Change Is Coming

Reading Violet's post this morning, I found myself nodding with the realization that what she describes there is exactly what we've been experiencing here over the last couple of months.

The highs. The ever-present, ever-creeping highs.

At first I thought it was the colder temperatures-- the decrease in physical activity. Possibly the flu shot a few weeks ago. A growth spurt? Perhaps.

Maybe all of these things.

Then again, maybe none of them.

Like Violet, Joseph has been gradually needing more insulin. His two hour post-breakfast sugars have been spiking into the two and three hundreds. Not terribly unusual. Except that he's not coming down to normal range by lunchtime. We're still working on this one.

His overnight numbers have been creeping up as well -- to the point that, when once he took as little as .025, he now takes as high as .325.

Yeah, we've seen this kind of thing before-- more than once. But each time, he seemed to go through some sort of acute stage-- when he needed a lot of insulin (during a growth spurt), only to slide back to needing just a bit more insulin than he had before the episode began.

Not this time.

I've been told that control will be a lot easier when Joseph leaves the honeymoon. That because he'll no longer receive that "mystery dose" from his pancreas, his blood sugars will become more predictable.

But I've also read that control will be more difficult because there will no longer be the safety net of that back-up dose. That whatever my son receives will come from the outside.

We'll be on our own.

Lately, I haven't let myself seriously consider this possibility-- rarely attributing what has been going on to the honeymoon's end. Sure, I've mentioned to Ryan that "this might be 'it.'" But I've thought that before, and been wrong. Now, this morning, the possibility of this being 'it' seems to make all the sense in the world.

And yet, just as before, I still have a hard time with this one. For, despite Joseph having had this disease for over a year now, I still take comfort in the thought that he has some beta cell function.

Well, now it may be time to move on. To fully accept the fact of this disease in all it's full-blown glory.

Yeah, we've got a lot of work to do-- he's really gonna hate the basal rate testing that I think is inevitable if we're ever going to get back some semblance of control. His next endo visit is in just a few weeks. The way things have been going over the past couple of months, I fully expect a rise in the A1c.

Ah well.

Man, all of a sudden I just feel sad.

To be expected, I suppose.