Month: December 2015

Richard’s Diagnosis Story

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Diagnosis stories are powerful teaching tools that help people learn to recognize the symptoms of type 1 diabetes. For the person diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a diagnosis is the day his or her life changes and goes forward. Semisweet is sharing “Richard’s Diagnosis Story” in his own words. Richard has been living with type 1 diabetes for over 70 years. In 2006 he joined the diabetes online community, where people were fascinated to hear Richard’s story of living with T1D in the 1940s and beyond. In 2010, Richard published his autobiography, “Beating The Odds: 64 Years Of Diabetes Health.”

Richard, diagnosed at age 6, September 1945

I was born in 1939, in Roanoke, VA, and I had several illnesses before my fifth birthday: three different kinds of measles and my tonsils removed. When I was five I had chicken pox and mumps, and while recovering I began showing the classic symptoms of diabetes— excessive peeing and drinking so much water. My parents took me to three different doctors, but they did not recognize my symptoms, so there was no diagnosis. I lost my appetite, and refused to eat. I just wanted to drink.

One doctor prescribed a tonic that was supposed to restore my appetite. I still remember the bad taste and tall glass bottle filled with dark brown liquid. It was like the snake oil medicine that we have read about from the past. The tonic did not help at all. It probably made my condition worse because it contained sugar. By the time we saw a fourth doctor I was very weak, and had lost a lot of weight. My ribs were very noticeable when my shirt was removed. The fourth doctor recognized my symptoms, and took a blood sample in his office. The sample was sent to a lab, and we waited a few days before returning to his office for the results.

His office was on the second floor of a building on Main Street in Salem, VA, and I struggled to slowly walk up the long flight of stairs. My father was carrying my three year old sister, but I was too big to be carried. In the doctor’s office, my mother and I sat in chairs while my father stood behind us, still holding my sister. I do not remember the doctor’s face, or his words, but I’ve never forgotten my mother’s pale and frightened face. In September 1945, a few days after my sixth birthday, we were told that I had sugar diabetes. I was hospitalized the next day, and don’t remember much about the stay, except for the injections and the blood that was collected. Insulin, taken from pigs or cows caused me to gradually regain my appetite, and I stopped losing weight. By the time I was home, I looked like a human being again, and my strength was very much improved.

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Richard and his family a few months after his diagnosis

While in the hospital, I was treated by Dr. Davis and he became the doctor for my whole family. I saw him every six months, and he took blood samples, testing them in his office lab while I waited. My blood sugar was always high, but I don’t recall him ever mentioning numbers. We were not concerned though because we did not know about the complications that might occur with my eyes, kidneys, and other body parts. One shot per day, one urine test, large portions of food, and no worries. Ignorance was bliss.

There were no meters for testing blood sugar at home until the 1980s, almost forty years after my diagnosis. We tested my urine at home, every morning, but the procedure for doing that was very awkward. The first thing I did each morning was to pee in a cup. Some Benedict’s solution was placed in a large test tube, and several drops of urine were added. The test tube was placed upright in a container of water on our stove. When the water had boiled a while, the test tube was removed, and the color of the solution was observed. The original color of the Benedict’s solution was blue. If the solution containing the urine was blue, after boiling, then there was no sugar present in the urine. If sugar was present in my urine, then there would be colors: green, yellow, orange, brick red, or brown. Green showed a low amount of sugar, brown showed very high sugar.

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testing blood sugar with Benedict’s solution

It was nice that there was only one injection each day before breakfast, but there were no fast and slow acting insulins, so control of my blood sugar levels was not good at all. The animal insulin was a 24 hour insulin, so the morning urine test result determined the dosage, but urine tests do not approximate blood sugar well. The glass syringe and metal needles were kept in alcohol, and sterilized with boiling water on the stove once each week. We had our own well, and the water contained limestone deposits. After boiling, there was a white film on the needles and syringe, so we had to use a whetstone to remove the deposits. The limestone frequently clogged the insides of the needles, so we had to push a small wire through the needles to unclog them. If the deposit was not removed it was difficult to push the needle into my skin. The needles were almost three quarters of an inch in length. I was supposed to push the needle into the muscle on top of my legs, or on my arms. My father gave me my injections until I was ten.

During the night I would sometimes have hypos. Some of those hypos became seizures. I would thrash around during my sleep, my teeth clinched, my muscles would become drawn, and I was almost unconscious. Mother poured small amounts of the sugar water they kept nearby on my lips, until I had enough in my mouth to partially awaken me. Then I drank the liquid more freely. I was always drenched with sweat, and very weak after a seizure. My body was sore the next day and the sugar water caused my urine test to show high the next morning. I continued to have seizures for many years, but they occurred less frequently when I was older. There was never any effort made to call an ambulance. Perhaps it was because the nearest hospital was at least 10-15 miles from our house, and I doubt that the paramedics in the ambulance had glucagon injections. Home care was probably the best solution. I think my mother saved my life many times during the years I lived at home.

Dr. Davis told us that I should not eat sugar, but no other instructions about an appropriate diet were given, so we didn’t know about carbohydrates. We lived on our little ten acre farm, and we had cows, chickens, pigs, and a horse. There was a very big garden, and an orchard. We bought very little food at the grocery store, so processed food was rarely part of my diet. Our own milk, eggs, vegetables, and fruit were readily available. We had meat from the chickens and pigs. Mother canned food each summer and fall. I helped my father with the farm work, and I was very hungry, so I ate big portions at every meal. I ate all the same food that my parents and sister ate, except items containing sugar. Mother used saccharin to sweeten the pies, cookies and cakes that she made for me. I ate lots of bread, potatoes, and other things that were not good for me, but we thought all foods were okay, if they did not contain sugar.

My parents did the best they could for me during my childhood and Dr. Davis gave no instructions that helped. We did not know there could be potential problems, and I led a rather normal day to day existence. There were no health problems with my diabetes throughout my childhood, despite my very irregular blood sugars. I have often wondered why I did not have DKA back then. Was something protecting me? All the fast acting carbs I ate each day (without correction boluses like I take now) must have kept my blood sugar very high. I’m sure my parents were devastated by my diabetes, and not knowing how to care for me. My parents raised me in much the same way that they were raised in their mountain homes. They were raised on farms, and they loved that kind of living.

When I talk to parents of T1D children diagnosed today, I advise them to join online diabetes support groups for parents. Children with Diabetes, created by Jeffrey Hitchcock, and the many parents’ support groups on Facebook are very good sources of advice and information for parents. Getting support from experienced parents can help so much! There are books that are available, but I think the online community is best. Having T1D children meet other children in their communities is a very good idea. Diabetes camps in the summertime are an excellent idea. Attending the Friends For Life conference in Orlando, FL is another source that I have seen work so well with children who are type 1.

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Richard at 76, having lived with T1D for 70 years

If you’d like learn more about Richard’s life with type 1 diabetes, then check out this video interview where Richard shares his experiences with Daniele Hargenrader. Richard was also interviewed about living with T1D for over 7 decades on Diabetes Mine. Richard will also be a speaker at the 2016 FFL conference in Orlando, FL. You can follow Richard on Twitter @Richardvau157.

‘Tis the Cookie Season

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A few weeks after starting Kindergarten, I noticed a blue ring around my non T1D daughter’s mouth. When I asked her about it, she quipped, “Brain’s birthday,” which I later found out meant that with 24 kids in class over 36 weeks of school means  a birthday celebration every two weeks. Plus holiday parties. Even before type 1 diabetes entered our family, we’d reserved sweet treats for special occasions. If a child asks for something like a grocery store cupcake, we generally respond with, “It’s probably not a good idea for anyone to eat that.” Sure, a grocery store cup cake once in a while is fine, but treats like this seem to have permeated childhood.

I think most parents aren’t thrilled about the idea of their kids eating this kind of food. Now imagine your child has type 1 diabetes.

Generally, this scenario can go two ways. The child with diabetes is told he or she can’t have the treat by a parent volunteer or teacher, so then the kid gets to eat nothing (or sugar-free Jell-O) while watching his or her classmates enjoy deli cupcakes or cookies. In the second scenario, the child gets to eat the treat, because children with type 1 can eat anything, but it’s just impossible to get synthetic insulin to match the metabolic challenge that is a partially hydrogenated, shelf-stable, steroid level sugared, red dye #3 filled deli cupcake. So the kid with type 1 eats the cupcake, and has an elevated blood sugar for several hours, which is difficult to bring down, and during this elevated blood sugar, the kid feels foggy, tired, achey, thirsty, and upset. So, what’s the right choice? There isn’t one.

As parents, we’ve fallen on both sides of the sugar divide. We’ve let our son eat cupcakes at birthday parties and battled 300-400 blood sugars into the night that don’t seem to budge no matter how much insulin we pour on it. In other instances, we’ve brought our own low carb “treat,” avoided events, or distracted him. Moments like this reveal that diabetes is often a choice between bad and worse.

As we enter another season of sweets, we’ll fall on both sides of the sugar divide, and recognize that when a parent has to choose between bad and worse, it’s a pretty lousy feeling.

This week we were at a birthday party, for which we’d planned all day.  We knew the carb counts of what would be at the party. We’d purposefully kept our son’s carb intake light in preparation for the party. We had a rockin’ prebolus and temporary increased basal. At the dessert buffet, we let Henry choose anything he wanted to eat, and he ate gold fish, clementines, a cupcake, pretzels in a pool of white chocolate, peanuts covered in chocolate, and pop corn. He selected almost everything except for this cookie, but he kept circling back to it during the party.

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During his third trip to the table, I walked over to talk with him about it. He said, “Mama, look at those cookies.”

“I know,” I said. “Those cookies look really silly. I think they were made to look like a Dr. Seuss character.”

“Yeah,” he said, and he just stood there a long time. A long time. Not taking one. Not asking for one. Just looking.

“What do you think they taste like?” he asked.

Not wanting to pile more sugar on what was a high and rapidly rising blood sugar, I said, “I think they taste sour.”

As these words were coming out of my mouth, I knew they were simultaneously the easy and worse choice. We never tell Henry that he can’t eat something because he has type 1 diabetes, but in a way, I just did.

He walked away from the table and played soccer with a balloon as we helped clean up for the next hour. We headed over to our hosts’ house, where all the cookies and party treats followed. We ordered Chinese food for dinner, and learning from our previous Chinese food experience two weeks ago, we went bold with insulin and ran a combo bolus coupled with an increased basal. About 45 minutes after dinner, Henry’s blood glucose was 70 with 1.39 units of insulin on board.

“Hey Henry,” I asked, “Do you want to try one of those cookies with the silly eyes?”

“Yeeeeeesssss,” he shouted, and ran to the kitchen.

He came back with the cookie accomplished, and while dusting the crumbs from his thumbs on his shirt, he said, “Hey mama, those cookies don’t taste sour.” He said it with this kind of crazy half-smile that told me he was dubious about sour cookies from the get-go. Smart kid.

Charitable Fighting

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On episode 41 of the Juicebox Podcast, host, Scott Benner talks with the JDRF’s Director of Discovery Research, Albert Hwa, about some of the current and promising research the JDRF is doing. During the interview Benner posses an almost rhetorical question, “What’s the last thing we cured as a society? Is it polio?”

This question hit me hard, maybe because I was pulling into the drugstore parking lot to get yet another month’s supply of insulin and test strips. We’ve never told our son that his diabetes will be cured. I don’t count on type 1 diabetes being cured in my lifetime, or his. I hope it will, and it’s wonderful to hope and support the goal of curing diabetes, but I think it’s dangerous to promise a young child with diabetes that his or her disease will be cured.

If Henry grows up believing that his disease will be cured in five or twenty years and it isn’t, how will this affect his feelings toward the organizations, scientists, and doctors who are working on a cure? I’ve heard so many people and families affected by T1D talk about turning away from charities, organizations, and even their own self-care, because at diagnosis, medical professionals and organizations said a cure was on the horizon in X years. And after X years arrived, there’s no cure.

When Henry asks if he will have his diabetes forever, we tell him yes. In general, when “yes” is a harder answer than “no,” the question is serious. We tell Henry that he’ll have his diabetes forever, but that it will get easier to have T1D because doctors and scientists are working really hard on ways to make diabetes hurt less and be easier to take care of.

If you follow diabetes research, you’re well aware that people have strong opinions about the JDRF, The Faustman Lab, and other organizations. The stakes are high and charitable giving is limited, so it’s natural that opinions butt heads. Shorty after our son’s diagnosis, I was on the phone with our local chapter of the JDRF. I’ve read about the promising trials going on at the Faustman Lab, and I was in the room when Ed Damiano released the iLet this summer. Some people gasped, and others who’d been living with diabetes for decades began to cry, and in my own anticipation for Henry to have a better life, it struck me that this is one of the many ways hope arrives.

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Photo Credit: Jeff  Hitchcock, Friends for Life

When Banting first conceived of insulin, it’s rumored he was in a semi-intoxicated state, preparing for a lecture on metabolism in the wee hours of the morning, while in a less than prestigious lecturer position. He was largely working in isolation without much support. Lightening may strike twice, but I’m not counting on the next diabetes breakthrough to emerge from isolation and without support.

I don’t know if the next advancement in diabetes care will be islet transfers, beta cell encapsulation, or related to immunotherapy. I do know that it’s important that my son sees us supporting the people who work everyday to make his life easier.

This week, Semisweet donated money to the Bionic Pancreas, the Faustman Lab, and started Team Henry for our local JDRF One Walk. We added a Donate page to provide more information about diabetes research. Please consider joining us in one of the causes.

99 Diabetes Problems and Breakfast Is One Of Them

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Having type 1 diabetes means following a pattern of exact measurements and calculations, all the while knowing that a pattern or desired result could likely not be the outcome. One day, Henry can run around like a madman at the playground and then come home to compete is some serious sofa jumping, and sometimes this physical activity will cause him to have a low blood sugar, but other times his blood sugar can go up.

However, there is a constant calculation in type 1, a perfect diabetes storm: food, stress, and biology, otherwise known as breakfast.

Food

Common breakfast foods such as sugary cereals, pancakes, waffles, and bagels are refined carbs that jack up blood sugars. The quickest way to see two arrows up (which indicates a rapidly rising blood glucose) on a CGM is to eat these common, simple carb-rich breakfasts foods.

Stress

I’m always confused by those scenes on T.V. shows and movies where families sit down in work clothes to pitchers of orange juice, bacon, and omelets before work and school. Really? Does this really happen? Really? A montage of a morning scenes at my house involves waking up two young kids, brushing hair and eating at the same time, putting at least one article of clothing on backwards, forgetting something, the kids playing a last minute game of school with stuffed animals just minutes before they go to their actual school. And diabetes care.

Biology

Breakfast is literally breaking a fast. When we go a long time without food, our body makes its own energy through glucoseneogensis, which is exactly what the word sounds like: the creation of new glucose, which is done from glycogen stores in the liver. In someone without T1D the beta cells of the pancreas send a message to the alpha cells of the pancreas to start the process of glucoseneogensis, which prevents our blood sugar from dropping too low, or around 70, in long time periods without food, like overnight or interminable work meetings.

In someone with T1D, the beta cells are non-functioning and therefore can’t communicate with the alpha cells. So the result of this is sporadic and unreliable glucoseneogensis. If endogenous (originating inside the body) glucose is being circulated, it takes exogenous (coming from outside the body) insulin to bring a blood glucose back in range. People with T1D are taught to account for exogenous glucose (glucose coming from food), but endogenous glucose is a crapshoot.

I don’t have type 1, and I’ve worn my son’s continuos glucose monitor on occasion. In the picture below, you can see a CGM on the top, which is my son’s. He woke up with a high blood glucose just below 200, and experienced a quick rise from the carbs he ate for breakfast. I woke with a blood sugar around 80, and it rose after I got up, cooked, and got the kids ready. The arrow points to where my blood sugar rose because of glucoseneogensis, but my endogenous insulin production quickly brought my level back down. The rising line on my son’s CGM shows just how difficult it is to get biology and math to line up.

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Top CGM: T1D with high waking BG post breakfast with insulin and carbs, Bottom CGM: non T1D with waking BG around 80 and glucoseneogensis

Here’s one of the great challenges of diabetes care: a person caring for type 1 diabetes has to make decisions that simultaneously require anticipation and reaction. Every morning, we have to react to the waking glucose value and anticipate the food, activity, emotion, and invisible metabolic processes that Henry will encounter during his day.

It’s taken a while, but here’s how we’re navigating the perfect storm of diabetes and breakfast.

Food

Now that we’re paying attention to food, it’s really obvious that everyone should not eat some things. On occasion, I’ve worn my son’s CGM, and I can watch my non T1D blood sugar rise after eating a few crackers or a bit of bread. When I eat a salad or lean protein, there’s no rise in the line that indicates my blood sugar. It’s an easy conclusion: some foods, usually shelf-stable refined carbs, should not regularly be eaten.

For breakfast we try to balance our son’s plate with a fat, a protein, and carb. A typical breakfast for him might be something like an egg sandwich (check out this low carb bread) with cheese and an apple, or a wholegrain waffle with sugar-free syrup, sausage, and an egg.

Stress

I got nothing here. Diabetes makes everything harder. In related news,  (see above) we’ve opened a casual breakfast diner at our place.

Biology

Diabetes brings consistent inconsistencies. This morning Henry’s waking blood sugar was 94. Yesterday, it was 186. His blood sugar will be inconsistent, but we can consistently pre-bolus. Lately, while our son is still waking up, often in bed, or as part of getting dressed, we pre-bolus his insulin for breakfast. As his body goes through the metabolic process of waking up, and we complete the morning tasks of getting ready, this is a great time to pre-bolus and let the insulin’s onset of action time line up better with the carbs he’ll be eating in about 15-20 minutes.

With all this science, research, and effort, here’s yesterday’s two-hour post breakfast data.

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Looks like we’ll be pre-bolusing and serving up eggs over easy at Casa Del Semisweet from now on.

 

Announcing our first GIVE AWAY!

You’re invited to comment and with a recipe, link, or breakfast idea that’s blood sugar friendly. I’ll leave a few ideas and links in the comments to some breakfast foods we’ve been trying. If you post your comment by December 31st, a winner, at random, will be selected to receive a bar of handmade Semisweet Soap. I’ll contact the winner for shipping information, and we only ship within the U.S.

Team Pancreas: Caregivers Matt & Rachel

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How would you describe your child’s condition?

Matt: Henry has type 1 diabetes. This means that his entire life is centered around the fact that his body does not produce the insulin he needs to process glucose, so we check his blood sugar about ten times a day by poking a small needle into his finger and adding that drop of blood onto a meter that tells us what his BG (blood glucose) is. Depending on what the number is, we give him insulin, sugar, or wait. This means that we deal with low blood sugars, which are potentially, immediately, fatal; high blood sugars, which can have drastic, long-term consequences for his life; or “normal” blood sugars, which help keep him healthy. We get up every two hours every night to help maintain his blood glucose. Two weeks ago, Henry looked at me and said, “Diabetes is a hard life.” I agree.

Rachel: Our son, Henry, has an autoimmune disease, type 1 diabetes. Something triggered his beta cells to stop producing insulin, so he must take subcutaneous insulin for the rest of his life, test his blood glucose 8-12 times a day and always account for the carbs he eats with insulin. There’s never a break from type 1 diabetes, because the person with diabetes or the person’s caregiver/s is trying to replicate a job the pancreas once did.

What care for your child is required, and how do you and your partner divide this care?

Matt: We make sure that he gets enough insulin to cover the carbs (sugars) he eats so that his blood glucose does not get too high and cause damage to his organ systems. We also make sure that his BG does not drop to a low level that could result in seizure or death. We count all of the carbs he eats and program his (miraculous) insulin pump to keep him in balance. We also change his pump site every two to three days, as well as his constant glucose monitor (CGM), another amazing device that keeps us updated on an estimate of his BG. Rachel definitively manages the difficult logistics of this care. She deals with insurance companies, refills at the pharmacy, and talking to the reps at Animas (insulin pump) and Dexcom (CGM).

Rachel and I both deal with the daily stresses of handling diabetes. We both count carbs, take BG readings, get up in the middle of the night and evenly split the duties of changing Henry’s pump and CGM sites. Henry has developed a pretty nasty allergy to the tape that holds both of these machines onto his skin, so we have to take a lot of precautions to make sure that his exposure to them is minimized. Rachel reached out to the diabetes online community and found people who helped us come up with solutions when our docs had basically given up and asked us to go to multiple daily injections.

The best balance that we have, in terms of day-to-day care, is that Rachel is very good at keeping track of what Henry needs medically and practically; she amazes me with how much she has learned about diabetes and its care—  and I am helpful in the ways that I try to create some distance from a life with diabetes and a “normal” life for Henry. I’m probably more likely to encourage us to get ice cream or wait to change a site— this balance only functions because of how hard Rachel works.

Rachel: In the wise words of Kenny Rogers, “Know when to hold ‘em, /  Know when to fold ‘em / Know when to walk away / Know when to run.” I know when to hold ‘em, which comes in handy with the rigor and attention counting carbs and dosing insulin requires. Matt knows when to fold ‘em and let Henry live the life of a five year old with birthday parties, extra ice cream, and a day longer with a site. Henry will need both of these skills as he learns to live and manage his diabetes. Balancing diabetes is an art and a science, so I’m the science while Matt’s the art. Matt and I both know when to walk or  run away from a negative comment, failing site, or excessive carb scene.

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Team Pancreas

How has being a caregiver changed your relationship?

Matt: I don’t think it’s changed us fundamentally. We don’t always agree about everything to do with Henry, but we always talk about why we think a certain action is best in the certain moment. Ultimately, we are both focused on making sure that Henry is safe and protected. Chronic conditions are definitely an added stressor, and I’m sure that we get a little snappier at 3:00 in the morning, but we are both committed to each other and to caring for Henry.

Rachel: A lot, but a little. A lot because we are now caregivers for our son, who has a chronic condition, but not a lot because we decided to become partners and then parents together long before diabetes entered our lives, so we’ve mostly figured out how to handle stress and difficulty. A day to day difference is struggling with time, because everyday actions, such as preparing for a trip or eating at a restaurant, are now more complex and require discussion, preparation, and planning. We have to depend on each other more.  

Describe a caregiver technique you and your partner do differently.

Rachel: We both do really hard things. For the past 18 months I’ve put in Henry’s pump site, which feels like I’m stabbing him with a giant needle. Henry anticipates site changes, and it’s just awful to know that I’m causing my child physical pain, even if it’s for treatment. When Henry asks something like, “Will I have diabetes when I’m a grown up?” Matt can answer this question honestly and have Henry laughing within a few minutes, whereas I have to leave the room because I don’t trust myself to answer without getting choked up.

Matt: We have split things up, but we talk or text at least two or three times a day about his care when we are both at work. Changing the site of Henry’s pump is stressful because of the precautions we have to take with his skin and because he dreads them. We put Lidocaine on his skin to decrease the pain but they still worry him. I prep the area on his skin and get the pump primed to administer insulin and hold him while Rachel actually inserts the pump.

In twenty words or less, describe your partner’s caregiving superpower.

Rachel: Matt’s superpower is levity that inspires patience and laughter, needed in the shadow of a wrong number at the right moment.

Matt: Rachel’s superpower is her love for Henry and how this gives her a laser-like focus on keeping him alive.