RB#1: Tranny on a Hill

Boys,

Seems somewhat fitting that we finally get rid of our nighttime lows and now Gregory has ketones.

This blog is intended to teach you how to be independent. For the last 12 years, I have been the one to reason through priorities in your life to determine a plan of action.

Currently, I am the only adult able to care for you. By 12, most children can leave for a week or two without their mother's micromanaging every couple hours, but diabetes complicates independence. Until you are able to reason through these problems, you will forever be tied to someone bossing you around.

HOW TO TREAT KETOACIDOSIS

·         Immediately drink a large amount of non-caloric or low caloric fluid. Continue to drink 8 to 12 oz. every 30 minutes. Diluted Gatorade, water with Nu-Salt™ and similar fluids are good because they help restore potassium lost because of high blood sugars.

·         Take larger-than-normal correction boluses every 3 hours until the blood sugar is below 200 mg/dl (11 mmol) and ketones are negative. It will take much more rapid insulin than normal to bring blood sugars down when ketones are present in the urine or blood. Often, one and a half to two times the normal insulin dose for a high blood sugar will be necessary. Higher insulin doses than these will be needed if there is an infection or other major stress. 

·         If nausea becomes severe or last 4 hours or more, call your physician.

·         If vomiting starts or you can no longer drink fluids, have a friend or family member call your physician immediately, then go directly to an emergency room for treatment. 

·         Never omit your insulin, even if you cannot eat. A reduced insulin dose might be needed, but only if your blood sugar is currently low.

Our plan for today is to keep checking BGs every hour and give Gregory carbs and Humalog each hour until ketones go away. This is easier to do now BEFORE he gets a stomachache and we want his BGs to be stable enough to avoid eating past bedtime.

We will record this on his blue "Whatcha Doin'" paper so that we can compare what we expect to happen with what really happens.

It is incredibly important to thoroughly document

your actions when you are doing something

that can kill you even if you do it right!

Isn’t it frustrating that the better we manage this, the more your body changes, and the more we then have to change path again to realign ourselves with the straight and narrow?

Please keep this in mind as a benefit to STAYING on a good path.

In WoW, if you make mistakes even to the point of locking you out of instances, it all resets each week. But, with T1D, if you digress it actually becomes harder to get back on the proper path.

Uncle Alex and I just talked about this last night. Grandma’s van has a new transmission. Alex explained that when you put a vehicle in park on a hill, you are using the transmission to keep it from rolling backwards. Apparently, the new transmission doesn’t have the rounded edges so having parked it there the very first time with her new tranny, she couldn’t pull it out of park and into gear. 

--- UNFINISHED -- 

GAMBATTE!

-mom