Homecoming

It's been a while since I have posted. I'd like to say "oh I was just super busy" but thats not the truth.
The truth is that I had nothing good to say for a while. My last post summed it up. We were all insanely sick of diabetes for a good long time. School called me two or three times a day with concerns, not only with Nolans blood sugars, but his behaviors as well. He was eluding the school nurse when he was meant to go in and tell her his sugars. He was taking detention regularly for doing stupid little things to get into trouble like chewing gum, or, writing on his desk, things like that. He was having a very rough year. I all but gave up. It was a constant battle. He was angry every day. He swore at me. My little angel swore at me, and not just the once. Not even once daily. He tried smoking. He wrote all over his arms and hands with black sharpie every day. It looked filthy and pissed off every adult on earth, including me. I'm not sure why, because I am one of those gals who goes around promoting freedom of expression...He wanted to guage his ears out, (which, much to his father's shagrin, I dont have a problem with).
The school counselor expressed concern that he wore mostly black clothes. I told her I was ok with that. "WHAT?" she spat her coffee onto her papers, "that's alright with you? You dont think he is alienating people that way?"
"only people that he feels a need to alienate, I guess, Half the kids at this school shop at HOT TOPIC for the love of everything holy, its a style... its not rebellious and dark if you can buy it at the mall!" I told her. Lost her at hello.

Basically he went through a metamorphosis, a very painful, unappealing incubation period and he is... I think... coming through it.
Now, he has not found the Lord Jesus, nor has he joined the chess club or the Golf team, and not just because they don't offer that at his school....
He may go out for track, but will probably never be a jock, and thats cool with me. He still plays his drums and is learning bass, and has impressed me to the point that I paid him cash money to babysit. At least half what I would pay a babysitter I was not related to.
He works a bit more with his diabetes. He still "forgets" to bolus. He still lies about his blood sugar levels, but not every time now.
He still swears, but not at me, now he just swears like he is talking to one of his friends, "oh I have a lot of homework and sh**." I correct him. He is 13 now. He is influenced by his friends now.
I am crossing my fingers for a better a1c and hoping for the best.
I was checking my phone last week. I often leave my ringer off so I can miss calls when I am driving... and school had called. CRAP. what now.
I called back.
"hi this is Jen Dean, well, Mary Dean, thats my first name, we have this conversation every time I just need to quit, Nolan is my son and I just got a call its probably from the nurse..."
"yes, Hold on let me try that extension"
"Julie Lastname, can I help you?"
"Hi Julie, its Jen, Nolans mom.... I saw that you called?" I could hear the defeated tone in my own voice.
"yes!" she started, "I just wanted to call and tell you that Nolan is really doing an excellent job coming into the office without being told this year, and his sugars are so much better and he is just all around much more pleasant and enjoyable to be around. We haven't had to chase him down once this year he is being VERY responsible"
Uh... huh? no, this is Nolan DEAN's mom.... uh... wait a minute... are you saying... what is this, am I on punked?
I had to choke back a little something that was caught in my throat and had some allergic sniffles right then. No I wasn't crying...
"Thank you" was all I could say for a second.
"I really appreciate hearing that, you have no idea how nice that is to hear....
and it was.
So, finally... he is loving himself a little more, and the rest of the world, or at least a few people that matter are taking note of what an awesome kid he really is.

Wow. Keep it up Nolan. Don't ever be someone you're not, but DO love yourself... and do show the world how you can shine from the inside out...
I love you Nolan.
and no mom could dare be prouder.

Today

Nolan has now officially retired from having diabetes. He is done, he has said, "I'm out!" and no longer wants to have anything to do with it.

And I dont blame him.

For almost five years, he was an ideal "diabetic" and endured all of the lameness of being sick and feeling crappy and shots and sites, and pokes, and lows and highs, and restrictions at times, and everything else a kid can go through.

Even when he was being diligent about his diabetes, with my help, he did still hear a lot about how he was maybe "faking" his low blood sugars, and "faking" feeling sick, or "playing games with his food" so that he could be high, or low, and go to the nurses office at school.
Because all of us know, there is no more rockin' place on earth than the nurses office.

If everyone accuses you of it... I guess, why not?
So it gave him a good idea. One night, when he was asleep, he somehow disconnected his pump, and consequently woke up at over 600 with ketones. Of course, he also had not eaten since dinner, so that did not help the case. I cant take him to school like that, and he had to stay home.

So, after that happened, he disconnected again, and again, and again. I dont know if he is doing it in his sleep, or if he is just doing it, but finally I started putting a tegaderm OVER the site at night before he goes to bed, which he despises, but it works.

He lies to me about what his blood sugars are, and wont show me his meter... I have to make him show me every time now, and he hates that.

I know that it stinks, and he really does understand why I need to do so much of that.... I would like to turn it over to him soon, but right now, he wont do anything.
He does not want to.

And why would you? when your parents ask what your bg is and you tell them 340, and then you get a myriad of questions as to why, and you dont really care, you just want to make the biggest lego airplane you can...
Did you eat something,
are you feeling ok?
Did you wash your hands first?
"I dont know, ma... I just want to be a kid"

And so, for now, I continue to sneak up on him and look at his pump, or I try to ask him when he is in a good mood, but often it is a fight. But, he is alive to fight with me.
And that is what is important.

SPANGST

Man alive! I love my son, but 5th grade has sone a number on his attitude. He is not only the whiniest kid on earth, he has also mastered the art of showing his exasperation with his incredibly stupid parents.

I remember that. I remember when I got so hip to the jive that my parents suddenly became the STEWPIDEST people roaming the earth. It was a miracle they were toilet trained, seeing that they spent thier entire lives in OBLIVION... and lucky for them, they had me to teach them. How did they fumble thier parts together TWICE in order to make my brother and I? Was it some moment of drunken clarity that they accidentally created life, I mean... these guys were dumb. I couldn't figure out how they managed anything, let alone both of them getting thier Masters Degrees.
(not to mention doing it BEFORE they got married ,and getting married BEFORE they had kids... now see, I did it exactly the opposite way around, first kids, then marriage, then a degree, no masters... not yet.. pine for that. smart me.

The new thing at my house is that whatever I go to tell my 11 year old, he already knows. He is showing a very astute psychic tendency, I will tell you that...

"Nolan, time to get up for school!"
"I KNOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWUH!"
Oh OK I didnt know.

"Nolan, I am going to pick you up a"- Interrupts- "I KNOWWWWWWWWWUHHHHH!"
"a new minibike after school" (i finish with a lie to get his attention)
"oh but you knew that already didnt you?"
"OH MY GOOODDDDDUUUHHHHHHH!"
He knows about my game.

"Nolan, could you put"--YES I KNOWWWWWWWWWWUHHHH!"
"your-" -"I KOWWWWW"
"socks-" -"YES I KNOOOOOOOOWWWWWWUUUHHHHHH!"
"in your-" -"I KNOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.. Im putting them in my dresser, GODDDDDDDDUHHHH!"
"MOUTH???? ALL OF THEM???? CAN YOU FIT THEM ALL IN THERE SO I DON'T HAVE TO HEAR YOUR CRAP?"

OK I dont say the last part, but I want to.
Dont even let me get started on when I ask for blood sugars.

Nolan is eleven. He is at the age that he wants to be with his friends more than with his family. He likes girls. Girls like him. They text him all night long. Zoe, Kaylee, Irelinn... constant phone flirting.
I will tell you that some of these girls are quite grown up in thier phone text conversations... When it gets out of hand, I take the phone away for awhile, and we talk.
I had taken it last week, with the unstated intent of keeping it for a couple of weeks to really teach him a lesson, but ended up giving it back to him on Friday.
On Friday, I went to his friends house, where Nolan was about to eat dinner, and go to a Hockey game... And I gave him his Glucagon, slipped it into his inside pocket, and his phone along with it, told him really quietly that I loved him, and said goodnight.

The next day, he spent a good amount of the day on the phone with a girl he'd met at the hockey game. We took a short road trip, and had a pretty laid back day.

I was feeding the baby in the kitchen when Nolan came downstairs. He sat across from her high chair in a high stool, with that silly look on his face, and a bit of a pallor.
"You Low?" I asked him... but he was busy texting. I imagined texting him..." u lo?" and chuckled to myself.
"Put the phone down and check your sugar." I told him.
His pump said 50 but the sensor was old, and who knows... it may be lower or higher and he would still look like that.
He did, but the lancet device broke, at that very moment, the poking mechanism did not work. I would have done a manual poke, but I knew he would not let me, so I started looking for another poker.
I pulled open the kit drawer, where we have nothing but blood glucose kits.
Kit after Kit after Kit I opened, and tossed over my shoulder-- NO POKER! some had nothing in them, some had only a meter that we never used, some had a meter strips and no poker... I handed him some candy.
I went to the other room to get Nolans backpack. He is supposed to always have everything in there... I felt around... nothing.........
No kit, and also.... it seemed like I felt the absence of something else... AH yes! The glucagon! I had put it into his coat pocket. So I checked the coat. No glucagon. Now, wait, I am still looking for a poker, I gave Nolan some more candy. I then continued my search.
"wheres your glucagon?" I asked him.
*shrug* he did not know. "maybe at the Tyson event center?" He said.
Now I was getting panicky. I left the room again to look one last place for a poker, and found one. My secret secret super secret stash of one kit plus poker.
I pulled it out of its hiding place, (a place so secret that it will not be named here.)Then I heard it. THUD!!!!
I took two steps back into the kitchen to see Nolan face down on the floor, pasty-white and in a stupor. He had fallen off of his stool.
I called for James, and starter crusing candy into a fine powder and gave it to Nolan, who was able to stand back up.
We poked and he was 42. It must have been lower than that before we treated with candy under the tongue.
The baby laughed and giggled at our silliness, and in his stupor, Nolan smiled at the baby and sang to her from his chair.
I read him the riot act about losing his glucagon.
I read him the riot act about not having a poker.
I mourned a little, that he is growing up and away from me a little. I mourned that he has to have diabetes as well as just being a pre-teen.
I mourned that he is not a tiny baby anymore, that I can fix all the worlds problems for.
I made him go to the pharmacy with me while I bought a new glucogen kit.
Today getting ready for school he checked his sugar, and I was just about to give him the standard lecture on keeping the kit in one place all the time, and just as I opened my mouth The stereo turned on.
My husband put in some Ska to get us all happy in the morning.
It is almost a religion for us. You cant be mad when there is ska music on.
So, we started dancing. I tried to teach Nolan to skank properly, but he wont get his elbows out quite right. But It was fun anyway. He does a really good job otherwise, and instead of fighting about diabetes today, we skanked in the living room while Patrick brushed his teeth, and James got Lily dressed.
And for once, we started off on a good note.
Nolan went to school laughing at my dancing.
And that, though I cannot fix all the worlds problems for him now, is maybe just what he needs.

I almost said this was a terrible Christmas. I was going to hilight the high blood sugars and the lows, and point out how diabetes does not take a Christmas Hiatus.
But I got about halfway through this story and it hit me how the little things can make or break an entire holiday.
This year things were just too rushed. I wanted to spend time sitting on the sofa with James, sipping coffee, while we watched the kids open surprises that would make their young eyes light up with joy. I wanted to enjoy how sweetly the kids got along on Christmas day, just as I remember my brother and I doing as kids... Playing together, getting along, laughing... while my parents sat in thier pajamas for an extra long time and we layed on our backs with our heads under the Christmas tree, basking in the glory of the day being all about us getting what we wanted while we gazed up at the lights and talked to each other out of happiness.
But this year... It was just too busy.
James had foot surgery on the 23rd, (had to get it in by the end of the year, for insurance purposes) And that caused loads of paperwork to have to be done for the days preceeding, and of course, one of the nurses at my work quit, her last day being the 19th, so I had to be on call more often, and all the shopping was last minute, and I was wrapping presents on Christmas day still, all the while stopping to feed a hungry baby, stop kids from arguing, and make a futile attempt to pick up some of the slack with James being a foot shy of a helpful husband. (he is usually more than helpful... In fact, I need him... just dont tell him I said that out loud)
I found myself wishing I could stop the clock and just enjoy....
And to make things glorious, Nolan lost his kit twice at Grandma and Grandpa Deans house house.
I had just finished feeding the fussy baby and told him to check when he admitted to me that he could not find it, and walked into the kitchen to ask if anyone had seen it.
What did not surprise me was the immediate response of all the adults around, "OH he lost his blood sugar kit? I have not seen it.... and then they all ask around, and do some looking, not find it, and go back to what they were doing, assuming I had located the little bugger.
But I was still looking. Once in awhile, someone would ask if we found it... show some concern, and then go back to what they were doing.
And they probably don't see the importance of it. I used to become really upset when people did not understand... But now I dont feel bad about it. I am no longer on a quest to make the whole world see how crucially he needs his supplies. I have given up on that with no hard feelings. Sure, it would be nice, but that's not realistic, and they are just being who I was before I had a kid with Diabetes.

Nobody is being uncaring, but most of the time, they just dont know how to help, and perhaps the best way to help, is just to stay out of the crazed lunatics way as she tosses stuff around like a wild woman as she looks for a 3X4 inch black sqare case containing a key to her childs life support.


Normally I would be able to enlist James' help... But since he is not walking well currently, I couldn't. I had to get someone to hold the baby, get my coat, and go outside to join Nolan in his quest to find the kit, after the house had been unsuccessfully combed.

As I was opening the front door, and saw a black coat sitting on the bench right next to it, and squinted my eyes a little, and there it was... the outline of the kit.

Leave it to my kid to find the ONLY black thing in the room below eye level and put his kit right there, right on it. COMPLETELY camouflaged.

I grabbed it and opened the front door to see Nolan, walking briskly with his head down, looking through the snow, trying to recall his steps...
And I had to smile, when I saw him, because out there with him, in the cold snow was his Uncle Joe, patiently walking beside him and helping him to look for his kit.

I called out to him, and briefly thanked Joe for helping him....

But I mean to really tell him sometime... just how much that meant to me.

I think the best Christmas gift imaginable is to know that someone else who doesnt necessarily have to, offers some support and love to your kid.

That was the best thing I got for Christmas.

Gouda

Good lord.
People say that little girls whine. As a young child, I was always told to quit whining... especially by my dad and my brother, to which I would reply in the most high pitched voice I could muster, "I'm NOT Whiiiiiiiinnnniiingggggggg-uh!"
Whats funny is that almost any whined word is followed immediately by the syllable, "UH".
Try it. "Give it heeeeerrrreeeee-uh!" try again, "It's not Miiiiiiinnnneee-uh!"
"Leave me alooooooooooooooooone-Uh!"

I think its because we have to grunt to get the whine out. whines are so forced, so frustarated. A whined word is one that resents having to be uttered... never should have to have been spoken, which should have been known before it was incited... by the person eliciting the whine in the first place. Usually a parent of some sort.

Rarely does a teacher hear the whine.

The whine is annoying, and makes communication difficult.

But I will maintain that girls are not the whiners. There is a creature out there that is FAR whinier than the little girl who doesnt get the doll she wants at the store.

There is one creature who utters 99% of all whines that cause sound.

I have said this long before I ever had one, the whiniest creature of all is the eleven year old boy.

And now I have one.
Oh I saw it coming. Not because there was some sort of warning sign, but because I had the joy of working with all ages of kids at a shelter for homeless kids.
Now, if anyone has anything to whine about, its orphans. For sure.
But time and time again, I found myself bristling up the back due to one genre of orphan. the eleven year old boy orphan, and I have suspected that this affliction extends to eleven year old boys with families as well.
And it turns out my suspicions are correct.
Now they don't do it around their friends, but they will do it when any mixed group with adults and kids. And they will do it constantly. They are now the self elected announcers on what is and is not fair in the world.
And there going to tell you.
"No FAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIR-uh!!!!! He got more than me" to which you should always reply, "what are you Monk??? Its upsetting the natural order of the universe because your brother got one skittle more than you did?"
and the eleven year old boy will inevitably say, "GOOOOOOODDDDDDD-UH!"

My son's teacher emailed me a few weeks ago, asking if I could please set the date/time option for his meter for the correct time.
I hit the "reply" button and started typing away, as I often do before I even have time to think about what I just read... I typed, "which meter? the pink one touch, the green one touch, the one touch ultra smart, the one touch ultra that is round with a yellowish screen, or one of the accuchecks, and by the way have you seen the green one touch anywhere lately?"
But then I hit the delete key, and watched everything I just said go away. Sometimes I wish I could do that in real life...
We do have a lot of meters.... and for a kid like Nolan, who loses at least one kit a day, we need them, or we will be spending all day looking for that little black zipper bag... yelling at each other. I lose stuff too, as does my husband... Actually, I lock my keys in my car. James loses his wallet and checkbook, Nolan loses his kit and his homework and his backpack and anything else he needs. Things just dont stick to him, or his dad. They should be nudists.

Anyway, I erased my words, because I thought first, "why does she need the time to be set... he doesnt use a meter that communicates with his pump..."

I thought naively for a while on that... then I thought... OH. wait.
I get it.
She thinks he is "faking" when he is low.
She is checking up on him, despite what my care plan said.
Despite the fact that I told her that even if he has a normal number, he may still need to treat if he feels low.
That skanky bitch.
I told her... under NO uncertian terms, that he does NOT fake lows, and that even if you think he is faking, even if you KNOW he is, you let that kid treat, because you may be making a grave error.

So I wrote back,
"no. I am not going to waste any time doing that. He has a continous glucose monitor on, and I download that info, the only other reason for doing that is so I can download and find patterns.... He has so many meters, some reset themselves here and there, the battery cover comes off, and suddenly it is november first, 2002 again, so... I dont mess with them these days.
Does it bother you when clocks are set wrong? Is this a "monk" type of a thing, or are you having him show you his blood sugars. He doesnt need anyone to check on this, but If I see fit, I will let you know when and if that ever becomes necessary. "

Then I hit send.