I have only 20 min left to my lunch hour so this will be short. This morning, Eric took his first step toward managing his own condition. He was grumpy this morning, so I should have suspected he might be low, but he’s just come out of four or five days of unusual HIGH readings, so I hadn’t actually expected him to be low–I was expecting the opposite, if anything. Nevertheless, even as I waited for the number to appear on the meter, Eric took matters into his own tiny hands. He spotted a juice box in his bag and, without asking me, crying, or making any kind of signal that he wanted something, scrabbled into the bag and yanked it out, then started turning it over and over to find the straw. He’d worked the straw loose just as the meter came up with the number 80 (which I suspect was actually a little higher than reality, given Eric’s behavior) and was trying to poke it into the hole, with a very determined expression. When I saw how shaky his hands were as he fumbled with the straw, I realized that the meter’s “80” didn’t really reflect what Eric’s physiology was doing–often he’s just fine at any number above 70, but his shakiness bespoke a real need. So I took the straw and juicebox, put the one inside the other, and gave it right back to him–and he sucked it down as though it were the nectar of the gods. Which I suppose to him it was. But what was really striking to me was the fact that he CLEARLY understood what he was doing–that the cure for the bad feeling he was experiencing was juice. So as far as I’m concerned, my “baby” has taken his first step toward becoming responsible for his diabetes care. At not quite two years old. I’m a little blown away!
Fifteen carbs worth of apple juice later, he was restored, cheerful, and back to his old self. Now if I can just teach him to TELL me when he feels like that, we’ll be all set.