I need some help finding the words please

This Saturday Emma and I will be attending a luncheon to express our gratitude to an organization that are big supporters of JDRF. This will be Emma's first event as this year's Youth Ambassador. I am very excited for her and totally looking forward to it! I need to write out a little speech for her though and I am not sure what to have her talk about. I mean I know obviously the main point of it will be to say thank you and tell them how much we appreciate their support. I guess i am just trying to think of something more...something that will affect these people...something that they will remember when they leave there and go home to tell their families about it. I want them to walk away remembering one of the many many faces of diabetes. I want them to hear her story and see how her life is affected by diabetes. I don't want to have her just babble on about needles and blood sugars and carbs. I want them to look up at her little face and see in her eyes exactly just how much this stupid disease tries to rule our lives. I want her to be able to express this to them simply and easily seeing as how she is only 7. Emma is very well-spoken for a 7 year old...she does have a pretty amazing vocabulary really. I know that she will do a great job.
So, I guess that I am just looking for any suggestions. My brain is fried from dealing with her stomach bug this weekend and I am struggling trying to think of the right words for her to say these things. Any help or ideas would be much appreciated!

I was robbed I tell ya!

Ok...so not literally robbed. Not in the "some masked burglar breaking in and stealing our TV and Barry Manilow boxed set" sense of the word robbed. It was more so in the "time" sense of the word. I had great plans for this weekend past. Ranging from piano and gymnastics lessons and a friends party for Emma...to confronting my own personal hoarders room and making it sparkle like new. Most people have a junk drawer in their house...or a certain closet that bears the brunt of all the "stuff" that we just set aside to look at later as opposed to putting it where it should go. Well, I have an entire junk room. Honestly it is actually referred to as the "play room" because the majority of the junk in there is of the toy variety. My daughter is 7 and has a lot of toys. Too many toys really. The play room has turned in to one of those places where we just put a toy or puzzle or ball or whatever that we just don't use anymore. It is amazing what one can accumulate in 7 years. Anyway, last weekend we went down there and began to work on cleaning it out and actually made a dent in the mess...part of the room actually looks nice now. So, my plans for this weekend were to continue on our quest and finish the room. However, all of that was thrown to the wayside on Friday night at around 11pm.
Emma had been sniffly and sneezy since Thursday, but when she went to bed on Friday...she seemed ok for the most part. I popped in the movie "Due Date"...which is hilarious by the way...and 11pm rolled around to the sounds of Emma throwing up in bed. Queue (or is it Cue?) the scary movie music...DUN DUN DUN!!! I went upstairs to find her shaking uncontrollably and sick everywhere. I carried her downstairs and put her in the bath to wash her off. I started panicking though because the shaking was getting worse. Checked her blood sugar and was 5.8...not too shabby. My mind was racing, my heart was pounding, she was looking at me with sheer terror in her eyes begging me to make it better. I didn't know what to do first...juice box? dry her off? clean off her bed? check for fever? check for ketones? call 911? glucagon? I was frozen in that moment...trying to do all of the above at the same time...Trying to figure it out and straighten it out in my head. I have never been that close to calling 911 in my entire life. I actually had my fingers on the 911 buttons. Then I took a breath, set the phone down, grabbed my baby out of the tub and sat on the bathroom floor with her on my lap, wrapped in towels and blankets...holding her to my chest, rocking her, trying to warm her up, calming her down. She eventually stopped shaking and I began to check things off my list...check temp...yes she had a fever, clean her up and get her dressed...done, make up bed on living room floor where we sleep when she is sick...done, check for ketones...yes she has large amounts, clean off her bed and begin laundry...done and done. I didn't sleep much that night. We spent the majority of Saturday fighting the stomach virus as well. Today was really the first day that she seemed to be getting back to her old self. Full appetite isn't back yet...and still battling ketones, but she is on her way. Basically nothing got done this weekend that I had planned on. I hate that about illnesses. They are like little burglars waiting in the bushes for you to be busy with the dishes...or expecting a crowd of company over to watch the Superbowl so they can come in and steal the big screen TV first. I am a big fan of Henry Rollins. He used to be in a punk band called Black Flag...and now just writes books and goes out on speaking tours. He has a great sense of humor. One time he was talking about "time murderers". We all come across our own time murderers every day...maybe even some of us are actually the time murderers ourselves! You know the type...people who stand around in line ahead of you talking to the cashier about their bunyons or their lazy son-in-laws. People who are in line in front of you at McDonalds staring at the menu trying to decide what to get...I mean seriously? It's McDonalds....you know what's on the menu...just pick something!
Anyway, illnesses are time murderers too. They come at the worst times...they waste your whole weekend...they ruin your plans...all along with making you or your child feel awful and sick. Completely not cool. So....that was my weekend. Good news is tomorrow is Monday. Umm...yea...Monday.

Too much coffee, migraines, and fancy sunglasses

I'm sitting here typing away on the keyboard and wearing a pair of my daughters sunglasses. They are St Patrick's Day style...the frames are shaped like 4 leaf clovers and they are green. Why you ask am I choosing to look so ridiculous? Well, it's sort of a long story...so I suppose I will just start at the beginning. I changed Emma's ratios yesterday because she had been having high blood sugar numbers continuously for the past few days. I figured either she was coming down with something or she had grown and just needed more insulin. I found my answer this afternoon when i got her at lunch from school and she had a runny nose. She has your average ordinary common cold. I love how something so simple causes blood sugars to go so high. Anyway, because I had changed her ratios yesterday I wound up staying awake until 2:00am last night (this morning actually) and had to wake up at 6:00ish in the morning to drive my husband to work so I could have the vehicle during the day since we only have one car and share it. So....that would be 4 hours of sleep I got. Needless to say, I was drinking massive amounts of coffee all day long to fight off the sleepiness and get my daily duties accomplished without any naps. On an average ordinary day I will usually only have 1 or 2 cups of coffee tops...and that's usually in the morning. Well, i went about my day no problem...got my stuff done and picked my daughter up from school at the end of the day. We then drove to pick up my husband from work. There is a promotion going on up here at the Tim Horton's coffee stores called Roll Up the Rim to Win. You buy your coffee, drink it, take the lid off, roll up the rim and see if it has something printed on there that says "Win a free coffee" or "Gagnez un cafe" for my French peeps. There are a bunch of other prizes you can win actually...a car, money, TV, etc. Well, I wound up winning a free coffee off of one of the many coffees I drank earlier in the day...so I decided to continue with the theme for the day and use my winning ticket to get another free coffee. We stopped for supper on the way and ate at home. After supper my daughter and i decided to go to the store because I had noticed earlier that day that her winter boots were falling apart and she needed a new pair. We hopped in the car and drove to Zellers (like Target...but not). I parked the car, got out, and waited for Emma to hop out. Instantly I got a migraine. Awesome. I haven't had one in a while really...but when i get them, they begin with my vision getting all screwy. I start to see wavy, squiggly lines in my perepheral vision and those lines sloooowwwly keep moving across my line of sight until they get to the other side and go away completely. Then my head hurts so bad that it makes me want to barf. The only thing that I have found that works is to sit there in the dark and wait it out. Well, I couldn't very well turn the car on and drive home to a dark room because I couldn't see properly due to the squiggly lines. So, there we sat in the parking lot waiting it out. To pass the time, I turned the ignition to the accessories on the car and put the radio on and Emma sat there playing with the GPS finding the most direct route to Poland or Venezuela or somewhere. I sat there with my eyes closed and talked in my head to my deceased grandfather (who I believe watches over my daughter and I all the time) to help me out and make this migraine pass quickly so we could just go home. Needless to say, the car battery died. Double awesome. So, i had to phone my husband at home and get him to get a ride from the neighbour to come and give me a boost. To make an extremely long story short...they came, boosted the car, and we went home. Once at home, I laid down on the couch and turned the lights off trying to ease my aching eyes and head. Usually I will even put on a pair of my sunglasses to help with the bright-light-searing-eye pain situation. Well, back in the summer my own sunglasses actually broke in half...so I have none. I asked Emma if perhaps she would find me a pair of hers. She actually has a few pairs of them around. Well, the first pair she found turned out to be these funky St Patty's day ones. So, I put them on...and here I sit...looking very Irish-ly festive. Through all of my ordeal this evening and all of my head/eye pain....my daughter was so sweet. She sat by me and rubbed my head, found and shared her sunglasses with me, helped my husband get me some Advil and water, played very quietly, and told me she loved me. I know it's just a migraine...not some serious dramatic illness....but it just felt really nice to see her behaving that way. She is so sweet and caring. She is always wanting to help and she is very compassionate. Not only was she wanting to ease my eye pain...but she also wanted to make sure I looked as stylish as possible. I love that about her. What a kid...lolol!!

Low low low your boat

Emma had a low tonight just before her bedtime snack. It wasn't a horrible low...but it was a low none the less. She was 3.4, which is 61 for my American friends. She was actually in the bath playing around after I had finished washing her and she just stopped all of the sudden, looked up at me and said, "Umm...yea I think I'm low." I almost started laughing just because of the way she said it. Like it was just so matter of fact. Just like someone saying, "Yea, it looks like rain today." Anyway, I went in the kitchen to get her meter and we checked to find out she was in fact 3.4 and I brought out the juicebox. She thought this was just the coolest thing ever that she was being allowed to drink juice while sitting in the tub. Well, once the juice was finished I took her out and started to dry her off. I noticed the typical blank stare with the dark circles under her eyes and a slight shake to her hands still. I asked her if she was ok or if she still felt low. She told me that she thought maybe the food just hadn't kicked in yet and it was making her still feel low. It made me want to cry. Honestly it really did bring tears to my eyes. On the one hand I hate that she speaks of these things so matter of factly...it breaks my heart...it makes me so sad that this is just another part of her existence. On the other hand, I suppose I am glad that she is so accepting of it...that it doesn't really upset her...she just recognizes it, we treat it, and we move on with our day.
I personally am not diabetic. I have been tested though and was told that I am hypoglycemic. I have a tendency to have low blood sugar situations. So, I can completely relate to how it feels. I despise that yucky, gross, awful feeling that comes with a low. In my situation though, if I am low I can just eat and drink anything in sight until that feeling goes away...and let me tell you, that is EXACTLY what I do every time...even though I am usually not hungry or thirsty when it happens, I just eat and eat and drink and drink until that disgusting feeling goes away. There was one really bad time actually where I was nauseous, dizzy, seeing black spots everywhere, and had to crawl to the kitchen to get something...anything to eat...just to make it stop. It was awful...i couldn't really think straight either...so I grabbed the bowl of sugar I use to spoon into my coffee in the morning. I just kept shoveling spoonful after spoonful of sugar into my mouth while leaning against the kitchen counter. After Emma's low tonight, i just kept thinking about how she doesn't have that option. She can't sit there and shove whatever food she can find into her mouth when she's low...she can't keep eating or drinking until that gross feeling of the low goes away...or else she would skyrocket the other way and have a ginormous high blood sugar number. She just has to drink a juicebox and sit there....waiting...wallowing in that horrid feeling...waiting for the food or drink "to kick in." I hate that she has to endure that. I'd give anything to be able to take that away from her. Lows are awful. This is one of the many many reasons why Emma is my hero. She is matter of fact about it...she follows the steps to fix the situation...and she hasn't complained a single time about any of it. I know it may sound weird...but I look up to her...I admire her...I would give anything to be even half as strong as she is.

Enough is enough already

We had to go get blood work done today for Emma's annual clinic appointment. I somehow managed to weasle my way out of getting the extra bloodwork done at her last regular clinic appointment...but no such luck this time. I knew as soon as the receptionist brought it up that I was going to be in for a brutal morning. To say Emma hates getting blood taken out of her arm would be an understatement. She usually is able to sweet talk the blood lady into just taking it out of her finger instead. Well, seeing as how the ANNUAL clinic bloodwork requires more blood as well as a pee test....there was no sweet talking. No cute faces, no pouty lip, no puppy dog eyes, no tears were going to stop this lady from jamming a needle in her arm this time. Emma even tried to make a break for it and run out of the room as soon as she realized that it was coming out of her arm this time. I hate this disease. I hate seeing my kid stressed to the max and panicked. I hate what it does to her. I hate what the stress and tears do to her blood sugars. I would trade places with her in a heartbeat. I wish I could give her my pancreas. She screams and cries and thrashes about like the poor blood lady is trying to murder her. She looks at me like she is wondering why I am allowing this to happen to her. Like why the hell am I not saving her? Why the hell am I not scooping her up and running out the front door of that damn hospital and taking her to safety? How could I be letting this go on? How come I am not saving her? I am not writing this in the hopes of getting any sympathy whatsoever (is that one word or 2?) I am writing this in the hopes that people who don't live this stupid diabetes life will get a glimpse into what our kids go through. I am hoping that at least one of you out there will realize how important it is to find a cure. How much it would mean to me. How much it would mean to my kid. How much it would mean to all of the millions of other people out there living with this disease. We need a cure now. I can't handle seeing my kid look at me like that ANY MORE! Yet another piece of my heart broke off today in that room at the hospital. Diabetes keeps taking and taking and taking. It is relentless and sometimes on days like today, i feel like I just don't have enough fight or strength or hootspa left in me to fight back. It is too hard to be strong anymore. I hate it and I just want to be done with it. We have put in our time already...almost 3 years is enough!! It is like a jail term that is never ending and we never even committed any crime to deserve this sentence. I just want to be paroled already. I deserve it. My kid most definitely deserves it. F - U Diabetes!!

Let's do it again! Let's do it again!

So it's a long weekend here in good old Canada...tomorrow is Family Day. It's too bad that it's not on a day in the summer where the weather is nicer, so families could get out and do something fun together in the sunshine...but I can't complain...a day off is a day off! Anyway, this afternoon Emma and I were bored and decided to bring her plasma car outside to ride seeing as how the snow has pretty much melted off of the sidewalks now. It was a blast! She started out just riding it along the flat sidewalk. As I was walking along next to her, i couldn't help but remember all of the times I had walked up and down that sidewalk following her on her big wheel or her bike...or even when she was first learning to walk and was still weebly wobbly. I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that she is now 7 years old. She is taller and acts older and seems so much more grown up to me lately. If I let it....it really makes me sad...I miss chasing after her little 2 year old self running down the sidewalk. I miss hearing her sing that song from "Hoodwinked" while she peddles along on her bigwheel. That song is forever etched in my memory..."Here's a story I hope you'll like! It's the one about the girl riding on her bike. It's a tired old tale, but it still rings true...." She used to sing that at the top of her lungs while peddling furiously past our house...her little legs a blur pumping away on those plastic peddles. Time really does fly by. She will always be my baby...I will always see that sweet little innocent twinkle in her eyes when i look at her....no matter how old she is...7 or even 57.
Anyway, flat ground quickly became boring for Emma...so we took off up the street to start at the top of a curved hill for her to have a little more excitement on the plasma car. We walked to the top and of course I had to carry it the whole way...because she's not quite old enough apparantly to not need me to hoof it up hills loaded down with her heavy belongings! So, we reached the top and I set the plasma car down for her to sit on. She plopped right down and took off...no fear...no second thoughts at all. She quickly picked up speed and I actually had to full out run to keep up with her and make sure she didn't wipe out. It was great...she screamed the whole way with excitement...her cheeks bright red from the cool wind and the fun of the ride. At the bottom, the first thing she said was of course, "Mommy!! Let's do it again!!" So, back up we went...her running ahead of me...me trying to keep up while carrying the plasma car. We must have done that at least a dozen times. It really got me thinking...yes it's true, I do most definitely miss how things were years ago when she was tiny....but I also love how things are now! I love seeing her have fun...I love seeing her be a regular little kid...playing outside, riding her plasma car, going all out doing something that might seem scary and having a blast the whole time. I love how she shows me what is really important in life. I learned from her today that acting like a kid and feeling the cool wind in your face while flying down a hill is by far much better than anything else I could have done today. Being a grown up is hard and a lot of it is not fun at all...so taking those little moments in time...those precious seconds of fun...it's important. Grab ahold of as many of those moments as you can, because before you know it...these days will be gone too. Here's to many many more days of playing outside and flying down the hill with as much enthusiasm as a 7 year old!

Toys R Us and boys

It has definitely been an educational week in our house, so i wanted to share a bit of what went on....some of it good...some not so good...that's how the story usually goes though. Anyway, Emma and I decided to make a trip to her all-time favorite store, Toys R Us, so she could spend her birthday money. On the way there, we were chatting away about things and out of no where she mentioned to me that a boy in her class made fun of her diabetes. Instantly my Mommy protective emotions rose to the surface and I asked her who it was. She told me the boys name and I knew instantly who she was talking about. Now I am certainly not one to ever judge a child or think ill of them....but this kid has come up in conversation with Emma before...and to put it nicely, he seems to not be one of the nicest kids around. I was driving along feeling my blood boiling...seeing red and wanting to track down this kids Mom and give her a piece of my mind. Instead, I took two deep breaths and focused on making it to Toys R Us without getting a speeding ticket. I was SO angry...so upset that I had to sit there and explain to my kid that there are really some ignorant people out there who sometimes don't know what they are saying and don't know that it will hurt someone. After more discussion, Emma mentioned to me that the other day this same boy asked her to be his girlfriend and told her she was cute. Well, Emma apparantly told him that she didn't want to be his girlfriend...I am assuming maybe his diabetes comments/bullying was his way of being upset with her for saying no. UGH. So...I let it go...I figured that the only thing I can control in life is how I react to things. I can't control all of the idiots or bullies out there in the world...I can't stop them from saying moronic things to my kid. The only thing i can do is control how I react to them and try to explain to Emma that she needs to rise above it as well.
Fast forward a couple of days to Friday...Emma was asked to have a playdate at another boys house after school. His Mom actually asked me if I wanted to come too and we could sit there and have a coffee while the kids played. This boy seems like a really nice kid and Emma talks about him a lot and how they play together at recess quite a bit. So, off we went after school over to his house. She had a blast and I had a great time too just chatting with the other Mom. She told me that the night before when she was giving her son a bath, he told her that he was in love with Emma. Can i get a collective "AWWWW! How cute!!"??? What a sweetie! I guess that he said he loves her because she is really pretty and sweet...and super smart. What a kid...I am so happy that the smart factor played a role in things! Anyway, once it got to be supper time, i told Emma that we needed to head out home so she could eat supper on time. Both the kids were not too happy about that really...but it was really getting to be that time. The little boy asked if Emma could stay for dinner because he didn't want her to go yet. I totally would have said yes...but the big diabetes factor came up and ruined it again. Not fair. He actually even told me that if Emma could stay for dinner, he would be brave and give her the needle she would need when she needed it. How sweet is that?!! I am loving this kid already. To make a long story short, we did end up leaving...but promised that next time I would plan ahead and she would be able to stay and eat with him. It was awesome to be able to show Emma the difference in how boys act...one kid making fun of her and hurting her feelings about her diabetes.....and on the complete other end of the spectrum, this other boy was willing to do something scary (give a needle to her) just so she could stay a bit longer.
Skip ahead to today...i don't know if any of you saw the video posted in the internet last week about a woman walking through the mall and texting? Well, she was so focused on texting that she walked right up to one of those fountains in the mall and fell right in. Apparantly she is suing the mall because they released the security tape footage of her doing this...and she is completely embarassed. Unfortunate? YES....Hilarious? YES! Anyway, we had our own similar experience today at the pharmacy. Emma and I stopped in to pick up her lantus refill and she was walking along down the aisle a couple steps behind me...playing her Nintendo DS...while she was walking. I was totally unaware she was actually playing it...i thought she was just carrying it until she got to the chairs back by the counter so she could sit down and play it while we waited. Well, an employee happened to be stocking the shelves in the aisle we were on and had left his big metal cart off the the side....like a big menacing steel monster ready to jump out at anyone who got to close. I was walking along and out of nowhere all I heard was a loud bell-like clanging sound...turns out it was Emma's forehead connecting with the handle. It was sort of surreal really...i thought it was her DS that hit it...and i thought she was laughing at the situation...so I started laughing with her! Until I looked down and saw her face...tears streaming down and a big bruised goose egg sticking out on her head...poor thing...omg I am the world's worst Mom!! I could have fell through the floor with the weight of guilt I felt...I can't believe I laughed. Anyway, I quickly scooped her up and we sat down on the chairs and I kissed her head and tears probably a million times. Poor girl!! All seems to be ok tonight though...we iced it and she seemed her usual self all evening.
What a crazy couple of days it's been for sure! We did learn a few lessons though...we now know a bit about how grade 1 little boys act (i can't believe we are already talking about boys by the way...sheesh!)...and that you should pack a lunch if you ever take a 7 year old girl to Toys R Us to spend $80 because you could be there for a WHILE...and that it's not a good idea to walk and play your DS at the same time.