Thursday, September 17, 2015

The Nighttime Check in drawings


Every night, before I go to bed, I check my boys’ blood sugars.

Checking a sleeping teen/tween’s blood sugar is more a delicate process than one might think.  I don’t know if their dreams or especially violent, or if they are so exhausted they’re just not rational enough to control their actions, but if they are disturbed enough, they’ll fight against check.

They love to pull their hand away mid check, often sending the meter flying between the bed and the wall, nearly impossible to retrieve.


Or they try to pull their hand away as I hold onto it like a vice, which generally leads to all sorts of blood spurting about because I’m tightening my squeeze mid check.


Other times they’ll wake mid check and spaz out. 


Sometimes I wonder if they are clairvoyant.  They anticipate me going for the hand, and then they roll over away from me and slip their both their hands under their pillow.  Which requires me lying on top of them to retrieve a hand, and then rolling them towards me.


Sometimes their hands are tucked in their underwear for…warmth?

I’ll spare you the picture, and the description.

After I get the number, inevitably, one is always sleeping on his pump.  So to enter their number, I have to roll him over. 


Moving a sleeping teenager is akin to moving a dead body.  It’s a proven fact that dead bodies are heavier than awake bodies, mostly because dead bodies give you no help in the all-important arena of momentum…

Other times the pump is lost in a tangled web of sheets and legs.  Digging though can be tricky, as one needs to dig without being too invasive or handsy.  If they wake up during the feeling around phase…it can be awkward.


When I get lucky though, the pump is out in plain sight. 


Or other times they revert to autopilot after I check their blood sugar and just hand me the pump whilst sleeping.


Then there is the feeding phase if someone is low.

That is a whole other blog post.

The entire nighttime check process for all three boys takes less than five minutes, so I don’t mean to make a bigger deal out of it than it is.

But at the same time, I want to give all parents and caregivers props.

Nighttime checks can be a journey.  I think sometimes it’s just nice to know we aren’t journeying alone.



13 comments:

  1. I love it when I grab a hand to check and it is covered with slobber! #gross

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  2. This. Whole Thing. Lol.

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  3. right there with you all night last night!

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  4. Oh my goodness, I am laughing so hard. I would love to see the drawings for the feeding phase and I'd like to give you an image...when my son was 22 months old I had trouble getting him to wake up to eat or drink anything, so I had the brilliant idea to put maple syrup in a medicine dropped. He fought me like crazy. Thought I was torturing him with pancake syrup. We both had to take a bath after that. And it was the wee hours of Christmas morning too.

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  5. Love this blog. My son was diagnosed at ten. He leaves for college in a month. Keep writing. We are here with you.

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  6. Loved this post! Thanks for being real and for the laugh :-)

    Cheers, Carrie (Type 1 for 16 years - pink insulin pumper!)

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  7. Meri, I have no idea how long it took you to create all of those drawings. But it was worth it. Thanks for the smile, even if you're not smiling over this.

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  8. I literally laughed out loud reading this. The "hand warmth" thing to this day puzzles me with my husband, and it occurred to me that if we end up with one of our 2 boys diagnosed, that it will have to be their father who checks them at night...because...I just can't even go there. Our oldest is 10 and was diagnosed September 25, 2013. I have been struggling lately, having lots of down days and feeling completely overwhelmed by this disease. We are watching our 4 year old son very closely because of some suspicious things that have been happening lately with him, but, I personally can not wrap my head around A) having 4 boys and B) having 3 of 4 kids diagnosed. You are amazing. I am so glad I found this blog!

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  9. Totally cracked me up! It's so true, even with my girl. You are amazing for all that you do!

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  10. So awesome and so true. LOL

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  11. We just added a new dimension to nighttime checking since we just got our daughter a loft bed. (Her idea not ours!)

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  12. So true! My son sleeps with his hands under his arm pits.

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  13. OMG I had a loft bed too and sold it when we moved. Climbing up there at 3 AM with a flashlight in my mouth and my hands full of supplies...so many times dropping something mid way up and going up and down, up and down. Banged my head on the ceiling more than once when she kicked or moved. Lots of cursing during that year of the loft bed. Never. Again. EVER.

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