The Other day I moved the little broody coop we rear chicks in and the floor of the sleeping compartment fell out of it!
Not what I wanted to happen. Especially as it was not long before we were planning to head off for the weekend. And that sleeping compartment keeps a mother hen and her chicks safe from predators at night.
So I stopped what I was doing and set about fixing it. I didn't want to loose any more chicks to predator. This pen is worth investing some time in, like all wooden infrastructure on a smallholding or homestead, it takes a bit of time every year to keep it all running.
This isn't the first time I've repaired this coop in the 15 years or so since I built it. I doubt it'll be the last either! Luckily it was a fairly simple fix and didn't take too long.
I'm trying to make filming things something I do, hopefully this video is interesting to some people. Let me know what you think in the comments.
We all have milestones come up in life, somehow diabetes seems to throw a few at us that we hadn't really thought about.
The week before last we finished filling our first sharps bin. I say "we" but it was our daughter's doing obviously.
That bin is full of the needles she used every day, on average 4 to 7 needles, and the empty cylinders of insulin, the fast acting she takes before she has carbs and the long acting she has once a day at night.
That bin represents a lot of learning in our little family. We've learnt that having diabetes complicates everything. That getting her levels right one day doesn't mean they're been anywhere near the next. It sometimes feels that the change in the direction of the wind can alter her levels. We learnt not to get hung up on the odd bad day and to look at the bigger picture.
That bin has some moments in there, highs and lows. It has the needles where I begged and pleaded for her to inject herself, it has the first needle where she did it, and where I ran around the house and screamed with joy when she made it happen. That needle represented her taking charge of her diabetes.
It represents all we've learnt about food and how we've all changed our diet slightly as a family to make everything seem normal. How a slightly more diabetic friendly diet has made me feel slightly better without realising anything wasn't right. We learnt that our diet was pretty good before, that our children understand food more than a lot of adults.
It has moments in there that shows how close her siblings are with her, whether that's her younger sister working out her carbs for tea and prepping her needles as she gets something else ready. Or whether it the moment where I was doing the food shop with her younger brother and he put back the breaded ham I'd picked up and replaced it with some that wasn't and just looked at me and said "less carbs". I had to hide a tear from the little man who often seems wise beyond his years and already a better understanding of diabetes than most.
It hides the late night wake ups for hypo treatments, or the alarm buzzing for a hyper and the need for insulin. Or how the other night we both sat chatting at 2 in the morning because her sensor wasn't working right, knowing we'd both be tired the next day. It hides all the sweets she's had to eat even when she wasn't feeling like it because she's gone low. It hides the glucose tablets and little sugary shots she'd taken, the cartons of apple juice drunk in the middle of the night or at in the morning.
It hides the fact she went shaky before her alarm beeped, or that my phone tells me she's going low on the bus on the way home and I have to trust she'll sort it out on her own.
It hides the calls to the hospital because we can't figure something out, or the high of coming away from a check up feeling like we're doing okay, the doctor giving his approval, even if her alarm did buzz 4 times during the appointment...
It hides a few tears, both from me and her mum, and maybe from our daughter, but she's always stoic, I've not seen her shed many.
I remember when she was first diagnosed, I read a forum of parents chatting about their children with diabetes. On there one mother said how she cried every single day for her son and the normal life he'd lost, and I just thought No Way am I going to be like that, it wouldn't be fair on her or on us. I was determined as far as we could we'd own this problem as a family, we're always stronger together.
I so proud of the way my daughter has stepped up to this problem and how she's handled it. Starting a new school, adapting, and just getting on with life.
This weekend just gone we managed to get away to Mum and Dad's place in Wales. Now the place is a bit bigger (since we redid the roof last year) we could take another family with us!
Our friends have four children and with our three it makes for a fun full house!
In our journey with diabetes we've been looking more and more at our diet.
I think we eat fairly well. We have a well rounded diet that provides all the stuff we need to live active lives.
But since my daughter has been wearing a CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) we can certainly see where spikes occur.
One was right after breakfast. It was a "traditional" western breakfast of sugary cereal with some fruit juice (normally apple).
A friend suggest we tried egg on toast. She still needs the carbs but they are slower burning from the (homemade) toast than cereal would be and with the protein from the egg should keep her full until breakfast.
We did a week of it and noticed that although you still get a spike (that's just eating any carbs and the insulin having to catch up) it was way less, often keeping her in target for the whole morning.
It was so good I thought I'd change my breakfast and try it as well. No more 10 O'clock slump!
Then the other two wanted to try it and suddenly we didn't have enough eggs!
So we went and got some POL hens (Point Of Lay) that will hopefully lay all through winter. I was hoping 5 would be enough but the oy is insisting on two eggs every morning....
The video above is a fun little journey out with my boy to buy the hens and getting them set up in their new home. I also talk a little about diabetes on there and about the blood sugar spikes. It's amazing how much it makes me think about what we're all eating. We've made some very easy switches and I'm sure it's benefiting us all.
Squash instead of potato for some evening meals
Brown rice instead of white (way more taste and texture to it)
Wholegrain Pasta (tastes just the same)
Adding some Emmer Flour to our morning loaf (nowhere near a wholemeal loaf but still rises really well and tastes great.
Careful with the mixing of some foods - carbs and fats are a nightmare (pizza is a nightmare that sends her levels into a random plain)
With these little changes I seem to have lost a little weight (Hopefully don't have much to loose, but it's been quite noticeable around my stomach) and felt fuller longer. That said I've also band myself from buying any of the "rubbish" I normally eat. I still have to buy sweet for my daughter but tell her to hide them in her room!
Makes me think that for next year I might plan a "diabetic friendly" garden with the foods we've found to work best for her levels, although everyone is different. Lots of protein and veggies. We were wrongly told that some foods would be "free" and not need insulin, like carrots as a snack, but so far we've found that they make her levels shoot up without the injection.
#### Please remember before commenting that Type 1 Diabetes and Type 2 Diabetes are completely different things. She's not eating her way out of this one, her pancreas just doesn't work like it's supposed to anymore. A completely low carb or carb free diet doesn't work for Type one sufferers, nor would it be good for a young growing body like hers. ####
