The S Words

Scared, Stuff and Supermarket.

SCARED. They released us today. My thoughts were "Are you fucking kidding me?" It felt like we had a new baby. For all mom's you know what I am talking about. That honeymoon period in the hospital with your first child. You were confident in your abilities but were secretly happy you had back up if you had questions. Then they tell you to go home. YIKES! You mean I'm in charge now?!?!? What do you mean? Its the same feeling but a lot more daunting. You can't screw up too badly with a baby. They are pretty bendy and resilient so there is a lot of leeway with them. With diabetes the margin of error is much smaller. It can be life or death. I have to be sure I know how to figure out exactly how many carbs he is eating (score one for Atkins) and then have to be confident in my math abilities to give him enough insulin to cover those carbs...every time he wants something to eat. The shot giving is no problem. I gave him his first shot the first morning we were there. Joe gave him his second and Zac gave himself his third! He doesn't mind it at all. The stress (I guess that's another "S" word) is in the details.

STUFF. There is a lot of STUFF that comes with diabetes. I took our 8 prescriptions to the PCH pharmacy before we left today. One month supply of diabetic stuff includes: 4 boxes of syringes, 4 vials of insulin, three boxes of test strips, four boxes of lancets (for finger poking), two emergency glucose shot (in case of hypoglycemia coma), two boxes of ketosticks to test ketones if they are too high, a box of alcohol swabs. We also have three glucose test meters, a large notebook filled with info and a small teddy bear named Rufus who is a diabetic bear. All told the monthly co-pays for diabetes for us will be $89. That's a lot of stuff. I wanted to post a picture of our STUFF but I can't remember how to do it here. Maybe later.

SUPERMARKET. Sigh. I had to go to the store when we got home because we had nothing in the house at all. The trio have been eating school lunches and plain pasta for three days now. Even they have a point where they get sick of pasta (amazingly enough). I decided I would make an easy dinner that the carbs are relatively easy to guess: steak, corn on the cob and baked potato. Easy. But buying everything else that we/he needs foodwise was fraught with pitfalls. I had a mini panic attack in the store and almost a total meltdown. The looming reality of this disease is overwhelming when you put everything in perspective of meal by meal, snack by snack, choices. Every time he says "I'm hungry" I cringe inside. There are "free" snacks that have little or no carbs but he can only eat so many veggies and cheese sticks before he wants something else. Something as basic as goldfish and grapes is a major hurdle. How many goldfish=how many carbs? Are they small grapes, big grapes, green or red? Don't get me started on drinks. The dreaded words came after dinner tonight; after insulin delivered and meal eaten, "What's for dessert?" Grrrrrr. In looking back at this post maybe I should have named it "The C word" for carbs.

Peace,
Liz