Who to watch Cara?

We have been living with diabetes for two months and there are many new obstacles that arises. On this day it was finding someone able to watch our newly diagnosed diabetic daughter and four other children for one night and a whole day.

My husband and I have six children, two of which need a little more attention then the others. Our 2 year old has a very bad peanut allergy and our 3 year old Cara is diabetic. So traveling without them has never really been an option. One late night in Feb we received a horrible phone call, my husband’s 16 year old cousin had died of an epileptic seizure. We were horrified with the news of her passing and we knew that we needed to be at the funeral which was a 5 hour drive from where we live. Our first thought was what are we going to do about Cara. We had two options bring her with us or find someone that could watch her for one night and a whole day. At first we decided to bring her with us thinking that it would be a lot easier then having to train someone to take her blood sugar and administer the insulin injections. However we were very nervous about this decision because she had never been to a funeral before and we knew that it was going to be a horribly sad and very depressing experience. With continued thought we changed our minds and asked my parents if they could watch her. My mother had been to all the diabetes training with us in the hospital and I felt confident that both, my mother and father would be able to handle it. However since Cara’s diagnoses my parents stopped doing things with Cara when we were not present. They did not feel comfortable dealing with Cara and her diabetes and started to alienate her. I spoke to my mother about the importance of us attending the funeral and also the importance of having someone that knows how to care for a diabetic in our family circle. This was very important in case there ever is an emergency and I or my husband are not there for Cara. It took two days of my mother coming over to administer Cara’s insulin injections and learning how to take her blood sugar and one whole day to type out step-by-step instructions on how to care for Cara in a 8 paged booklet before she was O.K. with the idea of watching Cara. We gave them all the phone numbers they needed and I called every two hours to make sure things were going O.K. and they were!

I’m so happy that we had this experience to push my parent into being more hands on with Cara and having them deal with there fears about diabetes. As well as giving me the peace of mind that if anything every did happen and I or my husband was not able to be there for Cara I have people that now know how to take care for her and a wonderful 8 paged booklet of step-by-step instructions that anyone could pick up, read and know how to care of Cara.

The We CARA Lot team logo

I have recently been spending a lot of my nights trying to figure out the perfect logo for the We CARA Lot team t-shirts for the Telus walk to cure diabetes which is on June 14th. And I think after 11 drafts I have finally picked one!

Sneaker Day at Princess Anne

While attending the Telus Walk Community Kickoff my 12 year old daughter Kailyn made the decision that she was going to organize a Sneaker Day fundraiser at her school of about 200 students. At the time I do not think that she realized how much work was going to be involved. Sneaker Day consists of selling red, blue, yellow and green paper sneakers that she was selling for .50 cents each. Each paper sneaker had it’s own privilege that the student was able to use on Sneaker Day. If the student purchased all 4 paper sneakers they could purchase a white sneaker (raffle ticket) for the raffle prizes that the JDRF provided. A few weeks after The Community Kickoff she went to her principal with all her ideas and starter kit from the JDRF for Sneaker Day, after some compromising she received the O.K. On the top of her to do list was recruit her “team” about 13 kids from her class. They helped make posters, they helped with the set up and take down of the Sneaker Day table at every recces, they helped with the selling and display of the paper sneakers, they helped with daily announcements that were made every morning. Kailyn and I made letters for the teachers and parents to give them all the information that they need to get their students/children excited for the upcoming Sneaker Day. Kailyn and her team spent their recesses selling paper sneakers for two days with a very disappointing show of support from the teachers and students. She would come home feeling defeated and questioning what else could be done? But on the last day of the fundraiser the whole school got behind her to make her 1st Sneaker Day a success. Kailyn and her school was able to raise about $200.00. She was very excited and happy with the outcome of her Sneaker Day. She is looking forward to next year and has already started to think of new ways of making next year even better. We are very proud that she put in the time and effort to raise funds for the JDRF to help us find a cure for Type 1 Diabetes! Way to go KAY!

Reality Check in the Paper

I was reading through the paper last night and I found an article/advertisement for healthy living about diabetes.  I try to not to dwell on the negatives about my 3 year old’s diagnoses of type 1 diabetes.

Some times I find things that remind me what we really are up against in this fight for a cure.

IT'S WORSE THAN YOU THINK

It reads:

IT’S WORSE THAN YOU THINK

More people die per year from diabetes than breast cancer.  In fact diabetes is a leading cause of death by disease in Canada.  That’s because diabetes puts you at a higher risk for heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and other serous health complications.  The rest of the article is about type 2 diabetes which is 90% of all diabetes cases and it is preventable much different from type 1 diabetes.

The Telus Walk to Cure Diabetes Community Kick Off

We have recently attended the Community Kick off for the Telus Walk to Cure Diabetes.  It was a wonderful event with food, music and raffles.  The only thing that shocked me was there were no sugar free drinks available for the diabetics at the event.  When we were leaving the house my husband said to me “do you think that we should bring Cara’s kool-aid (sugar free)?”  I told him no, I’m sure there will be something for all the diabetics to drink.  Boy was I wrong!!  It was our first year at this event and like ” the newbie’s” we are, we had to borrow a kool-aid from the women that was sitting next to us.  I felt so dumb.

We did meet some wonderful families in our area that I’m looking forward to seeing at the walk.  Meeting new families with children who are type 1 diabetics was the main reason that I wanted to bring the family to this event.  The other reason was to show the kids how and why we need to get involved to raise money and find a cure.  Surprisingly they were paying attention.  During the speeches we were told the the JDRF was trying to get schools in the area involved with the fundraising.  Kailyn decided that she wanted to get her school involved with a sneaker day.  She spoke to the representative for the school board who told her that she had already sent out e-mails to all the schools and only 1 school got back to her and it was not Kailyn’s school.  Kailyn took all the information and decided that she was going to have a sneaker day at her school.  She spoke to the principal and with some convincing she manged to talk them into it.  Way to go Kailyn….she made me very proud!

Cara won a raffle prize, a back-pack full of little girl toys and things.  She was so excited while she walk up to get her prize the coordinator of the event introduced us to the whole room.  I was so embarrassed my face must have been so red!  but at least people will know who we are now! lol.  On Cara’s way back to the table she had the biggest smile on her face dragging the back- pack , it was so full of toys it was heavy for a tiny little 3 year old.  However behind Cara was a very upset Kylie.  She did not understand why she did not get a prize too.  We tried to explain to her but she was having non of it.  Cara even shared a Tinker Bell fairy puzzle with Kylie but she was still not very impressed but was able to compose herself enough for a picture.

The night ended up with Kylie and Cara dancing on the stage (the only people dancing) to the music and I won a beautiful plant that I will try very hard not to kill!  We all had a wonderful time!!