Off to breathe ...

Hello again, peeps!

I took your advice and took some time out from the electronic world.

My lovely husband also came home early from Scotland. It was a mixture of knowing I was struggling and being a bit fed up with the wind howling in his face and the rain making him wet and cold.

It is good to have him home.

Thank you all for coming to my aid with kind words and support (even you, Amy!).

It was very much needed and much appreciated too.

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We are off camping tomorrow.

This is our summer holiday; a week in our beautiful tent down on the Devon coast and then a couple of days on my sister's farm in Dorset on the way home.

This could be my week:

Fresh air, sunshine, Devon cream teas, days on the beach, Plymouth Sealife Centre, the Devon Moors and wild ponies, reading, clotted cream ice-cream, knitting, local markets and sleeeeeeep, precious sleeeeeep.

Then again, this is England, so it could be :

Rain, wind, hail and sleet, trench foot, soggy sandwiches, rain, caterpillars in my salad (this happened to me in the Cotswolds last time we camped!)and no sleep.

However, I am hopeful.

Our campsite is one mile from a beach called Hope Bay.

Want to join us?!

In preparation for the trip I ignored all my lovely husband's ideas of packing early and took to sewing instead.

Each of us now has a nifty bag for the trip.

Andrew's bag : be.

Frank's bag : Frank Budd Loves Sea Creatures (his exact words when asked if he'd like "create" or "Frank" or something short and snappy!).

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And my bag? Well, you've seen it before and I am only doing what you told me to.

Back in about ten days with oodles of photos and, no doubt, some real Devonian quality cellulite from all the clotted cream teas!

Love to all, and may your next ten days be fabulous and full of good times.

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P.S. Look! I didn't mention the D!!!!

Jen told me this time would come and it has.

I call friends and don't talk about it all the time.

I meet people in town and I don't mention it!

Life goes on ...

Hate and Love aka Sir, the dog ate my homework

Oh, no, no, no!
Blogger was down and in "read only" mode yesterday just as I managed to get the sprog to sleep and onto the laptop.

I am not as lively of mind as I was last year taking on this week-long challenge and am really tired this evening. Tomorrow morning is our Circle-D families with Diabetes support meeting and I need to get to Castle Park by ten so I am going to attempt the ten things I hate and today's topic in the one post.

Hope that's OK with you guys!

I try not to think of hating diabetes but, in all honesty, I do. It's a bastard.

So, here we go:

Ten Things I Hate About You Diabetes

1) You are a thief. You stole so much from me. I was so full of hope when, against the odds, I found out I was pregnant, so late in life (well, at 39 anyway!). You stole my chance to be hopeful, to believe that doing "the right thing" by my child would be any kind of talisman against the worst that life can throw at us. You stole any chance of a carefree life for my little family.

2) You are a cheat. I hate that you have rules but you don't even pay by them yourself. Dealing with you is a full-on mixture of art and science.

3) You are a bully. You have forced me into sobbing submission many times, mostly through lack of sleep but sometimes when I allow that window in my brain to open (it is normally sealed shut) and the big picture of complications and my baby's whole life being dominated by you hits me like a wet kipper across the face.

4) You are anti-social. You make it difficult to forget anything but you at times. Whatever we are doing and wherever we go BG must be tested, insulin must be given, carbs must be counted and I must stand like a creepy carb and insulin-wielding vulture on the sidelines ready to swoop on my child at any moment.

5) You are an attention-seeking creep. I can't even finish a blog post without having to stop, save and go upstairs to test my boy's BG. Back in a mo .... just time to test Frank. 8.7, and breathe ...

6) You are sadistic. My little baby's little fingers are like leather and are totally pock-marked by all the many finger pricks every day. His bottom is covered with red dots from injections and now pump sites. This will never end. His skin will always suffer. He will endure daily pain to stay alive.

7) You make it complicated. I cannot just take my boy to the beach. Throw in a towel, shove in a drink and a sandwich and drive carefree and laughing to spend the day running around and picking sand out of our food. Oooooh, no. We have to carry so much bloody stuff: diabetes kit, extra insulin and syringes, juice boxes and various glucose tabs and snacks for possible lows, phone for emergencies etc etc etc.

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I did finish this post.

I was witty and it took me two hours.

My laptop is playing up but I went for it.

And then I lost the rest of it.

Swore in a most unladylike fashion and stomped off to bed.

At the end I did the things I love.

They were mostly you guys.

Over and over, you guys.

Also the fact that diabetes has made it abundantly clear who my friends are. Some have disappeared entirely, such as the one who regaled me with tales, loudly and just outside the library, of her wonderful sex life with her new partner whilst managing to ignore my child in the buggy and to avoid even asking after him. He had been diagnosed only six months before. Un-flipping-believable!

I should also let you all know that I am going to bow out of the rest of the Blog Week this year.

I am only managing to get Frank to bed at half nine and with Andrew away I am the only one here with the responsibility for the testing at night and all day.

I'm weary.

I need to sleep and conserve my energy for all the absolutely fascinating discussions about whales and farts that fill my days!

Forgive me.

I am still reading what everyone else is writing and will comment.

It is such an amazing and intense week and I shall leap in again next year.

Lots of love to you all.

My Biggest Blooper

Thank you all for you sweet comments yesterday. I am always so buoyed up by hearing from you.

Today's topic is bloopers and I have remembered my worst one.

It is fair to say that I tend to be more organised than my husband about taking all the kit necessary out with me. The bag I carry is huge and it's generally full of D-kit, juice boxes, water, snacks, wet wipes, tissues, camera, purse, phone, hand cream, pens etc.

I am also sometimes a bit short-tempered with my husband about not being organised.

However, one day I took Frank along to a music class. I parked and we went in. Halfway through the class Frank mentioned that he felt "wobbly". I calmly reached into my bag for his kit and kept reaching. I rummaged, I went from feeling for it to looking and then realised that I must have left it at home, a good ten minutes drive away.

Shit.

I didn't let him see my panic but did have enough juice on me to just deal with it anyway.

I spent the rest of the lesson feeling like a failure and tested him as soon as we got home. He was fine but at a number that indicated I was right to just give the juice anyway.

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Does this even count as a blooper? I cringe to read it as I can't believe I did it.

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And another little anecdote with hubby taking centre stage this time (he's away in Scotland and so won't see this for a week! Wa ha ha!).

When Frank was newly diagnosed he had a hypo in a cafe just as we all sat down to eat. We were so very new to it all we weren't yet in the habit of having juice on us, and multiple boxes at that.

We were such rookies.

I realised Frank looked glassy-eyed and tested him. He was low. We had no juice so I asked Andrew to run up to the counter and get juice really quickly.

There was a queue.

He joined the end of it, in true British fashion; he just didn't want to jump the queue!

I called out to him to jump in and explain later.

But he couldn't do it.

I ran up to the counter, apologised and asked for juice really quickly, explaining that my little boy needed it as he was experiencing a low blood sugar problem and I'd be back to pay later.

Frank drank the juice, felt better then went to sleep.

Poor Andrew looked crushed but in all honesty, I don't think he'd do it any differently if it were to happen again.

It's just who he is.

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I know these don't seem funny and will probably recall something hysterical as I am brushing my teeth in a couple of minutes.

If I do then I'll post it very soon.

See you tomorrow.

My Letter to Frank - We are in this together

Dear Frankie,

Our little team of three have been working on a project this weekend and we saw it completed today.

Each of us did something towards its completion and each of us will get a lot of pleasure from watching it all grow and develop.

You will get to eat some of it, we hope!

Daddy recently cut down our hazel tree to make more space for growing veggies. OK, OK don't make those gagging noises, you won't have to actually eat the veggies. Mummy and Daddy will do that. Now get up off the floor and let's get on with the letter.

We used lots of the hazel branches this weekend to make a kind of yurt. The idea being it would be fun to sit inside and if we grew peas up it, you could indulge in your love of shelling peas and eating them raw.

So, your main job was to use the secateurs and trim all the small twigs from the branches.

You did a great job!

Daddy's job was to make the yurt structure and tie it all together so that it's strong and can withstand the gusts of wind it will no doubt receive. He also cut chunks out of the lawn.



Today I finished the project by planting out all the pea seedlings and watering them.
Then I made some bird scarers with twigs tied together and suspended from the top of the yurt and also by tying some old CDs to the frame.

Now we wait and water and tend and scare the evil birds away.

And hope for a harvest.

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And the analogies with dealing with diabetes are clear to us all.

This is how we do it, Frankie.

We all play a part.

At the moment my part is the largest, Daddy's the second largest and yours the smallest.

And yet these roles will shift and morph as the years go by. Sometimes, even now, you want to press the buttons on your pump and I can see glimpses of your understanding of the vocabulary of D.

Daddy and I will always be there to help you manage your diabetes and your life, in all the glorious technicolour that we hope it will entail.

When your are an adult and need a break from it all or have a fever we will be there to take control for a while so that you can concentrate on just being.

My heart beats for you, Frank (even though right now it is 9pm and you are being a pain by not going to sleep and not staying on your bed and shouting at me about a poo on my head - yeah, Waldorf Schmaldorf -and I am emotional enough as Daddy is going away tomorrow for 8 long nights!!!).

Ahem ...

You and Daddy are my smile.

We are all so very lucky that diabetes is manageable. It might be incurable but you can live a fantastic life WITH DIABETES.

And I intend to make that happen, to the best of my ability, for all our sakes.

I love you, honey.

Mummy

xxx

D-Blog Week - Admiring Our Differences

I am struggling this week.

It's not the D, it's just me. I seem to be walking through treacle and can't get a grip on things.

However, I have decided to have a go at Diabetes Blog Week as it was such a positive experience last year and hubby is away again (cycling through Scotland for a week).

So, thanks again to Karen for organising this all over again.

Maybe blogging each day will shake me out of my brain-fog!

Every person dealing with diabetes in their life, either as they have it themselves or they care for someone who has it, has something to teach us all.

We are all learning every day with every carb counted and in every situation.

It can never be taken for granted.

I stand in awe (well, generally, I sit on the sofa in awe) of the D-parents whose blogs I follow. Mostly I am in awe of how they manage to be so witty and "together" on-line when I know they must be feeling as knackered as me!

There is much to learn from others with D.

So very much.

There is beauty and sadness and there are tricks and ideas.

There are breathtaking photos and poignant ones too.

There are coping mechanisms and sympathy.

But most of all there is humour.

Without it none of us can survive and remain sane.

It is the only way to live with the day-to-day reality of having a child with diabetes.

You have to smile and laugh and see the dark, and sometimes downright black, humour in it as often as you can.

And I am so very grateful for you all.

On that note I leave you with some links to hopefully make you smile:

this always has me snorting out loud, rather unglamourously

This guy too, love him and how he performs and thinks

and this is my mantra, when days are long and hard and nights longer

See you tomorrow...

Camping it up

A picture heavy post giving you a glimpse into our long weekend away camping in the Cotswolds.The new bell tent stood up well to some major gusts of wind and we were a bit chilly at night, but this was northern Europe in April!

Frank loved sleeping in his grobag again; something he hasn't done since he was three.Breakfast was taken outside most days with us enjoying homemade granola, marmalade on toast, pains au chocolat and lashings of tea!

Frank took some photos of the camp too.

The tree next to the tent made great shadows inside and my boy was rosy-cheeked and wind-swept most of the time ( a haircut is booked for tomorrow so enjoy that long, lop-sided hair for now!).

Budd wore his cap and struck a great pose without even realising it here.

He is getting a beard trim this week too.

This trip also saw our first site failure.

Of course it would happen in a tent rather than in the comfort of our own home!

But it was sorted quickly and all was well.

Interestingly the trigger felt really different on the insertion thingy (the techinical term!) than with any of the others I have done and the canula came out all bent and covered in blood.

Frank was non-plussed by this and so we just put a new one in.

I am constantly amazed at how he takes all this in his stride.

However, we have had tears and deals needing to be struck just to get his hair cut booked tomorrow, so he chooses his battles!

Off to catch up on all your news now.

Toodle -oo!