Concrete?? No way.

First of all ... Trey Bagwell is on his way to Aberdeen this week to begin the hockey season.  Let's all get excited for Wings hockey real quick!!

My Trey will start 4-on-4 hockey the middle of September ... another round of applause please!!!

School starts tomorrow .... big high-fives for everyone reading!!

Now that I got that all outta the way ... let's get to the reason for my blogpost. 

I'm frustrated as HELL right now with the school nurse supervisor.  Like ... I wanna hip-check this lady straight into the boards.  UGH.  I made up the 504 - everyone signed it just fine.  Jordan met with the nurse, Heather as well as Trey's new teacher, Mrs Salfrank and all went well.  I've had several discussions with Heather over the past couple weeks and we're on the same page as far as Trey's care goes. 

Today I got a phone call from Heather that her supervisor needed more information regarding Trey's healthcare plan.  She's not ok with us just going day-by-day like we currently are.  Heather and I are in contact every day - several times a day sometimes - about Trey.  As the supervisor put it to Heather, not everyone may be comfortable in calling the mom for some help.  Did you have any sort of expression when you read that?  I sure as hell did. 

She needs more of a concrete plan.  Say for example, something like this:
---> Trey can have a snack if his sugar is under 140.  He cannot consume more than 12 carbs for his snack.  He should get insulin for the carbs only.  If Trey's sugar is over 140, he should not have a snack.  We will not need to give a correction dose of insulin for his blood sugar before he consumes a snack. 

Ok ... so I just whipped that up real quick but what she's looking for are concrete numbers.  Blood sugar, carb counts, insulin dosages.  I told her "I cannot do that. Nothing about T1 is concrete."  I was told that if some nurse comes in to substitute, she may not feel comfortable calling me for help.  My response???? "Well then I guess that substitute shouldn't be there trying to take care of someone she isn't comfortable with.  Ever think I'm not comfortable in this sub nurse NOT contacting me to verify things with me??? Think maybe if there is a sub nurse, I'll just keep Trey home. Win win for everyone then!"  My response wasn't thought-out well and it didn't go over the best either. 

The nurse supervisor is someone I've known personally for a long time.  She was a nurse for the school district for years before being moved up and over-seeing all school nurses.  Again, just because someone has a degree in the medical field, they don't always understand how Type 1 Diabetes works!  Hell, I live the life of a pancreas 24 hours a day and I don't understand it either sometimes. 

We got into a discussion about when a correction dose of insulin should be given .. and again I said, "It just depends. What did he have for lunch/snack?  Where are the arrows on his CGM?  Has he been to PE or Recess yet? Is there another snack coming up later today? What time is it? What time was his last dose of insulin? Does he still have any insulin on board?"  I mean ... there are just soooooo many factors that play a part. I could come up with 300 scenarios and every one would have a potential different response!  I cannot put it to you in black and white. 

"Should we say that over 250 he needs a correction and then he can't have snack?" she asks.  I was getting so damn frustrated on the phone.  I said, "I cannot answer that.  Maybe on Tuesday we would do that but on Friday we would let it go.  Or maybe Monday he would not get the snack and maybe Thursday he could have half of it with insulin.  I cannot give you concrete numbers.  I can't!"  She says she wishes it was easier and I said NO SHIT! ME TOO!

So here we are - the day before school.  All was smooth-sailing and now I'm so damn frustrated. Nothing about any of this was said last year.  I didn't have to give concrete numbers at all.  We played it by ear - every day - and it worked out perfectly.  This year we will play it by ear - every day - and things will be fine.  As for concrete numbers ... it isn't going to happen and I'm not going to give you any type of concrete numbers or scenarios just so you can give them to a sub-nurse that doesn't know anything about T1D.  Perhaps you should educate yourself and your staff on how DIFFERENT and DIFFICULT managing T1D really is and that there is nothing .... nothing concrete about it.  Heather and I got this ... the supervisor can go fly a kite.

Rant Over.