12 Years of a New Normal

Today marks 12 years I've been living with a new type of normal.  I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on  April 29, 2001.  Since then I've gotten married, moved SEVERAL times, had two kids, and done many, many, other things.  Diabetes isn't very predictable, never reliable, but for me, it's pretty normal.  It's weird that I've had it longer than I've been married, before my kids were ever born, and nearly a third of my lifetime.
But, I do, and I press forward- most of the time.  It isn't always easy, but I try to deal with it the best I can, roll with the punches, and I definitely try to live my life doing the things I'd do if I didn't have it.  I try not to let it hold me back.
The other day I was thinking about diabetes, and the fact that my kids don't know me as anything else than a mommy who has an insulin pump and checks her blood sugars.  So, I thought I'd grab my camera and ask my son a few questions about it.  Apparently I didn't have much memory in my camera, so the video cuts short before our interview actually ended but you get a good idea of it anyway.
Here it is.

The Low that Wouldn't Treat

My son woke up at 10:30pm sick with the stomach flu.  I was hoping he'd go back to sleep and not be sick again.  Boy, was I wrong.  He was sick every 30 minutes for the next several hours.  At around 1am I turned my early morning swim alarm off.  By 4:00 am he'd finally fallen asleep.  At 6 my husband got up for work and I was so alert with taking care of my son throughout the night that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep.  I texted my sister and let her know I wouldn't be able to watch her kiddos.  Luckily, Grandpa was home from work so she didn't have to miss.

Gladly, I got a little more rest until almost 8 am when it was time to get Little Brother off to school.  I thought it would be great to sleep while he was at school so that The Boy and I could get a little more rest but by 9 am he was ready to be up for the day.  I jumped in the shower, didn't bother with hair, make-up, or regular clothing and started in on a long day of cleaning.

The smell of sick was so strong that I decided I'd better go ahead and clean and disinfect the entire house.  I've never cleaned so much of this house in a single day before.  I did several loads of laundry: all of the bedding, bath mats, towels, and cleaning rags.  I cleaned all three bathrooms, bedrooms, and all of the floors.  Man, this house feels big!

The Boy did okay but he was definitely sick!  I tried my best to keep him isolated and just sprayed Lysol on everything else.  Usually, when I clean like that, I'll have a massive low-blood sugar.  But, for some reason, it never came.  So I never stopped.  I worked on cleaning the house from about 11am until 7pm; seriously like all day almost without stopping.  I didn't feel much like eating and barely did all day.  I had a couple of apples, some toast, and a yogurt.  That was about it.  I'm not sure why my sugar never dropped but it did spike at one point.  Even after correcting that, I never fell.

But last night, my blood sugar made up for it.  I've had many a middle-of-the-night lows but never one like I had last night.  I desperately wanted a hot bath after "dinner" so I soaked for a little while and the Dexcom alerted me that I was low when I was just about ready to get out.  So I dressed and scooped myself a heaping 1 cup serving of ice cream and enjoyed it.  I was still falling when I started drifting off to sleep so I treated with 4 glucose tablets and fell asleep.  About 2 hours later I woke with another low.  Tested, treated, and reduced my basal to 80%.  Usually, that would send me high.  Nope!  Not this time.  An hour and a half later I woke with ANOTHER low, tested, treated, and reduced my basal again.  I was shocked when I woke to a flat-line at 100 mg/dl on the Dexcom screen.  By the time I ate breakfast my number was 85.  Such an odd series of events for me.