The Boy gets a pair of trips to his endocrinologist each quarter — one to draw blood, one to get the results. As we expected, his sloppy maintenance resulted in an A1C score of roughly 10... if you don’t know what that means, it’s not good; it should be around 7. After a stern lecture from the doc, who went into graphic detail of the slow painful death (piece by piece) that awaits him if he doesn’t get his act together, he confirmed that The Boy is indeed a Type II rather than Type I. “He would have probably hit 500 and ended up in the hospital over the summer if he was Type I.”
This is very good news for The Boy: it means he’s down to typically one injection (the Lantus he takes at bedtime) per day, with the Novolog as a backup if he needs it. Of course, he still has to poke himself and meter his glucose, but that’s no big deal by comparison.
I took an empty pill bottle and had him put a few of his pills in it to keep here. His regular supply is at his apartment, but if he comes home for a weekend or whatever he’ll have them even if he forgets his normal supply. (We also have a backup glucose meter.)
Sunday, January 22, 2006
5 comments:
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FARfetched, I got my wakeup call when my HA1C hit 9.1. It isn't easy to think about my blood sugars all the time, so I understand what you son is going through.
ReplyDeleteDoes he seem aware of how serious a 10 is?
The Boy just turned 18 last weekend. I looked around for a youth-oriented support group when he got it, but didn't find one (we're in a pretty rural area). I think he understands how serious the situation is, and I'm hoping he'll take it seriously. I've asked him on a couple of occasions how he'll play guitar when his fingers start coming off....
ReplyDelete"I've asked him on a couple of occasions how he'll play guitar when his fingers start coming off...."
ReplyDeleteThis is actually an effective way to warn a youth about habitual dangers. You should continue to point those things out. Ask him what model of wheel chair he wants after he loses his feet -- that you're interested because he will probably be needing one in 10 years or so at his rate.
Just casually force him to look ahead at the consequences of his actions.
I snapped to when I realized that my uncle was only 11 years older than I am now when he died of complications from diabetes. It doesn't take too long with numbers like I had for things to go really bad.
Your son might still be counting on a future. But you can help him put a timeline to it.
Sure thing, Duct!
ReplyDeleteWhoo. I didn't realize it could get that bad. I think his endocrinologist went over a lot of the bad stuff... and when I tell The Boy about this, he'll probably tell me he's already heard about it and he's doing a better job of controlling it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, Ductape. As I was reading, I was thinking it might be more merciful to cut the feet off just to not have that pain.