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A Day in the Life of Ella Simons with Type 1 Diabetes:
Insulin: This is what Ella's pancreas isn't making any more. It takes
sugar out of your blood stream and stores it to be used later for
energy. We have to give her manufactured insulin at regular times of
day to help her process her sugars, this is always done before a meal
and sometimes if her blood sugar is too high before bed.
Carb Counting: This is how we work out how much insulin to give
Ella. The amount of insulin depends on what her blood sugar is doing
right now + what she is about to eat. "Carbs" are sugars and
starches (probably oversimplified there). The easiest way to figure
out how many "carbs" she is going to eat is to look at the
nutritional information on the back of food packaging, for example a
slice of bread is about 16 carbs or a mini box of smarties is 10. The
more sugar/carbohydrate she will eat the more insulin she has to have
AND the higher her blood sugar; the more insulin she will need and
vice versa.
TYPE 1 Diabetics can eat ANYTHING. Yes, chocolatey treats ..
anything. The only consideration is WHEN she can eat it. Technically
the easiest thing is to eat high sugar foods with a meal so you can
work out all your numbers and dose the right amount of insulin all at
once. The alternative is a finger prick blood test and insulin dose
when the child wants the snack which seems a bit harsh for a bit of
chocolate. Most advice is: save it for meal time. And don't worry
about buying "Diabetic" sweets etc, apparently they can
often have a laxative effect and really don't make that big a
difference to the carb count, plus that's what the insulin is for.
She can have a sneaky snack now and then. If it's small like a
few crisps, a piece of fruit or a sweet it's not going to send her to
hospital. Her sugar readings might be a bit higher later but it will
come down with the next insulin dose and she'll be fine.
She can have a vegetable or protein or fat snack any time she
likes. We give her red peppers, cucumber, cheese, saucsisson etc any
time she asks for a snack. None of them count as carbs.
Testing Blood Sugar: this is done with a finger prick test.
Using a neat little lancet device she pricks her finger and applies a
droplet of blood to a disposable strip attached to a blood sugar meter
and it gives us the results. Finger prick tests are done when she
wakes, before each meal mid morning, mid afternoon and before bed, and
if there is a suspected hypo we test once, treat and test again until
the hypo is resolved.
Some nights if she is too low for comefort at the 11pm test, Dave and
I take it in turns to test her again normally 2am and 4am as night
time hypos can happen.
It is between tests and during the night that Ella is at risk
and this is when her alert dog will be of maximum benefit.
Low Blood Sugar (a "Hypo"/blood sugar reading under
0.80mg/l) is bad. The reality is that if her blood sugar falls far
enough could have a fit or even fall into a coma. Adult diabetics have
described the feeling of a hypo as feeling drunk in a sickly and
confused kind of way. Hypos which are caught in time are treated with
15 grams of quick-acting sugar (not chocolate as the fat content makes
it absorb slowly) - we use 10-15 haribo dragibus - wait 15 minutes and
retest to make sure she's out of danger, if not then rinse and repeat.
High Blood Sugar (a "Hyper"/a blood sugar reading
above 2,50) is not bad in the short-term, but needs to be corrected
quickly with an insulin dose or the body will start to produce Ketones
which are pretty bad, and if prolonged you have Diabetic Ketoacidosis
(DKA) which is what Ella could have developed had we not have taken
her to A&E on 1st March when she was diagnosed. Ella's blood
measured over 5,00mg/l when we were admitted because her body had no
way to deal with the glucose it had produced from the food she had
been eating so she had lost loads of weight because it had been using
most of her body fat for energy.
The Ideal Blood Sugar Reading is 1,00mg/l and that's what
Diabetics hope to average at their check up every 3 months.
We have no idea what caused this. That is the truth. we know
it's an autoimmune condition, we know Ella had a run of illness over a
very short period (a gastro bug) and one of those was the virus which
KO'd her pancreas, but I don't know why it happened to HER. We have no
TYPE1 diabetes in our family history and Ella had been a particularly
fit & healthy child to the date of diagnosis.
Type 1 Diabetics Don't Get Better. No, they really don't. If
you heard about it happening to someone's cousin's friend they
probably had Type 2 which is a different thing, and with eating right
and sometimes some medications that condition can be controlled and
even cured. We wish it was the case for us.
Type 1 diabetics CAN do sport, go to parties, drive cars and
have kids.
Are we worried about it? Very much so. Completely. Always. The
more we find out the more we have to worry about, BUT the more you
know the better you can react. We don't sit and sob all day long (not
any more at least!) because that's no way for anyone to live and it's
important to us that Ella never feels bad about a condition she did
not choose. It's a psychological minefield quite honestly but we are
going to do our best to not mess her up too much.
Because of your help, this dog is going to enhance our whole
family's lives but most importantly give Ella back a little of her
carefree childhood.
THANK YOU xxxxxx
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