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Category: Child with Diabetes

Going to Crayola with our Type 1 Four Year Old

Going to Crayola with our Type 1 Four Year Old

Chris Stocker

The area in Pennsylvania we live in is filled with amazing things to do. There is a ton of history in this area and there are a lot of manufacturing plants and businesses that you would never know that are from our small town unless you lived here.

One of those places is Crayola.

Crayola has a few different warehouses in the area and their Crayola Experience which is in downtown Easton, PA. This Crayola Experience is an interactive 4-story adventure. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend it.

Not our First Time There

We have been to the Crayola a few times before, but going after our daughter’s diagnosis was going to be a bit different. At the time of writing this blog post, we have been to Crayola with her twice.

Once as a family and then once with just my wife and her while I drove around town with a sleeping baby in the car. Crayola was our daughter’s choice for her reward for getting her bloodwork labs done (in which she passed out and scared the hell out of us, but that’s another blog post!).

The first time that we took her to Crayola after her diagnosis was for her 4th birthday and we did not have a Dexcom or Omnipod yet, so we were checking quite frequently. Looking back on these things we did before having a Dexcom, I don’t know how we did it. I mean, I know how we did it, because we could do it again if needed, but the constant thought of not knowing what her BG is without easily being able to just look at our phones makes me nauseas.

The second time we went to Crayola Experience, it was just my wife and our daughter and that time she was wearing a Dexcom and Omnipod, so it was a lot easier to manage. Except for the fact that she passed out earlier in the day from getting her blood work done and over-correcting her and her BG shooting up into the high 400s.

Keeping Dexcom Phone within Range

There are a ton of things to do within Crayola Experience which means there is a ton of excitement which means blood sugar drops!

One of those fun, amazing activities is the 2-story high indoor playground. Can I just say now that this thing gives me ajida (I have no clue how to spell this word because I never heard of it until I was about 25 or so anyway).

There’s a few reasons why, but one, my kid is pretty clumsy and I know she’s going to fall or trip on something inside the playground, which is just part of growing up, but I hate watching it happen.

Also, I have been freaked out by germs before Coronavirus. I understand that there are germs everywhere in the Crayola Experience, but when she’s inside the playhouse thing, I can’t control her using hand sanitizer or not touching her face and mouth.

The next reason is Dexcom sharing. We didn’t want to put the Dexcom in her pocket or even in the little fannypack thing we have from SPIBelt.

I didn’t want to take the chance of it falling it while she was playing and not knowing and another kid picking up an iPhone and walking away with it. So, for that reason, my wife was standing as close to the playground as possible to make sure that we would not lose connection.

Some people may be reading this thinking that we are a bit obsessive over the Dexcom, and you are 100% correct. If I have the technology and she’s wearing it and going through the process of it getting inserted, then why the heck would I not utilize it at all times?

Some people may be reading this thinking that we are a bit obsessive over the Dexcom, and you are 100% correct. If I have the technology and she’s wearing it and going through the process of it getting inserted, then why the heck… Click To Tweet

Packing Juices and Snacks

Crayola Experience does not allow any food, drinks or snacks inside. We always carry a doctor’s note with us for situations like this. They searched the bag and allowed us to bring in juices and some candy. One thing they will not let in is peanut butter. Luckily, none of our snacks are peanut butter related.

The first time that we went to Crayola after her diagnosis, which was without a Dexcom as I mentioned previously, when we checked her she was right around the low 100s, so we knew she was going to need something soon. This was getting very close to lunch time so we were hoping we could finish the current activity we were doing and just have her eat lunch and potentially not even need a bolus.

That didn’t work out. She went even lower and we had to check her BG again and had to give her a juice. Luckily, we were able to bring in our own juices. I didn’t see any vending machines anywhere around, other than at the cafeteria which was nowhere near where we were.

Our entire goal is to make sure that our daughter can do everything she would have done before she had diabetes. Since she has been to Crayola before she was diagnosed, we didn’t want this trip to be any different. This time was actually better for her, she got to have a juice in the middle of the trip when the last time she wasn’t allowed to have any juice or snacks brought in!

Our entire goal is to make sure that our daughter can do everything she would have done before she had diabetes Click To Tweet

How do you prep for doing fun activities like this?

Do you carry a doctor’s note places that don’t allow food or snacks in? Or do you just say my child (or myself) have Type 1 Diabetes and I need to bring this in?

Please comment on this post or head on over to Facebook or Instagram to continue the conversation.

Our First JDRF One Walk as a Family with Diabetes (1)

Our First JDRF One Walk as a Family with Diabetes

Chris Stocker

When we first learned about the local JDRF walk being close enough to us to attend, we knew that we were going to do it. We told our daughter and she was so excited. It was almost like a holiday for her.

She got her calendar and marked it down and started to count down the days to it. Perfect math lesson at the same time!

My wife and I have done 10-15 JDRF, ADA, and DRI walks over the years, but this was the first one with two people with diabetes in the family.

JDRF One Walk Allentown PA

Our daughter is super proud to have diabetes. At least at this age, she wears it as a badge of honor and thinks it’s cool to have diabetes. So, when we get to do things that are diabetes focused, she is that much more excited about it because it’s a special club that you have to be a part of.

This walk was in Allentown, PA. It was outside at the PPL Center which is where the Lehigh Valley Phantoms play hockey (affiliate of Philadelphia Flyers). We have not spent much time in the downtown Allentown area, so I was not too familiar with the area and the parking was confusing, so I thought we were going to be late….luckily, we weren’t.

It was a pretty cold day too. I hate doing physical activities in the cold because you never know how to dress. You have to dress warm, but at the same time you are going to be sweating and it’s just a confusing situation for me!

Katy Perry Youre Hot GIF from Katyperry GIFs

We also had a 4 month old baby that was going to be in the stroller the whole time, so we had to make sure she was bundled up and going to stay warm as well.

More than One T1D in the Family

I have mentioned before in my posts that my niece also has type 1 diabetes. She was diagnosed several years ago, so when there are local diabetes related events, we tend to also meet up with my brother and his wife and kids. For this event, we did the same thing. We also met up with my parents to have a total of 10 (plus a 4 month old in a stroller).

We were rolling in #STOCKERSTRONG

Register for T-Shirts

The first part of any walk is to register. You have to make sure you get those free t-shirts at registration. They had some other pretty cool SWAG as well. They had face covers, which are coming in handy now (writing this during COVID19 pandemic).

Honestly, I have given so many diabetes related t-shirts to Goodwill that I didn’t want another shirt. My daughter was so excited to get a diabetes shirt and she wanted it on right away. This goes back to her wearing her diabetes like a badge of honor.

It makes me so proud to know that she embraces the disease and although I know she is still young and naive, it’s a good start.

She still wears that shirt as pajamas all the time. When she is in charge of grabbing her own pajamas, it is definitely one of her favorites. We typically end up reading either Coco, Rufus, Year One with Type One or Open Up Your Bag or another diabetes book.

This is a bit of a side story, but when my daughter asked what Find a Cure meant on the shirt and my wife explained it to her, she was confused as to why they wanted to find a cure.

Our, then 4 year old responded with “but if they cured diabetes, then I wouldn’t have it anymore and I love my diabetes.”

Our, then 4 year old responded with “but if they cured diabetes, then I wouldn’t have it anymore and I love my diabetes.” Click To Tweet

Stock Up on Snacks

Now, my favorite part of these walks is the free food. I’m not afraid to admit it! Unfortunately, this walk did not have a lot of sponsors, which I don’t understand. There were no food sponsors. Just apples, granola bars, chips and drinks.

We stocked up on some of those supplies for the 5K we were about to walk. Everyone needs a little bit of a snack along the way, so it’s good to have these things at the beginning of the walk.

Some of the JDRF walks we have done in the past, specifically the ones in Boca Raton, FL are loaded with food. Pizza, hoagies, cookies, and other random samples of goodies were a staple and the best part of finishing the walk.

3 – 2 – 1 – Walk

It was finally time to walk. After a few speeches from local leaders and JDRF employees, the music started for us to walk.

I honestly thought the walk was only 1 mile down and 1 mile back, but I was wrong. It was actually 5k.

Our daughter was super excited when we started to walk. She was walking with her cousins and couldn’t be more proud to be walking in something that was all about her.

The walk was packed. It didn’t seem like it when we were at the starting line, but as we started walking, my nerves started going crazy, as they do in any large crowd. I am constantly concerned about knowing exactly where my kids are and being able to see them at all times. So, when my daughter was super excited to start walking, she didn’t really care about the rules of staying close to mommy or daddy.

It was all good though.

Snacking During the Walk

When we started to reach the halfway point of the walk…which we knew was the halfway point because we saw people turning around to start walking back…our daughter wanted a snack. Of course she chose the chips, but hey whatever, she’s exercising, it’s fine.

We checked her Dexcom and gave her a bolus for the snack because she was trending a little higher. We waited only about 5 minutes because we knew the activity of already walking a 2.5k that she was going to start trending down.

Walk Over, Trend Down

And that is exactly what happened. As we were approaching the end, she started to go straight down on her Dexcom, so we decided to give her a juice to correct that.

All the excitement that she was having was going to end up sending her low too. We also knew that we were planning on going to a pumpkin patch after the walk, so we wanted to make sure that she had enough glucose in her to prevent lows happening in the near future..

The walk was a lot of fun. Our daughter had fun and so did the rest of the family. I love being able to share these type of fun experiences with my daughter and family.

The Movies with our Type 1 Child

The Movies with our Type 1 Child

Chris Stocker

We have taken our daughter to the movie theater a few times before her diagnosis, but we didn’t go often. We are a stream movies at home kind of family. So, we weren’t movie-going experts to begin with. Add in diabetes, and we had a whole new game plan that we had to create.

Frozen 2 was coming out, so that is one movie that we could not wait until it started streaming. **We watched Frozen 2 again like all of America the day it came out on DisneyPlus.**

Here is how we handled our trip to the movie theater with our daughter with diabetes.

Popcorn’s 500 Different Carb Counts

I don’t know about you, but popcorn has never been easy for me to bolus for. Have you ever looked at the nutritional label for popcorn? Unpopped is a ton of carbs, whereas popped is very low in carb.

This is a side-note, but what do you do with unpopped popcorn kernels? How do you eat them? Wouldn’t they just crack your teeth? Please explain this to me.

Back to the popcorn carb counts. I’ve seen a bunch of different carb counts for popcorn. Movie theater popcorn had more carbs in it then the popcorn that we buy for home…according to Google. Also, how much popcorn is in a small, or the kids size that we bought? I tried to search it before we went to the theater, but of course, I couldn’t find an exact amount on the website.

Also, the kids snack pack came with a pack of fruit snacks, which are not individually marked with nutritional information, but we saved those for another time because we snuck in our own snacks….keep reading.

This is not diabetes related, this is just human being related. If you haven’t snuck snacks and/or drinks into a movie, then I don’t think we can be friends. Click To Tweet

Please Turn Your Phones Off!

Let’s face it. If you wear a CGM, you have been in a quiet, public place and then BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. Your CGM alerts go off.

Unless you want a bunch of angry parents shhhhh-ing you in the middle of a movie, then you better turn your alerts off. We just put them on vibrate and not completely turned off.

Vibrate is movie theater safe. Loud beeps are not.

Choosing seats near exit for Potty breaks and missing good parts

I don’t know about you, but I have always been an end seat movie theatre guy. Couple reasons why.

  1. I don’t like feeling stuck in the middle of the row.
  2. If I have to get up to go to the bathroom or any other reason, it’s a quick exit and you don’t get in anyone’s way.
  3. If I have to make a fast escape, I can.

We went straight to an end row seat because I just knew she was going to have to use the potty during the movie.

It just so happened to be the part she wanted to see the most, when Elsa went running into the ocean.

**Flashback to when she was first diagnosed. She had to watch videos during every shot she took. She started watching movie trailers and it happened to be right around the time that the Frozen 2 trailer came out and she was obsessed with it. She would keep asking us, “Why is Elsa running into the ocean?” And…we missed the part where Elsa ran into the ocean!**

Sneaking in own juices/snacks Incase of lows

This is not diabetes related, this is just human being related. If you haven’t snuck snacks and/or drinks into a movie, then I don’t think we can be friends.

via GIPHY

There is an absolute art to it.

I’m a stuff the pockets, but make it look natural kind of guy. You can not sneak in soda cans though, you will get caught!

Our experience was a pleasure. The kid had fun, we enjoyed the movie and everything was great….except for missing one of the parts of the movie that she was excited to see.

How do you handle going to the movies or theatre? I’d love to hear. Please comment on this post or head on over to Facebook or Instagram to continue the conversation.

Going to the Aquarium - Diabetes Style

Going to the Aquarium – Diabetes Style

Chris Stocker

Our daughter loves the aquarium. We have gone to the Camden Aquarium multiple times. We wanted to take her on a special trip of her choice after her diagnosis and she chose the aquarium….which didn’t shock me at all.

This was going to be the first time going there with her having diabetes, but also with an infant as well.

Long Drive = High BG

One thing we know happens 100% of the time is that as soon as we get in the car and start to go on a drive anywhere, her blood glucose levels will begin to creep up.

Driving to the Camden Adventure Aquarium is about an hour to an hour and a half drive, so we knew the sugar levels were going to go up and we had to be prepared for it.

And just like we thought it would, they did. It’s just something about sitting still in the car that her levels just creep up, no matter what she had to eat before hand.

Pack Your Own Lunch

Going somewhere that allows you to bring your own food is the greatest. Being able to pack your own lunch, count carbs at home and be prepared for bolusing a correct amount is crucial to anyone living with type 1 diabetes.

Being able to pack your own lunch, count carbs at home and be prepared for to bolus the correct amount is crucial to anyone living with type 1 diabetes. Click To Tweet

This aquarium does have a few different food court options like pizza, hot dogs, burgers, chicken tenders, pretzels, etc. I have eaten from the food court previously, but we typically bring some Wawa or Sheetz hoagies and then pack PB&J or something similar for our daughter.

Along with packing our own lunches, we bring in snacks. We have a few juices, candy, peanut butter crackers and that’s usually about it.

If we see downward trends, then we will just give a little snack here and there instead of waiting until she’s low and needing to correct. We sometimes don’t see the trends though because we are paying more attention to the animals then we are her blood sugar levels.

Excitement and a lot of Walking

There is obviously a lot of walking around at an aquarium, especially at this one as it is a pretty decent size.

There is also a lot of excitement. How can you not get excited seeing a ton of fish and other water animals. Petting the stingrays is one of our favorites, and also where I think she went low.

Walking over the sharks!

This is the worst time because then you have to rush to wash hands really well in order to do a manual finger check, but the excitement definitely drives her down.

We always have fun at the aquarium. I mean, who doesn’t?

Every time we make a trip to any place similar to this, we always learn something new about managing the trip and we make it better the next time around.

How do you manage adventures and trips to the aquarium, zoo, or other fun and exciting places? I would love to hear your strategies.

Comment on the post or join in on the conversation on Facebook / Instagram and let me know!

Her First Birthday Party Since Diagnosis

Her First Birthday Party Since Diagnosis

Chris Stocker

Shortly after her diagnosis, her birthday was right around the corner. With all the newfound stress of managing her Type 1 Diabetes, we barely put any thought into what kind of birthday party she was going to have.

She decided that she wanted to have a bowling party. So, that’s what we did.

I’ve been to a million bowling parties before. I know what bowling parties entail.

Pizza.

I am writing this blog post about a year after this all happened, but from my recollection, we did not have pizza after her diagnosis because that food is the devil. 16 years into diabetes and I can’t figure out how to bolus for that food.

But, this was her birthday party, so she was going to have pizza, snacks and a cupcake. Nothing was going to stop that.

This was also our first time going bowling since her diagnosis, so we weren’t really sure how her blood sugars were going to react to that particular activity. She was not using a Dexcom yet, so it was manual finger checks to make sure her numbers were good.

The party started off great. The plan was to bowl for an hour and a half and then food and gifts for the final 30 minutes. I obviously don’t remember the specifics a year later, but from what I remember, she did go low during the bowling portion of the party.

There was a lot of excitement, bowling, playing games in between their turns and the perfect recipe to drive a blood sugar straight down. Good thing there were a ton of juices that we had on hand for the kids.

Pizza

Bolusing for pizza, and also for cupcakes in this situation was going to be tough. She was not on an insulin pump at that time, so we had to give the bolus amount for both at the same time. We knew the pizza was going to take longer to break down and would raise her blood sugar at least an hour or two after she ate, so we were OK with giving the full bolus amount upfront.

Also, it’s pizza. It’s one of the only foods that she eats quickly.

Cupcakes

The cupcakes were homemade, so we were confident on knowing the carb count on them. Well, to the best we could calculate. My wife is all about baking her own cakes and cupcakes now for special occasions so that we can count the total amount of carbs and then break it down per serving that she breaks them down into.

Running Around

After eating pizza and cupcakes, there were balloons in the party room, so that means only one thing. Running around chasing and hitting balloons like a maniac. The running around in the party room after bowling was definitely the highlight of the party and much more active.

She went low again, but again, she doesn’t get to drink juice too often, so it was a great opportunity to allow her to enjoy some juice on her birthday.

I think that we checked her blood sugar probably two additional times during the “running around” phase of her party. Later that night, she skyrocketed, which I knew was going to happen, but we took it all in stride and corrected as needed.

Clean Hands

Obviously this one takes on a whole new meaning in today’s world that we live in, but clean hands has always been something that we obsessed over. Now, with Type 1 Diabetes, we became quickly obsessed with her not getting sick. Cold or flus took on a whole new level for us.

Let’s face it, bowling alleys are disgusting. My wife grew up in a bowling alley. By that I mean her mom and dad bowled in leagues for years, her mom manages the biggest bowling alley in South Florida and my wife worked there for 5-6 years also. So, I know all about bowling alleys and the hands that go into the bowling balls, people not washing their hands, and how impossible it is to keep it clean.

While trying to just enjoy her birthday party, I couldn’t help but constantly watch her closely every time she touched her face (which if you know our daughter, is like 100 times a minute).

It was a success

Luckily, no illness came after the party. And overall, the party was a huge success. She had fun. It was the first time she had a chance to play with all of her friends and cousins since her diagnosis. She had a great time and that’s all that mattered.

It was also the first time that we really had a chance to see other adults as well and of course the questions about diabetes and what she can and cannot do started to roll.

If you’re enjoying the blog being back, please leave a comment or share on Facebook. Feedback is what keeps this thing moving along.

We Had a Baby! Managing Labor with a Type 1 Child at Home

We Had a Baby! Managing Labor with a Type 1 Child at Home

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

If you follow me on my social media channels, then you already know this. In fact, our daughter is now 9 months old! She is starting to stand up by herself and babble and getting closer to walking.

Time flies.

The purpose of this post is not really to announce having a baby, but how we managed having another child while having our Type 1 daughter at home.

Not How we Planned the Gender Reveal

This all starts out when we were planning on how we were going to do a gender reveal. Spoiler alert – I don’t like gender reveal parties, but that’s a different conversation.

We decided to just do cupcakes with pink or blue filling on the inside. We were supposed to find out the gender on Valentine’s Day 2019.

Well, something happened on February 12, 2019.

That was the morning of not only a major snow storm in northeast Pennsylvania, but it was the day our oldest daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

We spent 2.5 days in the hospital, but on the second day, our appointment to find out the gender of our baby was actually in the same exact hospital that we were in for our daughter.

My wife and my mother (who was visiting at the time) went to the appointment while I stayed back with our daughter.

This was not really the way that we had planned on finding out the gender and doing the reveal to ourselves and friends and family. We decided to postpone the reveal until we got home from the hospital, so that’s what we did.

When we left the hospital the first day, it was past dinner time, so we didn’t want to rush it. So, we waited until the next day for my sister-in-law to bake cupcakes.

It’s a…

This was also the first time our daughter was going to have cupcakes as a person with type 1 diabetes (and it definitely wasn’t her last).

Surprise – it was pink inside!

Stress Started to Kick In

The next few months we were just adjusting to life with Type 1 Diabetes and learning strategies to deal with stress. My wife was pregnant and I was constantly concerned how her new stress levels were going to be affecting her pregnancy…this led to my higher levels of stress.

The stress really started to increase the closer we came to the due date.

What are we going to do with our daughter?

Who is going to give her the nightly basal?

Who is going to count her carbs?

Who is going to give her the bolus?

Who is going to check her blood sugar?

What are we going to do?

These questions went through our mind about 100 different times a day.

Time to Make a Plan

That’s when we sat down and made a plan. Obviously, this is a pregnancy and birth of a child, it’s unpredictable, but we were going to do our best to try and plan.

We had a few different plans in place. One for each time of the day that we had to go to the hospital when my wife was going into labor.

Our preference was her to give birth in the middle of the night. This would mean that I could possibly give our daughter her basal insulin shot and then get her to bed and then my parents could just sleep at our house and keep an eye on her Dexcom.

Then, I could go home in the morning and give her breakfast and a bolus shot and then get back to the hospital.

Our best plan almost came to fruition, it was very close.

How did it all happen?

My mother-in-law was flying in for my wife’s birthday and to also try and time the birth of our new daughter. My MIL flew in the afternoon of my wife’s birthday. My wife decided to stay home and not go to the airport because she was feeling some contractions and feeling a little “off”.

We ordered some pizza for dinner and started our daughter on her dinner.

And then that’s when my wife said, “it’s time to go to the hospital”

Wait, it’s my wife’s birthday, her mother just flew in hours ago, it’s getting towards night time (our perfect plan)…. is this really happening?

Oh yeah, it was!

Once my parents came to our house, my wife, MIL and myself left for the hospital.

I’m going to fast forward through the rest of the labor and delivery, but while my wife was in active labor, I was checking my phone to see my daughter’s Dexcom numbers.

My sister-in-law came over to give her the nighttime basal shot. We chose this because my niece also lives with type 1 diabetes, so we trusted her decision making on diabetes. She’s seen needles, pen needles, meters, blood, etc.

Everything was going smooth. Her blood sugars were great while she was sleeping.

After Birth

After our second daughter was born, I was able to hold her and spend some time with her and also my wife who was recovering from delivery. My MIL was also there to be by her side which helped tremendously.

With my MIL being there, it allowed me to drive home at about 3 am to be home for my daughter. My parents stayed the rest of the night and morning, but it allowed me to get her breakfast ready and give her the breakfast shot and get her day started.

She was super excited to go and meet her new sister, so I brought her to the hospital with me.

From there, it became a little easier. She was with us at the hospital for most of the time. I hated leaving my wife and new daughter at the hospital, but she was never alone. Her mother was there when I would go home with our oldest daughter.

I’m not going to lie, this was very stressful trying to figure out how we were going to leave our 4-year old with Type 1 Diabetes with someone else for the first time, but also at the same time, enjoy the birth of our newest addition to our family.

It all worked out.

So, now, we are (well have been for 9 months now) a family of four. I am officially a 2X #girldad.

Starting our 4-Year Old on an Omnipod

Starting our 4-Year Old on an Omnipod

Chris Stocker

Yesterday, I wrote about our decision to start using an insulin pump as opposed to multiple daily injections. If you would like to learn more about why we made that particular decision, please go check out yesterday’s post.

Once we knew that we wanted her to be on an insulin pump, we needed to figure out which one. I pretty much already had an idea which one we were leaning towards.

We had a few options to choose from:

  1. Medtronic
  2. Tandem
  3. Omnipod

Medtronic

I personally used a Medtronic for 13 of my 16 years with diabetes. It was the first pump that I started on in December 2004 after my diagnosis in April of 2004 (couple days away from 16 years since diagnosis).

I was very comfortable with the Medtronic insulin pump and how it worked and how to use it. I also liked their low suspend technology that could detect a low blood sugar coming on and automatically shut the insulin delivery off.

However, that would require using their CGM, and I wrote last week about our reasoning for choosing Dexcom immediately for our CGM of choice.

The last, main reason, was I know our daughter. I know she runs around a lot and also bumps into plenty of things. I have also walked past a door and got my tubing snagged and had an infusion set rip out, and let me tell you…. it hurts!

Tubing was a no-go for us.

Tandem

Even though Tandem has tubing, it is integrated with Dexcom and offers their Basal-IQ technology, which was pretty appealing to me. If you’re not sure what technology I am talking about, you can check out an old post I wrote on it (and I’m also going to link to their site because they have had a bunch of updates since I last wrote about it).

In the end, we just knew we needed something without tubing.

So, that led to the choice of Omnipod.

Omnipod

After my 13 years with Medtronic, I chose to use MDI for a year. It worked out pretty well for me. I wrote about my decision to give up an insulin pump for MDI in the past.

When I decided that I was done with MDI (again), I wanted to go back onto an insulin pump, but I felt like it was time to give up Medtronic. Primarily because I switched over to Dexcom during my year of MDI.

I decided to use an Omnipod.

I tell you that story, to further explain why we chose Omnipod.

90% of the decision was because of it not having any tubing. It was a pretty clear cut decision for us to make.

90% of the decision was because of it not having any tubing. It was a pretty clear cut decision for us to make. Click To Tweet

The remaining 10% was a little bit of the fact that I currently used (and still use) asn Omnipod, so there was the comfort level of knowing how to troubleshoot it if needed.

Daddy, Daughter Diabetes Bond

daddy daughter omnipod

The other was purely mental.

My daughter has seen me put an Omnipod on 100 times. She’s even helped me do it. She decorates them by coloring or putting stickers on them.

She would love to be just like Daddy and share this bond with him…..right?

Well, that’s what we were hoping.

The first few times we put a new Pod on, I would do mine just before so that she could see me do it and get comfortable with it.

Six Months Later

We are now over 6 months with the Pod and we absolutely love it. It can still be a battle every so often on putting a new one one, but we know these struggles are going to happen. It simply comes with the territory of having a child with type 1 diabetes.

I will write in a future blog post about our tips for keeping the Omnipod on, how we take it off, how we rotate the sites and many more cool ideas that we have learned over the last 12 months of managing not only my own Type 1 Diabetes, but also our daughter’s.

I hope you are enjoying this content, if so, please leave a comment below or go share the love on Facebook and Instagram.

Insulin Pen vs Insulin Pump for our Child with Type 1 Diabetes

Insulin Pen vs Insulin Pump for our Child with Type 1 Diabetes

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

When our daughter was first diagnosed, we started on insulin pens. This is also how I started giving insulin injections when I was diagnosed in 2004. The pens are good for training and learning the basics of diabetes and forcing yourself to do math and think about sliding scales and correction doses.

In the long-run, for our family at least, we knew we wanted our daughter to be on an insulin pump.

Discussing with Our Daughter

This is something that we discussed with our daughter also so that she didn’t feel like it was being forced on her, but it was a simple conversation with her.

4 shots a day or one “shot” once every 3 days.

Her answer was pretty quick.

Giving her insulin early on after her diagnosis was difficult at times. We didn’t want to make too many changes to our life. We wanted her to continue to do the same things she was doing before she was diagnosed.

Eating Out

One of those things was eating out. We ate out usually 2-3 times a week. Usually one night for dinner, and 1-2 times a week for lunch. We did this because we were always out on the weekends and then we try to enjoy one night out a week together as a family.

Eating at a restaurant was tough because we never knew exactly how many carbs she was going to eat. We would look at the menu beforehand, and by before I mean, my wife would be looking on her phone in the car about 5 minutes before we pulled into a restaurant because it took us 30 minutes debating on what restaurant we were going to go to.

We also could never tell when the food would come out, so pre-bolusing was tough, but that is the same no matter if you are doing MDI or using an insulin pump. The difference is that we could just give her insulin at the table and not have to go to the bathroom and leave the table.

If she wanted to be able to eat a little bit more than what we initially bolused for or if we decided to all share a dessert, we could do it much easier with an insulin pump. It wasn’t going to require the trauma or getting another shot, but a simple few button pushes on the insulin pump.

Corrections

Another reason we wanted to use an insulin pump was for corrections. We found ourselves waiting until the next meal time in order to give a correction. If it was a large correction, we would do it, but we avoided giving extra shots as much as possible.

Waiting until the next meal to correct a blood sugar that was not too high, but something that we would correct now with an insulin pump, was not good management. Her A1C was higher and we knew we couldn’t continue on that path for the long run.

Snacking

Luckily, even before diabetes, our daughter was not much of a snacker. She didn’t just randomly eat throughout the day. She ate breakfast, lunch and dinner and sometimes would have a little snack somewhere throughout the day. But, she never just randomly was given food to eat all throughout the day.

That was a big plus for being on MDI, because we didn’t need to bolus any additional shots.

On her insulin pump, if she wants a snack, it’s easier to give a snack. Now, we don’t just give a snack because we can quickly bolus for it, we still follow our same rules. But, it is easier to go for ice cream after the park or having some cracker and cheese between lunch and dinner.

Check back for future blog posts on how living with an insulin pump has been for her.

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We Chose to Use Dexcom Immediately!

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

One of the first discussions that we had with our Pediatric Endo was the plan to start using a Dexcom almost immediately. Unfortuantely, the insurance requires 90 day of blood sugar logs, so we couldn’t get started for at least 90 days.

I know that for people who may be new to diabetes, learning the basics for 90 days and having logs for 90 days is beneficial before jumping right into using a CGM, however, with my 10 years of CGM experience, I was adamant that I wanted a Dexcom as soon as possible.

Our endo was OK with that, as long as I promised not to make rash decisions and quickly give a correction just because I started to see a CGM arrow somewhere.

I agreed with her because we were still figuring out how insulin worked in our daughter’s body. We didn’t know exactly what her ratios and correction factors should be set at, so I didn’t want to make quick decisions to stop an arrow (like I do for myself) and then cause a quick drop in her glucose level.

Why Did We Choose Dexcom

I knew that I wanted her to use a Dexcom for a few reasons.

Ease of Insertion

I had previously used a Medtronic CGM and I hated it. It was primarily because I didn’t like the insertion process. I actually hated the old Dexcom insertion process even more, which is why I used Medtronic for some time. But, with the new Dexcom insertion device, it’s a breeze and much easier and doesn’t look as scary, so I knew that was going to be part of the decision of being able to get her to let us do this every 10 days.

Not as Painful

As compared to the Medtronic CGM, the Dexcom is not as painful of an insertion. For myself, I don’t even feel it going in and sometimes wonder if it’s even in properly. Of course not every insertion is painless, but majority of them are. Pain was obvious a huge decision factor because what kid is going to want something super painful every 10 days being inserted into them?

My Comfort Level

I use Dexcom and I trust Dexcom. There is a comfort level like no other with Dexcom

I literally trust my own life with it. I check my blood sugar with test strips maybe once a month, I’d say in the last 12 months of using Dexcom G6, I have tested manually less than 10 times. I don’t feel the need to test, that’s how much I trust it.

Now, when it comes to our daughter, we still check her blood sugar on her finger about 3 times a day. We have become a lot more comfortable bolusing off of her Dexcom, but we still do check several times a day.

Future Compatability with Omnipod

I also knew that we would be putting her on an Omnipod as soon as we could also. So, I wanted to use Dexcom so that when the Omnipod and Dexcom are fully compatible and working together for a semi-closed loop system, we would already be ready with the Dexcom.

Why CGM So Quickly

The reason why we wanted a CGM as soon as possible was pretty obvious. We wanted to know as close to real-time glucose levels as possible. The thought of not knowing what our daughter’s glucose levels were drove us insane.

We went to Target one day and she said that she felt wobbly and dizzy, so we checked her. She was 42. This was only about an hour after eating lunch. I ran to the front of the store with her and grabbed an apple juice and just had her start drinking.

With a Dexcom, we could have spotted that low coming before it was freak out time. That was when my wife knew she did not ever want her to not have a Dexcom on at some point. Those 2 hour warm up times are still the most stressful 2 hours for my wife.

I know, we could do it without a CGM

I know that there are plenty of people without CGMs and do perfectly fine and when I was first diagnosed, we didn’t have CGMs and I made it through. They also didn’t have showers 100 years ago but I’d prefer running water and showers over using a bucket to wash myself.

But, I digress, back to the story.

My endo worked with us to ensure that on day 90 we were able to submit all of our logs and get started on the Dexcom. We used her diagnosis day as day 1 of starting her logs so we could get approved a few days earlier.

It took a few days for the supplies to come in and then we did a training in the diabetes educator’s office and that was a nightmare. Our daughter freaked out and cried a lot, however, it was a good sensor and it made it all 10 days. It took her a little while to get used to it, but the second one we inserted, we did from the comfort of our own home and she was perfectly fine.

Now, a year later, she gets a little nervous right before we put a new Dexcom on, but we let her watch a video or watch a cartoon on TV and she is good to go.

Distraction is the best method of diabetes device insertion for us.

What kind of distractions do you use for inserting Dexcom or Omnipod on your children? Comment below or join the conversation on Facebook.

quarantine blogging return

Quarantine Blogging Return

Chris Stocker

I know that I said I was going to start blogging again however that obviously didn’t happen. I had all the intentions to start writing about my life, and now also my daughter’s life with diabetes, but I just couldn’t find the time or the passion to want to continue to do it.

But as I’m sitting here in quarantine like the rest of the country I really started thinking about it and I wanted to start writing again. I would love to write about sports however there are not many sports related items going on. So I thought about why not just share the last year of my life as someone living with type one diabetes and also being the caregiver of my daughter who also has type one diabetes.

So much has been happening, and I’ve also been learning a ton over the last year. After living with type one diabetes for 15 years before my daughter was diagnosed I started to get set in my own ways and just continue on with bad habits. Since her diagnosis it really took me back to square one and the basics of diabetes, carb counting, correction amounts, basal testing, etc.

My daughter catching up on her diabetes information

I really was on cruise control for so long with my own management that a lot of times I just would not count carbs, I could just look at a slice of pizza no it was either 20 g or 25 or maybe 30 g.

Or because I eat so unhealthy majority of the time, I will just take a max bolus from my pump and correct afterwards. After her diagnosis that was much more of a lazy way to do things, I finally realized.

My wife has become a master carb counter and diabetes manager, so much to the point that now I just ask her how many carbs I’m eating and she can easily and quickly calculate it for me.

Obviously life has been a huge challenge and a much different pace, since my daughter’s diagnosis, but we have managed and we have found the silver linings in all of it. She recently just made it to her one year diaversary, which we celebrated with a cupcake.

I know I just said this recently but I really am going to start sharing our story and our experiences from the last 12 months of her living with diabetes.

So I hope you come back I promise you that I will continue to write.

Until next time …..