GREMLINS of the night!!!

Dear, sweet, sleepless LILLY! Last night was a tough night all around. Ms Lilly who is too cute and sweet for words, is getting on my last sleepless nerve. Today is day 8 since Lilly has joined our family, which means I’m on day 8 of waking every half hour to every hour hearing puppy screams. When I say screams….I mean it. Puppy screams. Have you ever heard a puppy that’s lonely and has never once been left alone? I have to remind myself over and over that Ms Lilly was suddenly taken from her littermates. And, she is without the comfort of her mommy dog. –Sigh- Poor thing. I’m going a bit bonkers here. I’m not so sympathetic today! Cute little Lilly suddenly looks like a little GREMLIN in my eyes! You should see her teeth attacking the bars of her crate at night. Lilly shakes her head and growls…..Yep….some serious Gremlin anxiety!

Lilly just wants to sleep with someone. She wants to know where Roxxie is at all times. Roxxie has become her Mommy replacement, and, Roxxie isn’t so fond of that idea sometimes. Roxxie also likes her space and we don’t entirely trust her not to snap at Lilly when we aren’t around. Roxxie gets to run the house at night. Lilly cant. Lilly is TINY. Imagine sleeping with a puppy the size of a small Guinea Pig! Lilly just can’t sleep in our bed in fear of us smothering or crushing her. And, she will walk right off the bed. Then there is potty training at night. –Sigh- What have we done? Lilly has been screaming from her crate the last 8 nights. The crate training I’ve always been quick to establish for all our puppies in the past is just not working with tiny Lillie. And today, I AM complaining about it, because when I woke up this morning, I was OUT of coffee!!!

On top of puppy woes, last night again proved to be WEIRD-O night for Maddison’s numbers. Maddison had gone to the neighbor’s house after dinner to play. We had talked about her bolusing on her own for carbs when she’s at friends houses, and we agreed that if she had a carb count on the package she could go ahead and eat and bolus, as long as she let me know when she got home. Which, she did. But, Maddison didn’t have the carb count. She guessed. That’s exactly what I was afraid of! A 9yr old guessing a carb count! And bolusing insulin all on her own!! YIKES.

Luckily, it wasn’t so bad. I say that because I caught Maddison at 81 and was able to give a ton of carbs to keep her safe from a terrible low. (she also jumped on their trampoline and had 1u active!!) Maddison had guessed 5c for one Starburst candy. She had two, so she bloused 10c. GOOD JOB MADDISON! I was very proud that she bolused. But, she guessed a carb count, and over guessed a lot! Maddison knows I ALWAYS just want the insulin dosed to cover the food, so I was very proud that she did so without hiding the candy she ate. But, at the same time it freaked me out. She has an insulin pump attached at her hip!! Just the push of a button. Just the push of a button is all it takes for our kids to be in control of their own body!! In control of a medication that can keep them alive, yet kill them just the same!!

Yes, I caught an impending low, so I wasn’t so freaked out about Maddison bolusing herself. I’m sure I would have had a different reaction had I not caught the low early on. So, Maddison and I talked about the importance of getting the carb count right. I asked her to call me next time if she doesn’t have the carb count on a package. She assured me that I don’t know everything, and I get carb counts wrong too. –Sigh- My Maddie is growing up!

So, anyway....of course you know what happened next. Maddison was too high (201) and needed a correction going to bed. The night before Maddison had an unexplained 300ish high, so I was watching basals again anyway. An hour later Lilly woke up. So, I checked Maddison. She was 280. Corrected that. 90 minutes later, Lilly woke up. Maddison was…..479!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well….THANK YOU LILLY! I’m glad I didn’t sleep that extra hour only to see a HI staring back at me on the next BS check! (ONE NIGHT IS ALL IT TAKES INDEED FACEBOOK FRIENDS!!!) Sorry, but that’s TOO high for a basal problem! I knew the site was good before bed, so I checked the tubing instead. There it was! Nearly 3 INCHES of an AIR BUBBLE!!! ACK! Ketones were large. I primed the bubble line out, rebolused some missed basal and extra insulin. Set the alarm for an hour later. 401. Lilly was kind enough to wake me every hour to check Maddie’s high until 4am when I couldn’t take it anymore. Maddison was back down to 270 so I let Lilly run around the house with Roxxie! (or sleep with Roxxie at least!) I just couldn’t do it anymore!! I needed to sleep from 4-6! I had too! I woke up to Lilly zooming around the house with Momma Roxxie. No potty mess anywhere! THANK GOODNESS!!

I hooked myself back up to the CGM yesterday. I’m running much higher than normal in the mornings. (Gee, I wonder why) My meter read 100 when I went to bed, the CGM read 80. So, I left it. At some point the low alarms started sounding at 70. Then the CGM read that I was 60. I wasn’t. I was 108. I must say, the Minimed CGM is awesome for the fact that it vibrates very strongly when you don’t respond to the low alarm. It woke ME up. Just like we expect it too! A good thing for the night!

Another weird-O thing, last night I also had a nightmare. I’m sure it was triggered by the low alarms I kept hearing and feeling on the CGM. I kept turning them off, but they came back on saying I was low. That was irritating on top of an irritating night! Since the CGM alarms were on my mind all night, I dreamed that I had a heart attack. What’s a CGM have to do with a heart attack? Well, when my Dad had his heart attack his BS hit over 1,000. One of doctors tried to tell us that BS wouldn’t be affected by a heart attack. He blamed HIM for being that high before the heart attack!! They said his “uncontrolled Diabetes” and blood sugar of over 1,000 caused the heart attack!!!!!

So, in my dream, the CGM caught it all. My BS spiked up to over 1000 just like my Dads did when he had the heart attack back in December. (Only in my dream the CGM said my BS was something even crazier, like 2100) Funny how dramatic dreams can be! I remember feeling so proud in my dream because the CGM showed proof that heart attacks induce such a BS spike. So, the next thing I knew I was dreaming of how I took that CGM to the meanie, ignorant doctor and made him eat his words. I don’t know what ever happened to my heart attack in the dream….but I sure was happy to have confronted that Doctor!! LOL

So there is my crazy night! Somehow, it all comes down to Diabetes NEVER sleeps and neither do WE!!! Diabetes is.....a GREMLIN, and so is LILLY!!!