Seriously

Just a sampling of photos of glucose meters out on the market.

Do other parents of diabetic kids find these photos as hilarious as Gary and I do? A good day for Chase would be to have ANY of his 5+ finger pokes to be under 200.

The insulin pump has been a God-send in helping to regulate some of his highs and lows, but what we are impatiently awaiting is the continuous glucose sensor.

Cons: It is currently not covered by our insurance. The transmitter retails for $1,000 - which could be doable - but the glucose sensors that go with the transmitter cost $35 each and need to be changed every three days. It would also be one more piece of equipment Chase would have to wear on his body (it's about the size of a quarter).

Pros: We'd sleep much, much better during the night. The transmitter would send his blood sugar reading to his insulin pump every 5 minutes. His pump would beep if he was going too high or too low and we could take action. We'd also be able to track any trends like growth hormones at night which make him ridiculously high (300-400) in the morning.

Last night would have been a wonderful night to have the monitor. I tested Chase at 8:30 because he was loopy, loopy, loopy. His number was 169 (look at the pictures above...now they're funny, aren't they?). I figured it was a good bedtime number, so he just had popcorn for a snack. We decided to do one more check at 10 pm, though. His blood was 58! Thank God we decided to check him one last time. We convinced him to eat some yogurt and an apple and then let him go to bed. Then Gary and I tag-teamed checking his blood throughout the night. Granted, I'm eight months pregnant, so I'm up every two hours anyway, but it still never gets any easier.

In hind-sight, the easiest thing about Chase's diabetes has been Chase. There are two 2 year olds at Chase's day care that are so much fun to talk to and to watch grow (one just happens to be his girlfriend so he tells me...everyday). I really enjoy listening to their language develop and how they try to communicate. It hit me this week that Chase was at that stage when he was diagnosed. It just doesn't seem possible. How'd we make it this far? It also makes me want to put every two year old in a plastic bubble. Gary once told me that I couldn't do that to Chase, but I'm still exploring that option.