Gadgets and bad guts

The MiniMed was great. Fantastic. Excellent.
Shame we only had it for a week.

Inserting the sensor was a bit of a pain. We had Emla (local anaesthetic cream) and put it on the agreed spots an hour beforehand but those places (on Eli's lower back) were not suitable. Of course not. He's a skinny little thing, and it did cross my mind that there might not be any fat in his lower back, but we did as we were told and as the Medtronic instructions stated. How stupid of me.
In the end the sensor was shot into his buttock, without Eli being warned. You can imagine the screams. And yes, the word 'shot' is quite appropriate, as some of you know. The "SenSerter", the gadget used to insert the sensor, is quite a thing to show a small child, it looks a bit like a giant insect.
But in it was and we got sent home with a huge book of instructions. The monitor itself is very easy to use so we had no problems with it. The sensor and the transmitter stayed in their place and Eli didn't mind them at all. The only problem was realising that the glucose levels in the tissue rise a lot slower, so the monitor kept alarming for a while after a hypo.

But otherwise, I fell in love with the thing. I know it's not 100% reliable but it makes things so much easier. To be able to check the glucose levels in two seconds, without washing his hands, without interrupting his playing, without gathering the strips of the bus floor. And most of all, to be able to tell what was going on with the glucose levels, were they crashing or shooting up. Shame it's so incredibly expensive to buy and use.

I know it might just be that we were more conscious of his diet and exercise (we had to keep a diary of every morsel that passed his lips, as well as record his activity levels), but his glucose levels seemed to remain more consistent and under control.

But now were back to the sameoldsameold and of course, he gets a belly bug. We could really use the monitor now. Eli threw up all morning and now he won't eat or drink anything. He was fine before breakfast, so he'd already had full doses of Levemir and Actrapid. It's been a very long day, hypo after hypo after hypo, topped with ketones. I've forced sweets and juice down him, trying to explain that if he doesn't drink we have to go to the hospital. But that sounds like a threat and I want to keep the hospital on the list of nice places, not something that is used for blackmail.

I'm crap when it comes to vomit, I have a phobia of throwing up and I'm guaranteed to feel sick when someone mentions belly bugs. I even feel queasy and panicky when someone's FB status is about vomiting. So when my children get ill, my first instinct is to run out of the door. Which is pretty much what I do when my husband gets ill. I'm a lovely wife. Last time he had a sore belly, I was fretting about my oncoming (psychosomatic) queasiness.But I've been good today and pretended it's all hunky dory. Which is what you're supposed to do as the mummy.

We were in a similar situation a couple of weeks ago when Eli had to go to the dentist. The last crappy dentist had ignored the state of his tooth (under a temporary filling) and it had pretty much rotted away underneath it. Eli had toothache for months but every time we went to the dentist, she said it was fine. After a couple of sleepless nights, I took the tired boy to another dentist, who was horrified. I had to sit and watch my little boy go through a lot of needles, drills and other noisy, scary gadgets and procedures. And pretend it was all fun and games. I hate the dentist, as do most people, but I don't want my kids to find it scary. There is no reason why it should be horrible.

So what's going on with Molly? The training is still on hold, I want to see whether she will turn into a fairly normal dog. She is meeting people and other dogs, with varying success. I'm trying not to feel bad about the training not going full steam ahead, it's been stupidly hectic lately and I'm falling asleep on my feet. She has definitely learnt to pick up on Eli's discomfort, but I suppose most dogs do that. 

Now I'm off to bed, hoping for a peaceful night. For Eli, at least. We'll have to keep a close eye on his sugars and ketones. Yippee.