Pocket Sized Moments Of Perfection

Sometimes they are so fleeting, they don't get acknowledged: those peaceful moments where everything is right in your world.

As I type this, no children are fighting. No one is complaining they are hungry. Blood glucose is in safe range. Dog isn't trying to stalk or hunt the cat. Heck, my oldest is even willingly taking the dog outside to pee. There is balance and dare I say it.... harmony!

The trick is to RECOGNIZE those pocket sized moments of perfection in the day. To focus on the static, the negativity, the impending disasters, the seemingly never-ending list of chores, that is to doom yourself and your day.

So I challenge you to recognize and seize a pocked sized moment of perfection today. Perhaps in doing so, they will sustain us when rocky waves starting battering our shores.

Diabetic Diamonds In The Rough

I have learned from my own personal struggles, the power of positive thinking. If I can identify five things everyday that I am GRATEFUL for, it helps me keep everything else in perspective.

Someone recently asked about the positives type 1 diabetes has brought to our life. Some might immediately say "none", but that isn't the case in this household. The gifts that diabetes has brought to our family I call the 'diabetic diamonds in the rough'. You might not see them, or appreciate them, at first glance.... but they are there if you look hard enough.

Here are some of our diabetic diamonds in the rough:

• the insulin pump is teaching my seven year old to read. She may struggle with "See Jane run. Run Jane, run!" but she can read "Normal Bolus" versus "Dual Wave Bolus"
• Rowan is being taught awareness of her own body. Both inside and out. I'm still learning about mine!
• My children know more about nutrition than the average twenty year old.
• My daughters are being taught to speak up if they feel an adult doesn't know what they're talking about. Note to daughters: stop using this one with your mother.
• My seven year old has learned much about consequences. Particularly before our leap to the pump. You want to eat that great big gooey brownie? Sure.... but you can only have half, and after you're done all that's left for you to munch on is cheddar cheese and raw carrots. There will be no more food for at least another two hours. What's that, have a tummy ache? Yeah.... not such a good idea, eh?
• Schedule and routine. If ever that was lacking, diabetes walked into our lives and bitch slapped it into my reality. We are structured. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, we HAVE structure.
• Living in the moment. I have struggled with THIS one for years. But when the diabetic seas are calm and smooth, you learn to savor every single moment of it. No worries about what happened four hours ago. Right NOW, it's all good!
• An appreciation for our health. Especially my ten year old. Not a day passes that she's not tremendously grateful somehow type 1 diabetes didn't come knocking on HER door.
• Empathy. My ten year old was born with buckets of empathy. My youngest? She's the typical youngest. But when she tests her blood in front of her friends and someone says "Oooh gross!!" she has profound empathy when she meets a little girl in the neighbourhood wearing both a ventilator on her throat and a feeding tube. They stop to show and tell each others site locations.
  
• Gratitude! Rowan survived her battle with DKA in August of 2010. We are profoundly grateful, and I'd like to think we connect with that gratitude daily.
• The generosity of our community has been overwhelming since Rowan's diagnosis. We moved to a new town three, maybe four years ago. I had no idea the level of friendship, support and giving that were waiting us. These people are our angels.
• An appreciation for technology and advancements in medicine. If I have to be raising a type 1 diabetic child, I am UNBELIEVABLY grateful that I have the good fortune to this do today. Not 30 years ago, God forbid, not 100 years ago. I don't have to resharpen syringes for her insulin injections. She gets to finger poke instead of doing urine dips. Her pump can fit in her pocket, not have to be worn like an astronauts backpack. Yes.... PROFOUNDLY grateful for advancements in medicine.
  
• Also very grateful to be living in Canada with standardized health care. I cannot express again our grateful that the overwhelming costs of living with type 1 diabetes has been miniaturized by our counties health care. Further, I am grateful to be living in a country where my 'access to insulin' is never in doubt.
  

Talking to a friend the other week, she identified a profound one for me. She says "I'm amazed that Rowan, when she's hypoglycemic and in trouble, ALWAYS finds her way to you before her legs go out from under her. Not every child feels that their parent is "a safe place". It's clear she does with you"

I'm sure that there are more diabetic diamonds in the rough. Perhaps I haven't stumbled onto them yet. But I'm always on the look out.

What positives did type 1 diabetes bring to YOUR family's life?

Wishing you good health, and cooperative numbers!

Krystin
Woman.... Artist.... Mother.... Advocate.... Artificial Pancreas..... and everything in between!

Go Canucks Go!!!

From the Vancouver Sun newspaper~
The Canucks and the team's charitable arm, Cancuks For Kids Fund, will Monday announce a $5-million donation to BC Children's Hospital and diabetes research, the largest single gift in the fund's 25 year history.

BC Children's Hospital said $2million will go toward diabetes research and $3 million will go to the Campaign for BC Children, a fundraiser launched in April 2008 to raise money to rebuild the hospital into one of the world's leading pediatric care and research centres.

So far, British Columbians have contributed more than $128 million toward the $200 million campaign. The province will provide $300 million to complete the estimated $500 million-plus project.

The new hospital will include a pediatric intensive care unit, emergency department, diagnostic and imaging facilities, operating rooms and other Acute care areas.

Child development and rehabilitation services at the Sunny Hill Health Centre in east Vancouver will be relocated to BC Children's.

"We are absolutely delighted" said Don Lindsay, president of Teck Cominco Inc. and chair of the Campaign for BC Children, on Sunday.

"The Canucks are a huge profile with loyal fans and alot of people watch what they are doing. It will probably inspire others to make gifts as well."

He said the first phase of the new hospital is already underway after the provincial government pledged $90 million last September to get the project off the ground.

"By supporting the construction of a new BC Children's Hospital and diabetes research, the Canucks for Kids Fund is ensuring generations of B.C. children will receive the very best medical care and (attack) the roots of what has become a childhood epidemic."

The $2 million for diabetes research will go to the laboratory at the Child and Family Research Institute. The team includes scientists studying the causes of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes in children and working to develop new treatments to prevent or cure the disease.

"We feel fortunate to be able to support BC Children's Hospital with this gift," said Victor de Bonis, vice-president of the Canucks for Kids Fund board. "This gift is our opportunity to give back to a community that has given us so much."

Last year hockey stars Daniel & Henrik Sedin donated $1.5 million to BC Children's Hospital.

Other significant donors include Djavad Mowafaghian Foundation, a children's charity that donated $4 million and an anonymous donor who gave $5 million.

The top corporate donors are Teck Resources at $25 million and Overwaitea Food Group with $20 million.

In 2010, more than 78,000 children were treated at Children's Hospital. Also last year, the BC Children's Hospital Foundation received donations from more than 120,000 people and had revenues of more than $56.4 million.

The Canucks for Kids Fund, with help from community donations, built the first Canuck Place children's Hospice, a care home for children with life-threatening illnesses. Since Canuck Place opened in 1995, the charity has granted more than $23 million in support of Canuck Place.

Gratitude In The Midst Of Diabetes...

Caring for a little one with Type 1 Diabetes can be overwhelming, emotionally and physically exhausting. I am a *total* needle-phobe, and in highschool I failed both biology and chemistry, so the fact that I am the sole caregiver of this high maintenance condition baffles me.

But in the middle of caring for Rowan and Type 1, I always have a choice in how I handle it. I can get angry by the injustice of the entire situation, I can let her condition slowly pull me back down into the dark depths of depression of which I've struggled all of my life. Somedays I do. But, I also have the choice in responding to life's circumstances with the most grace I can muster. I don't want to raise this little girl to consider herself a victim of life's circumstance. I don't want her to ever assume the fetal position in the face of adversity. Perhaps because of her tender young age, I am conscious of her watching me all the time. Learning from what I model. So today, I am choosing to be as grateful as I can for this entire situation, and hopefully some of the gratitude and positivity will rub off on her as well as her sister.

I am so tremendously grateful for the following aspects of Type 1 Diabetes:

• I am grateful that the original endocrinologist we saw last August at BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver, drives out to the Abbotsford Hospital one day each month to see patients within the Fraser Valley. That saves me an hours drive each way to her quarterly endocrinology appointments. Approximately $30 in gas return trip. For this, I'm very grateful.
• I am grateful that both my girls are learning exactly how a body operates, what it needs as proper fuel, and how to maintain and care for themselves. Most people reach adulthood without a firm foundation of this knowledge. Not my little ones. Diabetes is teaching them proper self-care. For this I'm grateful.
• For a community of online women who when I'm in a dark place, I can be honest with them about what I'm feeling, and chances are, they have been experiencing it also, making the whole situation that much more normal for me.
• I'm grateful that Rowan has some medical coverage, otherwise I'd be bankrupt under these continual medical costs.
• I'm grateful that Rowan's paternal grandparents took the initiative of receiving diabetic training, without it ever being asked of them, simply because they knew they would need the training/information to continue to be a regular part of her life.
• I'm grateful Rowan is able to identify in the middle of the night, in the depths of slumber, when she is low. She awakes and requests "Mama, please test me, I feel weird... I can't feel my legs". This little girl has a remarkable ability of being able to recognize when she's dangerously low.
• I'm grateful that diabetes has reminded me how strong I am capable of being. I am a fighter, always have been, and apparently will always continue to be so. As a single parent, sometimes the workload is insurmountable, the needs never ending.
• And while I'm certain there is even more to be grateful for, I'm going to close this post on this note. I am grateful that one week after being discharged, I (the single parent) took my little girls camping at Rolley Lake for the first time ever. I have never been the sole grown up of a camping expedition, so that was a first. As was incorporating insulin and diabetes throughout the camping trip. In hindsight, I don't know if it was the bravest or most daft thing I've ever done. But I had made a commitment to take them, the reservation was already there, we weren't THAT far from home. I'm proud of myself for not renegging on that trip. Because you know..... if you can administer an insulin dose amid dust and dirt on the top of a picnic table, baby- you can do it ANYWHERE.

So even though I'm not too impressed with this latest development within her life, it is teaching us things about ourselves that I don't think we would have learned otherwise.

THANK YOU!

Thinking Thankful Thoughts...

Thinking Thankful Thoughts... and one that I failed to acknowledge is my epic gratitude for Insulin. The girls and I were at a friends for dinner last night, and Rowan received two units before dinner, and I kept a close eye on what she ate. But half an hour after dinner, she was clearly not herself. The only information I could get out of her was "I don't feel good". She was in a slump, not talkative, unbelievably low energy. "Do you have a tummy ache?" I ask "No". "Do you have a headache?" I ask. "No". Oh come on kid, throw me a lead here, will ya? So, much to her protest, I adminstered another unit and a half of insulin, and within ten minutes I knew I had done the right thing, and she started to come around.

This Mama of a Diabetic does not even want to think what the world would be like if that team of bickering Canadians didn't discover this miracle. Now if we could just find a cure, THAT will be the true miracle! But knowing it's in the works, is another thing to be grateful for.

See? Once you start tapping into the gratitude, it has a snowball affect, and you realize exactly how blessed you are, regardless of circumstances.

Thanks for stopping by! (weeeeeee- more gratitude!)