What Would You Do?

As the great thespian, Keanu Reeves, pondered in the movie Speed, what would you do? What would you do?

I'm curious to know what you would all do in this situation.

Susanne dropped Charlie off at art camp at 9:30 am. This was 2 hours after a 52 carb breakfast of pancakes, small banana and 4 ounces of milk.

At 9:30 am his blood sugar was 160 with 1.2 units of active or "on board" insulin. The class ends at 11:30 am.

So I won't tell you what we did next. I'd like to know what you'd do. I'll tell you what happened later. Let's see who would have made the right decision.

It's worth noting that Charlie is hardly ever out of our sight. The art teacher happens to be a mother of a 20-year-old girl with diabetes and she knows how to test him if necessary. Still, these two hours, a precursor to kindergarten in the fall, have us both on edge.

So, let's see it. What would you do?

It’s hard to say because each person has a different insulin sensitivity. That’s exactly how much insulin I would need to be at a perfect bloodsugar by lunch.

I would have given a small snack of yogurt before class and bolused for it, because Griffin tends to drop around 11:30, if he doesn’t have a mid-morning snack, especially if he’s at daycare.

I think Molly is right. You need to know your own (or your child’s) needs and patterns.

I agree with Mollyjade - but if you concern was that he would go low - i would stop or lower his hourly basal amt for the time he woudl be out of sight, send a snack(or have him eat more right b4) and use the whole ordeal as a learning experience. Always better to run on the high side for a day or 2 or a week, to figure things out - running high might hurt you slowly over time, but running low can kill you right now.

It really was a bogus question to be asking when you don’t know Charlie’s eating routine, patterns, etc., but here’s what happened.

Susanne gave him a 23-carb snack at 9:30 am. He usually has a snack at this time anyway. Being that he had so much active insulin and the fact that she wasn’t going to be with him, she only plugged in 12 carbs into the pump rather than the full 23. She went with the .3 the pump recommended and came back to test him in an hour.

He was 250 at 10:30.

She picked him up at 11:30 and tested him for lunch at noon.

  1. Pretty close to perfect.

Another reminder of how lucky I am to have Charlie in my wife’s care. Makes me breath a little easier while I’m at work. Yet, scary because the school nurse would not know to do that.

Clearly too much insulin. More tweaking needed. She shouldn’t have to fudge the numbers like that to get him in proper range.