REM is Over-rated
October 11, 2014
Any parent of a T1D child can tell you, sleep often comes at
a premium. A typical night for me used
to involve checking the boys’ glucose levels at their bedtime and again at my
bedtime. Depending on those results, the
cycle of the moon, what they ate for dinner, and the color of their underwear,
I would determine if and when to check them again throughout the
night. Typically, I woke up at least
once to use the restroom at which time I would go ahead and check on them. Often times, I was forced to set an alarm for
every 1.5-3 hours to check on them. It’s
almost like we’re in a perpetual newborn period, waking up every couple of
hours, sans the newborn crying. That’s
replaced by Mommy tears.
Perhaps someone could argue this is or was overkill,
however, too many times, I caught a crazy high or a dangerous unexplained low….a
low that could have killed them. So,
their tiny lives are in our hands; we’ll do whatever it takes to keep them
safe. “Dead in Bed” is a rare but real
and scary phenomenon. Simply put, your
body cannot live if there is not enough glucose in the blood stream, thus if a
low went undetected during sleep and continued to drop, the T1D kid could
die. I don’t wish that on anyone, and I
don’t think any of my family or friends want to find me rocking in a corner,
sucking my thumb as I pluck my hairs out one by one…. Yeah, that’s pretty much
what I think would happen if something happened to one of my babies.
 |
| Look at those faces! Do you blame me?! |
Recently, we began using the Dexcom Continuous Glucose
Monitoring (CGM) system. Unfortunately,
the range of the CGM to the actual boy (receiver to transmitter) was too far
away at night between our bedrooms, thus it was essentially useless to us to monitor the boys easily
at night. Well, unless I wanted to move
into the living room on a permanent basis or put these nearly 10-year-old boys
back in cribs at the foot of my bed. Don’t
think I didn’t consider it.
When computer geeks’ kids get T1D, they develop cool
programming to make the Dexcom CGM readings feed over the net. Some banded together and created Night Scout.
Long story short, I looked it up and put Jerry on a mission to make it
happen. He tossed a few options my way…Options,
technology and verbage that was WAY over my head. My answer, “I want to be able to roll over at
night and see their sugars so I know they’re ok”. He made it happen.
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| Much to my chagrin, every night does NOT look like this! |
All that background
for this: The CGM and Night Scout
has been a fantastic, albeit imperfect, solution to help us get a few more
winks at night. It’s so refreshing to be
awakened by an alarm if someone is too high or too low or to roll over, see all
is ok, then snuggle back up to the man and fall back asleep.
(My Mom fell in love
with it when she stayed over with the boys while we took a short vacation. And, I worried about them less knowing an
alarm would wake her up if necessary.)
As Diabetes would have it, He still demands attention now
and then. Some nights, the alarm is
going off like crazy which means I have to wake up and make the mouse cooperate with my confused fumbling hand to silence the alarm. Afterwards I have to check them and
intervene. Fortunately, that is the
exception, not the rule.
Last night was an exception.
After a busy day at the Zoo, where Asa went low for 30 minutes (He was 51 after 25 grams of carbs and 20 minutes; he got a "free" ice cream which was fine with him!), we had a
heck of a night with Aiden. He was high
around 9-10pm, so I gave him insulin to bring his glucose level back into range
(“correction insulin”).
Around midnight, the alarming started. 63 and dropping. I gave him a juice box which
he sucked down in his sleep. Asa was 93,
so I gave him half a juice box just for good measure lest I be up in an hour or
two doing the same thing for him.
An hour later, I snapped awake to make sure his level had
risen well on the monitor. Good. Dozed back off. An hour after that, repeat of the first
scenario. 66 and falling. Another juice box.
About the time I dozed back off, Jerry snapped awake and saw
the low number, which woke me up and I assured him I’d already intervened. He did that twice during the night.
(Side
note: Since the CGM monitors the glucose
level in the interstitial fluid between cells, it doesn’t reflect a rise or
fall quite as fast as blood. Thus, the
monitor won’t show the rise in the first 15 minutes like the blood does, so I
wait 30-60 mins).
An hour later, both boys were steady. By this time, it was 4 am. At 0530, the alarm went off again. 55 and dropping. Knowing I had to rise for work in 30 minutes,
I got up. This time the carb of choice
was chocolate milk. He showed steady
around 115 by the time I got out of the shower.
As one may have deduced, I was basically awakened every hour
from midnight to 6 am either by an audible alarm, by my Mommy paranoia who
needed to see that things were ok, or by my husband’s startle and shake. There’s really no solid explanation as to why
Aiden couldn’t keep his sugar up overnight.
Diabetes often defies logic. That
said, it must have been related to the level of exercise we had at the Zoo. Or,
it could have been too much correction.
Or, the color of his shirt. Who
knows for sure?
Dreams? Who
dreams? What is REM sleep again? Who needs it?
Diabetes thinks it’s over-rated.
Yes, there are WAY worse diseases. Yes, it could be worse. But, we sure could use a cure so
Mommies and
Daddies like me can rest easy and not worry about our babies’ lives. Every. Night.
Support us for a cure today!
Rhonda
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