Check out my mad juggling skills

What a day! Lately I have been reading on Facebook all of these posts of friends who have children that are sick and in the hospital. I knew it would get to Emma sooner or later. No matter how often I got her to wash her hands or keep her hands out of her mouth and stop wiggling her loose tooth...I knew it would get us...and it did. She woke up today feeling fine and everything seemed ok. I did notice that she had an off look about her though...something was different. I kept asking her if she felt ok or if something was wrong and she kept telling me that she felt fine...everything was ok! So, we went about our day and decided to go to the public swim at the high school near here. Well, we got there and got into our suits and hopped in the pool. After about an hour Emma got this panicked look on her face and told me she felt like she was going to puke. I thought...oh no...here we go! I had visions of her throwing up in the pool and everyone freaking out and the lifeguards getting angry at me for bringing a sick kid there in the first place (even though I knew she wasn't sick before we even left the house!). I quickly scooped her up and rushed to the locker room the whole while talking to her and trying to make sure she would at least make it to the washroom before letting loose. Thankfully we made it. She never actually threw up there at all...we got dried off and dressed and left....she saved the puking for at home. Well, to make a long story short...she is currently asleep camped out on the living room floor behind me and she seems ok. No fever, no ketones, ok blood sugar...I am good with that. I wanted to talk about something that happened earlier in the evening though. In between throwing up, I had actually convinced her to get in the bath and wash off the chlorine smell and general puki-ness odour. While she was sitting there, she burst into tears begging me not to take her to the hospital. She was completely terrified that if she had to go there, she would have to stay there for Christmas and then Santa wouldn't be able to find her. It was all I could do not to burst into tears right along with her. Instead, another piece of my heart broke off....score one for the bastard that is diabetes. I told her that all she needed to do was focus on this particular moment in time...this exact minute. I told her that we weren't at the hospital right now...we might not have to go there even...so there was no sense worrying about something that hadn't come to be yet. I told her that if we did in fact wind up having to go there...Santa would most definitely find her. I told her that Santa stops at the hospital FIRST to drop off presents for the kids there before he goes anywhere else. That settled things in her mind thankfully. That is one thing we should never have to experience as parents though...we should never have to see our children sick and overwhelmed with fear that Santa won't know where they are. It's just wrong...it's not fair.
Another thing that drives me insane about illnesses with diabetes is how hard it is to juggle everything. Sickness usually brings on ketones which are dangerous...the only way to get rid of ketones is extra insulin and lots of water...well if you have a diabetic kid who is sick throwing up anything you try to give them including water, then they have low blood sugar dangers anyway! So there I was juggling ketones, extra insulin, low blood sugars, sips of juice every 2 minutes....it's maddening...i might as well have been banging my head against the wall. It's a vicious circle....it's exhausting! Non-diabetic kids who are ill throwing up can just throw up and go lay down on the couch and sleep....I wish things were that easy. Instead I had to sit there giving her sips of juice to bring her blood sugar back up...hoping and praying that it would stay down in her belly and not make a reappearance in the bucket. All the while wondering if the ketones were powering up and gaining on me again.
So, here I sit...in for a long night once again. You may have won this round, diabetes....but just wait until tomorrow...it's my turn then. At least this didn't happen on Christmas day I suppose....