S'mores and Juice Boxes Galore
Last week Walker went on her first school camping trip. She and her friends have been buzzing about this since they first learned of it in August. Such an exciting rite of passage, and like so many of them, one that looks just slightly different for my kids. Instead of shipping her off, with sleeping bag and Nalgene in hands, I tagged along; Walker’s considerably larger and ever present shadow.
Thankfully there were a lot of chaperones, so mom hanging around wasn’t too much of a drag. And, she’s still young enough that I’m not a COMPLETE embarrassment. But of either of my kids, Walker is the one who would love the opportunity to take on this adventure solo. One day, my dear, when the time is right.
But for now, and the foreseeable future, I will be there. I try to stay in the wings, and let her be, only stepping in to mess around with her pump or hand her some juice. Depending on the day I’m sometimes more involved than others. This trip I was glued to her side.
The day started out well. She walked into the classroom with a level mid-100s blood sugar. Minutes before climbing on the bus for the field trip her blood sugar took a dive. Excitement does that to her, so I gave her some skittles and waited for the sugar to kick in. Walker started to get nervous, because she knows the rule about riding the bus on field trips: as long as blood sugars are stable she’s allowed to ride with her friends, and I will follow close behind in my own car. But her blood sugar was 166 and dropping like a rock (double arrows down on her CGM warns that in a matter of minutes it could be extremely low). I told her we would play it by ear (a figure of speech I’m certain she’ll despise hearing by the time she’s an adult) and I allowed her to get ready for the trip with the rest of her friends. The graph on her CGM started to level out and I let her board the bus. As her teacher was filling out last minute paperwork, her sugars started to drop again (thank god for technology!) and I climbed on the bus to find her. She looked at me with tears in her eyes, expecting me to tell her she had to ride with me instead of with her friends. Instead, I gave her another granola bar, spoke with the chaperones riding the bus, told her to turn her phone up to the loudest setting, and gave her a kiss on the head. I knew how important this was for her and I trusted the adults riding with her. I also convinced myself that I was following close behind, and should I need to, could get the bus to pull over. She was ecstatic.
Thirty minutes later, with my phone’s CGM app on constant refresh, we made it to the park safely. Walker bounced off the bus with her friends and instantly started running around to set up their tent site. Once again, her blood sugar started dropping, so I intervened with a juice box. She sucked it down, and bounced back at it.
And the day continued much like this. Chocolate milk, granola bar, skittles, or a juice box, blood sugars leveled out, then dropped again. I knew it was because of all the activity of hiking, shelter building, and running around exploring their campsite, as well as the overall excitement of the experience. It wasn’t much of an issue, and I was happy I was there to intervene with sugar as well as adjust her pump to slow down her constant drip of background insulin. When dinner rolled around I decided to finally dose for something she was eating, because all day long her snacks and meals had gone uncovered with insulin and STILL she stayed low. But I worried it might all catch up with her, and with a dinner of rice, beans, chicken and s’mores I feared a nighttime spike and subsequent wet sleeping bag (an embarrassment she wanted to avoid at all cost). Normally a dinner and dessert like this would send her blood sugar through the roof. Taking the previous 12 hours into consideration, I cautiously dosed 1/2 her normal amount and programmed her pump to administer it over a couple hours. Two hours later the girls were all tucked into their tents and I was nearby in my little 2-person tent (but when you’re over 6ft tall like I am, a 2-person tent quickly becomes a 1-person tent). My phone alerted me that her CGM reading was starting to drop, so I climbed into her tent to interrupt her fun and once again give her a juice. Ten minutes later, after zipping up my own sleeping bag, I heard her say “Mom? I feel shaky.” So I went back into her tent, this time checking her blood sugar with her glucometer. 52 mg/dL flashed back at me. Even through the glare of my headlamp she saw my face drop. I told her I was very sorry, but that she needed to come sleep with me in my tent. I could see she was disappointed, but she also knew that she was dangerously low. I reassured her that first thing in the morning she could bring her sack back into her tent and it would be like she never left. She said goodbye to her friends, and after another granola bar, she quickly fell asleep next to me. I, however, got very little sleep. A blood sugar of 52 is very low, but what made me doubly nervous was the fact that she had been low all day as well. When a T1D has a low blood sugar they need external glucose, like juice. But every time their blood sugar dips low their liver dumps a little bit of glucose as a safety net. It’s not enough to necessarily save them in the case of an extreme low, but it’s at least something. The worrisome part is when there has been a string of low blood sugars over a longer period of time, like Walker had experienced throughout the day. When this happens, their ability to “bounce back” from a low becomes more difficult, and ultimately the situation becomes much more serious.
And that’s why I wanted her sleeping right next to me. I didn’t sleep much, and instead stared at her CGM graph through much of the night. Her blood sugar did in fact come back up, and around 3am she even needed a tiny amount of insulin (which, again, I dosed cautiously). She woke early and scurried back into her assigned tent with her friends.
Breaking down of camp, breakfast, and another hike, and then we were on our way back to school. I wish I hadn’t had to pull her away from her friends. I know she is sad to have missed out on the full experience of her camping trip, but she also knows her safety is the number one priority through it all. Sometimes our days don’t look just as we imagine them to be, but they’re still sweet.
