes. Completing the course also requires a physical effort which meant that she was at risk of going low and it requires alot of balance while up above the ground. Since low blood sugar could leave her light headed and dizzy, a low while up there was not an option and very dangerous. So after telling myself that this whole thing was still a good idea, I proceeded to keep a close eye on Adele's blood sugar readings via her Continuous Glucose Montior. Her sugar was in the high 4's before her afternoon snack with a slight downward trend, so I didn't bolus for her snack. A half-hour after that she was still floating in the 4's, so I turned off her pump. An hour after that she was still in the low 5's, so I turned off her pump again for another half-hour. I checked again right before she was about to climb onto the course and she was 8.0 with one arrow up (trending up). I think I overdid it and that the last half-hour of pump being off was a bit too much? I had no idea what effect this activity was going to have on her sugar, so I left things as is. Her pump was back on again, so she was getting 0.3 units of insulin per hour via her basal. I gave her 2 fruit to go to put in her pouch pack in case she felt or went low while up there since I couldn't get food to her.

So, what was the outcome? She rocked the TreeGo course and had a blast ! Her sugar had stabilised at 10.3 (no arrow) when she finished. I gave her another 0.3 units to bring it down. A half hour later she had still climbed to 11.5 so I guess I had overdone it with sugar intake and pump turned off. That's how this game goes, you make the best decision possible given the data that you have and sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don't. And you NEVER, EVER know what the outcome is going to be. That's the constant stress that gets to you sometimes.

Like all other kids, Adele is back to school next week. She will be starting grade 4. I met her teacher's aid this week. We were lucky in that her TA this year is the same one that she had in grades 1 and 2, so she knows Adele and she gets the Type 1 game. Hopefully, the Type 1 game transition back to the school routine goes smoothly...

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