A day in the life of … from a Mother’s perspective, continued
As promised, a follow up day in the life of, this time November 2005, a year later. Taylor is on Novorapid and Lantus and has been since Easter this year.
5.38am: “Awake again… time to study”
I stagger out of bed and plonk myself in front of the computer and pull up the uni site. Bleary eyed I can see Taylor and Jessie in their beds across the hallway, wow they look so angelic and peaceful when they’re sleeping.
The start of a beautiful day in Paradise!
7.00am: Wake the kids up for school. Ree begins making school lunches, Brent organises cereal for them all, Taylor tests, Jessie whinges and I sit back at my desk poring over exam prep notes.
8.00am: The kids are ready for school, bags packed, hats and uniforms on. We load the car and head for school. As I drop the kids off I check they have everything, all is good and off I go. I love this new school, it’s a little bit further to get to but all of the kids are thriving there.
10.30am I’m sitting at home studying my little email man pops up “You have mail Madam”. When I check the mails there is one from an American nursing student whom I’d given my email addy to so that I could fill out a questionnaire for her. I open the questionnaire and begin. How old is your child with d? Cool that’s easy. The next handful of questions are pretty generic and simple. Then they change… What is your child’s last bsl? hmmm gee I have no idea…In fact I don’t think Taylor has told me any of her bsl’s for a few days now. Then it dawns on me just how amazing life is with Lantus. Taylor tests, counts carbs, gives her own shots and I don’t seem to have a lot of input at the moment. A far cry from the control freak of a year ago. I still do her Lantus dose and shot every night, and she comes to me if she’s particularly low or high, or the food is something quite different that she isn’t sure of, but apart from those, which are mostly quite rare Taylor does it all. If anyone had told me a year ago that my 8yo would be so responsible for her own diabetes I wouldn’t have believed them
3.00pm: Time to pick the kids up from school. The girls come skipping out full of lots of news and stories from their day. Wow no calls from the school today. It still amazes me that I’ve gone from 2-7 calls a day at the old school to maybe a call a month at this school. Who would have thought that things could be so different.
3.30pm: Time for afternoon snack. I call out for Ree to organise a snack for everyone and things go quiet. My house is so much better organised this year. Is it really better organised? or just less worried?
6.00pm: Hmmm now what should we have for dinner tonight? Oh it’s so nice to cook when I feel like it. After 4 years of eating according to insulin it’s so weird to have our lives back and be able to be flexible. I throw together some meat and veg and we eat around 7pm
7.30pm: Taylor’s friend calls and invites her over on Sunday. “Not a problem”, I say. “What time do they want you to be dropped off?” Friends Mum jumps on the phone to give me a quick rundown of what they’re planning for the day and it all sounds great to me. I just remind her that Taylor will need to have her kit on her the whole time, and that if they get too busy she might need a prompt to test. She asks about food and insulin and I explain to her that Taylor will give herself her insulin and she’ll match it to what she’s eating, and of course I’m just a phone call away 🙂
8.30pm: Taylor wanders in with her Lantus. I ask her how she is and she says ‘Great Mum!’ I don’t even ask her what her levels are, secure in the knowledge that at least for now she is happy to and capable of looking after it herself. How long this will last? who knows lol but I’ll just take advantage of it for now.
9.00pm: The kids are all asleep, tucked up snug in their beds, and I can go to bed now too. I love these early nights! No more struggling to study late at night because I’ve wasted the bulk of my day fielding phone calls from school. I actually get to really study during good study times now.
6.30am: Hmmmmm it’s Saturday, so I roll over and go back to sleep.
9.30am: Taylor wanders in and wakes me up. She’s woken and feels great.. “what can I have for breakfast Mum?”, she asks, and I reply “anything you like honey” (such a far cry from having 2 weetbix and milk every single morning because it was predictable enough for us to plan our day around!
Note from Mum: This mini journal probably won’t make much sense if not read after the first installation of A day in the life of…
The totally different lifestyle we lead now using Lantus as opposed to that when Taylor was on Monotard is still amazing to all of us. I still wake around 5 or 6ish every morning, after having done it every day for 4 years solid I guess my body clock is well and truly set. In the past 7 months I’ve only had to test Taylor one night and that was because she was ill. Her hypo awareness has been amazingly better, her levels much more stable and she herself has been a much happier little munchkin. The kids changed to a new school at the start of the year. The staff at the new school actually know how to read and don’t ring me every day, or even every week, hell, they don’t even ring me every month and boy it’s nice!
Taylor has had several play dates with one of her friends this year. I’m not sure that I entirely trust the Mum with Taylors d, but I do trust the Mum with Taylor, and I certainly trust Taylor with her d, so it all works out in the end:)
As I sit here getting ready to send this in to Helen I’m looking at Taylor’s brand new insulin pump which we are scheduled to start next Wednesday. I guess that will require a whole new update lol