Diabetes and Other Updates

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer and had a good Fourth of July! It's been hotter and busier than I expected but fun to spend the time with both boys - even if I feel like mostly chauffeur! Big brother finished up his soccer season but still keeps busy with karate, cub scouts and a few camps (hence the many chauffeur duties.) I've been unemployed since the end of February and have been spending the time getting neglected paperwork and housework in order. Phew, we sure have neglected a lot! Our kitchen is still undergoing it's year-long makeover and we've taken a very laid back approach to each aspect (to the surprise of most who know me and the frustration of my sister who every time she comes over asks, "When are you going to do _______?" and "How come you haven't done ____ yet? It's been ______ days/weeks/months already!"). Our granite installer told us we set his record for longest project ever by several months; a record we expect to stand for a long time as it usually takes him a couple of weeks to install counter tops and do back splashes and we took almost a year. However, our counter tops and back splash are done and they look great. Our cabinet changes are 90% done. And our flooring is decided if not yet purchased. Now if I can just settle on paint and cab colors... :D

Since Connor's diabetic diagnosis in January, we have been testing him and giving him injections of insulin 5 to 6 times a day.

In late May, we put him on an insulin pump, the Omnipod. The "pod" is a small device that sticks directly onto his body and gives him his insulin continuously at different, programmed rates. This replaces us injecting him with insulin 5-6 times or more a day. It is controlled by a wireless "Personal Diabetes Manager" (PDM) that looks like a smart phone or PDA. It's the PDM that actually calculates the insulin he will receive based on parameters we enter values for. It transmits the information to the pod on his body and the pod delivers the appropriate amount of insulin. We only have to change his pod every 2-3 days, so that saves him a lot of injections. The drawback is that actual changing of the pod is a bigger affair than a single injection, but it's definitely lots better than the multiple injections a day. We still have to prick his fingers to check his blood glucose but at least we don't pull out the insulin needles anymore. So far we like it pretty well. Unfortunately, he's so small that we can really only put the pods on his legs but supposedly there's supposed to be a 40% smaller version of the pod that may be available by the end of this year if FDA approval goes well. If so, we'll be able to use his arms as alternate sites too.

Vote update from prior post - well it's pretty much unanimous and with us as well - ER visits won't count as a reset.

As for the recurring skin infection that caused us to have 2 visits to Urgent Care in June - well, it's ba-ack!... Yup. The spot on his chest got red and pus-y and yucky again over the holiday weekend. No Urgent Care visit this time. On Tuesday I had already scheduled an appointment to see his surgeon. As we suspected, the "cuff" that was left in his chest when his central line was pulled was being too friendly a home for the bacteria and the doctor would have to take the cuff out.

The surgeon gave me two options:

1) He could put numbing cream on it, wait 30 minutes, then do a cut and take the cuff out of Connor's chest.

2) We could schedule another appointment for Connor to be put to sleep and then the doctor could take the cuff out.

Being the compassionate and soft-hearted mom I am, I asked if there was another, faster option. "Can't we just cut it out? When he saw the ER doctor and she lanced him, she just stuck a big syringe filled with numbing solution in him and then made some criss-crossed cuts to lance the site. No waiting on the numbing cream for 30 minutes. Can we do that?"

Dr. Surgeon said, "Well, yes. That's what I would do, but I didn't want to seem callous." So that was Option 3.

Guess what I picked? Option 3, of course.

What can I say? I'm that kind of mom. ;-)

Actually, it seemed a bigger disservice to Connor to make him go through option 1 or 2. Option 1 meant a longer wait. He would just be anxious and I would just be anxious and waiting a long time in a doctor's office is no fun for anyone. Plus, it seemed most of the crying came from being held down waiting for someone to do something to him rather than the actual doing. Option 2 would be even worse. He'd have to go into the hospital for a big production. He'd still get stuck with a big needle because they would have to IV him to put him to sleep. And we would wait a really long time!

Option 3 ended up being the fantastic choice. The whole procedure took less than a minute. I held his arms, a nurse held his legs and Dr. Surgeon poked him with a decently sized syringe to numb the area (10 seconds down). Then he took some surgical tweezers, found the cuff and pulled it out. He taped some gauze on the little hole and it was over. (Less than a minutes total, probably more like 30 seconds.)

Connor said, "Sorry!" (as he says whenever we cause him pain - see previous post) and quickly stopped crying.

Dr. Surgeon said, "See? It's just like a big splinter." (The cuff was about 1/4" wide and 1/2" long.)

I said, "So the ER doctor could have done this two weeks ago when she lanced him? Which, by the way, took much longer and was way more painful!"

Dr. Surgeon's response: "Yep. I really don't know why they don't. I guess they just don't like to."

I guess not!

His wound site looks pretty good only a day later and he's back to his usual sweet and ornery self. His favorite antic since yesterday afternoon - taking his big Nerf sword and beating anyone within site with it while yelling, "Ai! Ai!"