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Rusty's Ramblings

Published:
1-July-2005

This has been a tough month for blood glucose control for Kari and me. As some of you know Kari has been using an insulin pump for several months now. What we thought would be a walk in the park compared to the other insulin regimes we've tried, hasn't quite turned out that way. This month it was back to the same roller coaster that we had seen before. God bless our Diabetes Educator Karen Bucci of the Children's Medical Center in Hartford, CT Not only did she put up with all of my rantings, she would actually call me back after they started.

One of the drawbacks to having my own website is that I am constantly scouring the Internet, print publications, and talking to medical professionals in order to come up with timely and relevant content for the site. I say drawback because occasionally I get a little too big for my britches. I have been known (just ask my kids) to preach a little too much. I come by it naturally. My father should have been a Baptist minister.

Armed with all of this information, I would call Karen with Kari's blood glucose readings for several days and she would tweak the basal numbers in an effort to combat the daily highs and lows that Kari was experiencing. We would notice a pattern that held for a couple of days and then would change for no apparent reason. She might have a reading of 218 on Monday morning, 207 on Tuesday, 221 on Wednesday, and 122 on Thursday. This would happen every time. It might happen at a different point in the day but it would invariably happen. It was frustrating for Karen because without a consistent trend it was difficult for her to make recommendations. It was frustrating for me because I wanted this to work. It was frustrating for Kari because she would feel lousy at certain points of the day and it made school that much tougher. After a while I started to second-guess Karen and challenge some of her recommendations because I thought I was so smart. I even considered changing hospitals at one point.

Well, Karen got it right. She looked at all the possible reasons that might be causing these readings. Things like insulin resistance at certain points in the day, hormonal influences as Kari got older, and several other possible causes that I had never considered because she was a professional and I was a dope. Through out all of this Karen remained positive, professional, and courteous, even though I'm sure she wanted to come through the phone and choke me sometimes. It must have been terrible for her, knowing that while she was only half my size she was twice as smart.

What I finally came to realize was, that all diabetes is not created equal. Even in the same child, this is not a static condition. Fortunately early on I learned not to become frustrated with Kari when things didn't go as I had planned. Unfortunately it took a little longer to realize that diabetes doesn't care what I have planned. It doesn't even care what medical professionals have planned. What works like a charm for one child may not work as well for another? But through experience, knowledge, and genuine concern for the well being of their young patients, our diabetes health care teams keep our children physically healthy.

After getting some perspective on this I was reminded of the car commercials where they advertise that their model gets 48 miles per gallon. They quickly follow with" your mileage may vary ". Diabetes treatment can be much the same sometimes. We do what is best for our children at the time.

God bless them all,

Rusty

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