The Perpetual Toddler

The Perpetual Toddler

Let’s name one melting down toddler that can be counted on for plenty of negative outbursts, unreasonable behaviours, and that never grows up.  Although all 3 of my sons are well past toddlerhood I very much am still living with a melted down toddler day in & day out.  If you have type 1 diabetes maybe you too are living with the perpetual toddler who has tantrums in a myriad of situations.  It is the same type of tantrum that acts up at times when we are in a hurry to get out the door for an appointment.  The perpetual toddler of type 1 diabetes in my life loves to especially kick it up in meltdown land when there is an appointment to get to as well as when time driven activities have been arranged.    How about you?  Are you living with the perpetual tantrum throwing toddler of type 1?

The most natural thing in the world is growing up & growing through one stage or phase to the next developmentally.  Diabetes plays by no rules, resists stages and is a beast of different magnitudes on different days.  Will today be the day that I tame the toddler of diabetes or is there going to be a toddler with meltdown blood sugars  causing a complete turning upside down of plans & schedules?  Sometimes I feel like type 1 mocks my schedule.  There are times when plans are made & they are messed up by either a low blood sugar or excruciatingly high blood sugar at the last minute.  Those are times when we make our corrections accordingly where diabetes management is concerned & we feel like something that the cat just dragged in.  And some days we put on our brightest smiles for the outside world & attempt to suppress or ignore the melting down toddler of diabetes as far as the nausea, profound exhaustion, impatience and more that physiologically accompanies the melting down type 1 toddler.

Just like every person is different, so too is each person living with diabetes.  Each toddler is also different.  Please don’t get me wrong as I am not suggesting that every single child goes through the “terrible twos” or meltdowns during his or her toddlerhood.  Statistically though, the “terrible twos” permeate society as a cliché for a reason.  Are there days where you would like to say to type 1 to “get a hold of yourself man!”  I know that I feel this way often.  I feel this way when either I have made plans & my blood sugars melt down with either high or low blood sugars, or the tantrum robs me of yet another night’s sleep or if I am engaged in an activity & then the signs of a high or low blood sugar act up with a vengenance.  I would add that this drives me up the wall because I work my guts out at type 1 diabetes management.  Despite my best efforts the perpetual melting down toddler seems to be here all too often with no “growing up” or growing out of stages in sight.  The growing up or growing out will come only I believe in the form of the cure for type 1 diabetes.  I will add that I am pretty tired of hearing that the cure is 5 years away. 

The toddler meltdown in the middle of the night is especially draining I find.  One minute we can be sound asleep & the next we may be either sweating like we have just completed a marathon or having the numb tongue or shaking like someone coming down from rehabbing from drugs or dizzy or confused beyond description or if we wear a sensor then we are hearing the low blood sugar alarm.  I do not have a sensor but I have had most if not all of the other physiological signals of the middle of the night low blood sugar.  It is annoying beyond belief to get woken up by a low blood sugar yet I always remember that it is a blessing to have those signals so that life can be sustained.  The next morning though I always feel exhausted from fighting with my blood sugar meltdown toddler.  It is beyond irritating to have to deal with type 1 throughout the day.  Even with built in time each day somehow the perpetual toddler seems to sneak an attack out of nowhere here & there.  Yet out into the world we must go whether we are feeling well or not many days hearing from others how well we look.  Please don’t get me wrong as obviously I would not want to hear that I did not look well.  Diabetes can be an invisible disease many times.  No one can see our blood sugar roller coasters & the toll it takes on us physiologically, physically and emotionally. 

Like so many things in life there are statistics involved & this includes I find the percentages of appearances from the perpetual type 1 meltdown toddler.  I have come to realistically accept that the meltdown toddler will make appearances from time to time.  The stats come in where diabetes management is concerned.  I realize that by me working my guts out on doing the best diabetes management that I am reducing the appearances by the meltdown toddler.  Seeing less of that toddler is well worth the effort. 

The place where stats go out the window for me is frankly during this phase of life for me physiologically.  I am fighting the stats right now as far as the roller coaster ride of blood sugars go.  The hormones in my body are all over the map & they will not be likely to be tamed for close to a decade.  As much as I try to follow the blood sugar trends that my charts give me information on, it is a frustrating time.  Frustrating is not really the word.  I suppose I feel like I am living with 2 melting down toddlers but one is perpetual & the other one will in time “grow up.”  There seems to be a huge black hole of a situation information wise where this time in my life is concerned regarding tips on how to proactively fight the blood sugar roller coaster.  Gals seem to be in a place of having to try to seek out information on how to manage type 1 with hormones that are on a trampoline where little to no information exists.  I find this strange.  If we know that we do not grow out of type 1 diabetes then where is the plan for the various stages of life that we go through?  Where is it?  It is a little like waiting for Godot.  Being a bit of a rascal by nature I am not willing to just sit here & hope for a rescue or something along those lines that may or may not arrive in my lifetime.  Instead, I am keeping even closer track of where my tantruming blood sugars are going & make correlation after correlation & parallel corrections.  Who wants to feel like something that the cat dragged in anytime let alone for potentially 10 years?  No one! 

Since I am feisty I refuse to give up on my A1C goal this time period or anytime even with a melting down toddler.  My endocrinologist is absolutely fantastic & she knows how hard I work at my diabetes management.  She encourages me because she knows the uphill battle that I am fighting.  I am not the only one fighting this uphill battle.  There is a fine line of where I can tighten up my insulin/blood sugar my endo & I have discerned from the colourful blood sugar trend charts.  I have come to accept that at least while my hormones are bouncing that I have to be very realistic about my A1C goal.  Would I like to set my A1C for something that would look non diabetic?  Of course I would.  Have I had any of those results?  Yes, I have but just once & it was about 4-5 years ago.  Have I come even close to that result since?  No way is the answer.  There is a fine line I have found where I can tighten my diabetes without increasing lows & risks involved with frequent lows.  That is tough to accept because I have had to readjust my A1C goal & the stubborn part of me has had to be reasoned with let’s say.  The great news is though that it will not always have to be this way.  My hormones will one day in the future level out again & then I can work safely towards an A1C that is more to my liking. 

“Settle down perpetual meltdown toddler!”  If only it were that easy.  It is not.  The word easy though kind of fades away from our everyday vocabulary when we live with type 1 diabetes.  It is a tough fight every day I find.  That is okay because through grace I am given the exact strength required for the fight each day.  And we have one another to encourage, to rant with from time to time, to hug, to cheer on & to lift up every single day.  We are each strong enough.  Maybe we are a little bit like eggs at times.  Initially it may feel like we are delicate & breakable but when the egg is hard boiled it is strong.  The challenges of diabetes are like the boiling water over the egg.  I know I have become stronger from fighting diabetes.  Just like you, I never asked for, did anything to cause it & certainly would love to be able to say that I used to have type 1 diabetes.  It is here for now though & I have the choice every day about what I am going to do about & with diabetes.  The about part is easy & tough.  The answer is easy & the action is grueling.  It is to manage the heck out of it day in & day out.  The part about what to do with diabetes is the most natural & easiest thing in the world.  My answer is to send out more compassion & kindness & love into the world especially for people living with any type of suffering.  We can choose to be the encouragers & friends in the world.  Yes, we already are.

My heart hopes that you know that you are strong beyond description & that you are fighting a brave battle every single day.  We each get tired & exasperated yet we get to choose to reach out in friendship to strengthen one another.  The cool thing about friendship that I have found is that the human spirit is so strong that when a friend calls upon us for strength it is there.

Smiles, Saundie :)

Oh my goodness gracious, the perpetual toddler was in constant meltdown mode last week with March Break mayhem and boom a brutal bug going around the area got ahold of me big time.  I tried to ignore the bug for several days & correct the heck out of the skyhigh sick management blood sugars however it was a grueling week.  This week will be better...I am stubborn that way...it will be better.  My heart's hope for you is that you always know that even on our sick days we are each beautiful originals & we are each always here for one another through the good & the bad days.  Next Monday's sharing will either be "Defying the Odds" or "It's an Awful Lot Like Green Eggs & Ham" or maybe even something else yet to be created :)