A letter to the girls D-Team

This post is Day 1 of Diabetes Blog week:  to check out more click on the link below!

Dear D-Team,

We love you and only get to see you for a short time every 3 months.  For us, and the fact the girls are young our appointments take longer then 15 minutes.  We still appreciate the fact that you take the time to talk to the girls and see how they are doing, not just how Mom and Dad are doing taking care of you.

You take the time to get to know the girls, and you know them pretty well, but there are some things you just can't see in your short appointment very 3 months,  we both know that but I thought I would share some of what you don't see.

I wish you could see how well the girls do at school.  I wish you could see how wonderful her caretakers are, Miss Lynn and Miss Julie, as well as their teachers.  Lovebug and Princess are big girls at school!  They do very well taking care of themselves and doing what they need to do.  It does help a lot having the support of the staff at school to encourage the girls to keep at it.

I wish you could have seen when Princess received her Student of the Month award for Perseverance  not just for her diabetes  but for her school work in general and all she has to deal with.  Her teachers are so very proud of her.

I wish that you could see when Lovebug does well on a test, despite a low or high blood sugar and the smile on her face when she knows what she has accomplished.

I wish you could see how much they really do support each other when the other one is down.  They are a huge encouragment to each other and it just warms this Moms heart.

I know that you see them at their best but sometimes I would love to let you see a glimpse of how much they wish they didn't have diabetes.  Like the days when they whine and complain about having to poke their fingers before they eat.  Those days when a bad site has them down or when ketones are at 4.9 and  I want nothing more then for me to have diabetes at that very moment and not them.

When they girls tell me that hate diabetes or they wish they didn't have it anymore.  The times when we get talking about cure that could come, and how they light up at the thought they wouldn't have to deal with diabetes anymore.  I don't talk about it much, but they know.  They just know.

There are some things that I wouldn't want you to see, like how I let them not check their blood sugar on occasion before they eat.  (I do have the CGM's so I'm not running completely blind!) Or when I let their sensors go as long as 14 days....I am getting good numbers from them so what is a few extra days?

Then there are those times when I realize I haven't changed a site in 3 or 4 days (Princess needs hers changed every other day to avoid infection) because I just plain forgot.  It's rather embarrassing!!  I tend to be a rule follower...but there are times when it just can't be helped.  And honestly I pull sites early more then I leave them in too long because if numbers are wonkey,  then the site is the first thing to go!

Above all, I just want to say how wonderful you are!  You never rush us, you take the time to get to know the girls in the time you do have with them.  It means the world to this Mom.  Thank you for the very bottom of my heart for all that you do for them  You are AMAZING!!!

Signed one very grateful mom,

My take

When we said good bye to Dexie a little over a year ago, I would of never thought that we would have her back so soon.  I thought we would stay with Mini for a while.  But when I saw the reviews and other d-moms crooning about the new Dexcom G4 I decided that we had to switch.  I am so glad we did!

We have had Dexie back for 2 weeks now and what a difference!! I am amazed at Dexie G4.  First of all she is accurate.  When I say accurate I mean within 10-15 points accurate. Really accurate.   We never had that with Mini.  Mini was always in her error range but nothing close to being as accurate as Dexie.

What thrills me the most is that it is even accurate with low blood sugars.  For us, that is golded.  The older version of Dexie was horribly inaccurate when it came to low blood sugars.  It was a big part of the reason we switched to Mini.  Mini has a Low predict alert and  for Lovebug who has problems with lows it was a godsend.

I also have to say that I LOVE the fact that I can carry Dexie with me and let Lovebug play and not have to have it with her all the time.  I can take some responsibility off of her.  It is wonderful to that I can lie Dexie on my nightstand and look at her with Lovebug sleeping upstairs.  It sure makes sleeping a whole lot easier!!

I can't say that Mini is a bad CGM,  we like her and Princess still uses her, but I just find that Dexie G4 is more accurate.  It's also nice that you don't have to charge the transmitter at the time you change the sensor.  The longest I ever got out of a sensor with Mini was 6 days. We just got 14 days out of our first new sensor with Dexie. She was still accurate after 14 days and I am pretty sure we could have gone longer!    I just decided that we should change it.  I am going to let this one go as long as I can.

So If I had to recommend one CGM over the other it would be the Dexcom G4.  But if Medtronic changed their transmitters to last a few more days and put a non re-chargeable battery in the transmitter   I would love to see the new Enlite sensor that the have but so far it is unavailable to us.  I know that it's available oversees and I can't wait to be able to try it for Princess.