I think I mentioned in my last post the need to further update you all…. unfortunately life seems to keep marching on around here and I feel like I can barely keep up with it. I’ll try to update but honestly the last few days have been so busy I am sure I will leave some things out.
I mentioned that my glucose test came back high and I had to go for a second test well, it too came back high. They wanted to squeeze me in a week ago Wednesday at the diabetic clinic but I was with Joel in the hospital while he received chemo.
They were able to make an appointment with another doctor on this past Monday. I was relieved to have a different doctor, when I was pregnant with Hannah my blood sugar was a little high and they had me see the doctor I would have seen had I been able to make the Wednesday appointment. He was terrible, he had no bedside manner insulted me several times. He insisted on referring to my early stage miscarriages as abortions. I know they are often medically referred to as spontaneous abortions… but he looked at me and said, ‘I see you’ve had 2 abortions.’ To which my mouth fell open and said no I did not!!!!! He then explained that the chart said I had one at 6 weeks and one at 8 weeks… I clarified that those were miscarriages he seemed to delight in telling me that the correct medical term in the 1st trimester was a ‘spontaneous abortion.’ Enough about him, thankfully I had a sweet sympathetic doctor this time.
They explained that I was not borderline this time like I was with Hannah, with this baby I went all the way and was officially a gestational diabetic. Over the next, 2 hours first the doctor, then the dietitian and the nurse explained to me how my life was going to have to be over the next 8 weeks. 4 shots of insulin a day and 7 finger pokes a day to check my blood. (Since Monday they have upped me to 5 shots of insulin a day.)
Of course, I had to ask, ‘that means no sweets at all??’
‘None!’
‘Christmas?’
‘None!’
Oh, I know things could be worse, but, right now things already seem so crazy. Tonnes of trips back and forth to Joel’s hospital. All of my ‘baby doctor,’ appointments, juggling housework, homeschool and just fun family time and now I have to add in an extra appointment a week not to mention the daily schedule of being a diabetic. I have to give myself shots at regular times during the day, have meals and snacks at regular times and check my blood at certain times. I actually bought myself a cheap digital watch to help me stay on track. I am not usually a person of the clock. I have certain things I try to get done in a day but I do not necessarily set time slots for them so this is a radical change for me and my lifestyle.
I haven’t even mentioned my dear friend… chocolate… I didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye.
So, an appointment that I thought would take an hour took 3, 1 hour waiting and 2 hours with the team. Needless to say, I was running way behind. I rushed home in time to get the kids ready to go and we headed off to Candlelighter’s Christmas party. (A party for families with a pediatric cancer patient.) We got there and they had games and balloon animals, pizza and cotton candy, mini hockey sticks and some Senator Hockey players, Santa and gifts. We have never focused on Santa in our family, but the kids know who he is…well Hannah is oblivious, Joel is unsure what to make of him and the older three all know the ‘truth’ about Santa. We have told our kids that Santa is a game that people play at Christmas but most little kids don’t know they are playing it, so it is never your place to say he isn’t real or something like that as it would spoil their game.
That being said we have never played the Santa game, yet through media Joel has been exposed and he is inclined to think that perhaps there is something to this Santa thing, however, he is clever enough that any Santa he has seen could not possibly be the real one if there was a real one. He told me everyone is just playing at it. Not sure what he would think if he saw one with a real beard. Joel is our first child that has seemingly wanted to believe that there could be a Santa.
Anyway back to the party, the kids had a great time and I forgot the camera in the car…(I think I was obsessing about giving myself my insulin and checking my blood.) As a gift the kids all received a a new pair of pj’s and a book. So when I got home I had to take a picture of them all in their jammies.
I also took a picture of their balloon animals.
Which brings us to Tuesday, I drove the kids to my parents house so I could try and get some last minute shopping done. Once again my shadow named Joel had to accompany me. Even though it was a Tuesday the stores were a ZOO! Joel got tired and I dropped him off at my parents with the rest of the kids and went to my final destination. I thought instead of driving to another city to get my ‘diabetic’ prescription filled why not use the one at the grocery store and save myself some time. Well, they had a hard time and I sat waiting for over a 1/2 hour. I raced back and pick up the kids so I could get supper on as Dave was going to work and I needed to feed him. We were also having Mr. Turner and His Mom Mrs. Turner 🙂 popping in (Mr. Turner is doing the electrical in the attic bedroom.)
Just before they arrived I pulled out my ‘treasures’ from the pharmacy… the hospital had set me up with the finger poking device but I would need to get replacements for it…. lances. Well the ones the pharmacy sold me were individual ones and mine come in a little drum. I tried everything I could think of to figure out how these little things fit in my finger poker thing, I even googled it. I came to the conclusion these things do not go together.
Well I had a lovely visit with Frances (Mrs. Turner) and decided not to worry about the finger poking device until the next day.
Wednesday morning came around and I rolled over and looked at the clock 7:55. 7:55… what? we’d slept in, every single one of my 5 kids were all still asleep, this place is usually rocking with activity at 6am!!! I was late giving myself my first insulin shot, I’d only been up for about 15 minutes when the nurse from the hospital called. She wanted my numbers for the previous day and that morning as they were pretty sure they would need to adjust my insulin dosages. She confirmed that I had the wrong lances.
There was a flurry of activity over the next hour as I got myself, Joel and the 2 girls ready to go to the hospital. Elijah and Joshua were staying behind to help Dave, Mr. Kline and Mr. Robert work on the attic. We were running behind and were only 10 minutes late arriving at the hospital but no one said anything as we came bearing gifts. Joel was such a trooper he didn’t even flinch when he had his port accessed he does it with no numbing cream or freezing spray. Joel isn’t usually very chatty with hospital staff but he was in a stellar mood, and the nurses fussed over him. One of them gave him some candy canes to bring home to share with his sibs. She said, ‘oh I’ll grab a bag for you to put them in’…. I had to take a picture, too funny…
…would you eat one???
I got lunch for us and we headed for home. When we got home I wasn’t feeling to well, so I decided to lie down for a bit. I rallied myself to go into town and talk with the pharmacist about my finger poking device. I got my prescriptions transferred and they sold me the correct drum lances. Yay, we got home ate supper and went to bed early, Dave had been up all day and worked the night before so he was exhausted and I had a nasty migraine.
Which brings us to today once again the guys were here to help Dave with the attic, I worked at cleaning and some other puttering. I made a pork roast for supper with potatoes and carrots around it and the silly thing did not want to cook it wasn’t very big but it took 3 hours to cook. My oven is notorious for not wanting to cook pork roasts in a timely fashion. I can cook anything else, my brother suggested that perhaps I have a kosher oven that is protesting the pork, hmmm.
I still have a huge list of things to do, but my get up and go got up and left. Hopefully I’ll be able to pull things together tomorrow.
I would love your continued prayers over the next 8 weeks as they are so busy and I am feeling so tired. Please pray that I would adjust to my life as a diabetic and that it would just be gestational and not type 2. That I’d have the energy to make it through this busy time for myself and Joel while being able to stay on top of the housework, schooling and family fun!!! And of course for continued good health for the whole family!!!
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