Brrrr and a new regime

It's cold here. It has been snowing on and off or three days and we are loving it. Our back garden looks just beautiful, especially the summerhouse.

We are in East England and only six miles from the sea. Long periods of snow are not that common. Thus snow-based activities, bedtime stories and paintings are hot topics for the few days a year we get this weather.

Severine and Frank decorated the snowman with a tangerine and conkers. Sev is from Arcachon in South West France and is loving this real Winter as they only get snow there around once every five years and even then not much.

(Mama and the boy)

Frank is now three and a half and of prime age to lead all the fun. Snow has been tasted, a snowman has been built and dressed (in rather dapper fashion, I might add), snow angels have been created and we have stomped around making footprints in the fresh snow. Between you and me the boy-wonder has also taken uncannily quickly to peeing in the snow. Being T1D and drinking lots anyway means he has had lots of opportunities for this. Oh, well, maybe it will help his literacy as he learns to pee Shakespearean text in iambic pentameter.

After all the snowy fun we came back down to earth with a bump at our three monthly clinic appointment for Frank. The doctor and specialist nurse looked at his numbers for the last few weeks and, as we had figured out ourselves, saw that he is running far too high throughout the day and getting too low sometimes late at night or early in the morning.

A new regime is called for and after much discussion we have to move from one injection a day (Mixitard 30) to three. One basal and two fast acting for meals. Insulin in the evening is going to be avoided at present as he has form with regard to sudden hypos at night. We inject in his perfect, peachy bottom and I am sad again that this tiny little pincushion will be getting more needles in it.

Just when I think I am accepting it all much better the rug gets pulled out again and I realise that it's all smoke and mirrors. It's ongoing and I have to find a way of dealing with that aspect of it without losing myself in the process. Being stressed and sad won't help my beautiful child. Being calm and focused will. Being positive will.

I had a dream on holiday in France that he was cured. He just needed less and less insulin for a few weeks and then suddenly needed none. The feeling of joy in the dream was just so tangible and the next day I spoke to Budd about it and we agreed that no one but a parent of a child with T1D could understand the relief of having a cure.

We were also informed that he may have the very first signs of thyroid problems. Nothing definite yet but they want to check him every three months instead of every year.

I thank my lucky stars for this child I was informed I had no chance of having. But bloody hell.

So, a mixed day of joy and sadness.

Never forgetting: it's all about the boy.