School already?! Where did the time go??

Well, I had intended to start writing more regularly, and then I don't know where the days went. August is our month of birthdays--my son's, my daughter's, and mine, along with several other relatives! September is full of more birthdays. Planning for kids' parties and getting everything ready for them really makes the days fly by.

Today was the first day of school. I homeschool W, and he is in 6th grade this year. It can be a lot of work and stress for me, but it is also very rewarding. This is our 3rd year with Oregon Connections Academy (ORCA--a free online public school!), and I definitely learn more as the years go by. Even though today was technically the first day, we didn't have any actual course work to complete, so we spent the day organizing and getting ready. We already had his books and supplies organized, so it was more his daily schedule that we had to get in order. ORCA has orientations for both the "learning coach" (my title) and the student, so we went through those. Now that W is in 6th grade, he also had to sign an honor code, saying that he would behave with academic integrity. I keep trying to impress upon him the fact that he is expected to be more and more responsible for himself and his actions as the years go by. Growing up is hard! :P

Peanut will be starting preschool next week. She's pretty excited about it. The classes are only 2hrs long, 2 days a week. I am sure she will do great, but earlier she asked me to stay with her at school and I had to explain that I can't do that. :( I am just praying that she is so excited to play with the other kids that she won't miss me at all!

School always brings on interesting issues for W's blood sugar. Today he had to also work on LEAP pretests, which kind of show a baseline of what he already knows and then he will take postests at the end of the year to show what he has learned/improved on. I kept trying to reassure him that these tests were not a big deal--there's no grade to them even!--but he was just flustered and emotional by them. He's also feeling left out by his neighborhood playmate, and that was adding to his emotional issues. :( He managed to finish one of the 2 tests depsite his drama, though.

Now, at bedtime, his BG was all the way up at 520mg/dL!!!! That is outrageously high for him! :( We had waffles for dinner, and I let him take his insulin after eating so we could count more accurately (the normal protocol is to dose before eating, and we are very strict on that, so this was a rarity). It's hard to know how many waffles you can eat! ;) So, he had just gotten his dinner shot about an hour before that high BG, which means his insulin was just starting to kick in. All we can do is wait. An hour later, he is at 459mg/dL. I'm glad he's coming down, but it would be nice for him if it was going down a little faster.

When you have 2 BGs over 300, you have to start checking for ketones when you go pee (you have to pee on a stick). Ketones occur when your body starts breaking down your fat for energy, and they are a sign of a very serious, life-threatening complication of high BG called Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA). Ketones range from negative, to trace all the way up to large. If you are in DKA, you probably have large ketones. If you can catch the ketones while they are trace, you can prevent DKA from happening. So we are religious about checking for them whenever we have 2 tests over 300. I had W check, and he currently has trace ketones also. I'm not surprised, but that means it will be a long night for me. :S

Ketones go away with insulin and drinking lots of water. He only had moderate ketones when he was diagnosed with T1. Most children are in DKA when they are first diagnosed, so we are lucky he was not as severe as he could have been. Since then, he has only had trace ketones one other time in the last 20 months since his diagnosis. I think we're doing pretty good.

Now I need to wait another hour to test his BG again (hopefully he'll need to pee again so we can check ketones too) before I go to bed, so I'm going to go cuddle with Peanut and watch some Higglytown Heroes with her. :)