{"id":37724,"date":"2015-04-06T07:26:49","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T11:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=37724"},"modified":"2015-12-27T15:41:43","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T20:41:43","slug":"what-kind-of-d-parent-are-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=37724","title":{"rendered":"What Kind of D-Parent Are You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Seesaw<\/a><\/p>\n

I have a theory about couples who manage their child\u2019s diabetes together: that one parent worries more about the immediate consequences of a devastating blood sugar low (i.e., unconsciousness or death), and the other worries more about the long-term, down-the-road consequences of repeated highs (heart trouble, kidney failure, blindness, etc.). My only evidence for this is how the dynamic plays out in our family, and a comment from Bisi\u2019s diabetes nurse educator, who sees 400 patients (!), so can speak to this on a larger scale: \u201cI do tend to see a split. Usually one part of a couple tends to be more concerned about the lows, the other tends to be more concerned about the long-term complications caused by highs.\u201d<\/p>\n

In our family, I\u2019m the person who worries about lows, Mark about the highs\u2014though of course, really, we both worry about both things. This dynamic plays out in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of situations\u2014when Bisi\u2019s doing sports, before meals, during the night.<\/p>\n

This morning, when Bisi woke up like a Grumpy Cat on steroids, after a night where her blood sugar was in the low-to-mid 200s and Mark got up to give her insulin twice (her target night time BG is 150), our conversation went something like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s probably grumpy because her blood sugar was high, and it\u2019s not good for her long-term. I think her night-time target should be 120; 150 is too high.\u201d (The lower her target, the more insulin her pump calculates for when she\u2019s high.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI worry about shooting for the low 100s at night. Sometimes when she\u2019s in the low hundreds, she\u2019ll start dropping quickly and ends up way lower than she should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s why we have the CGM.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, but the CGM isn\u2019t always great about catching lows, and sometimes when she\u2019s sleeping on her back it loses her altogether. It only takes one bad low.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this case, I think we\u2019re going to raise her night-time basal rate a bit, because we think that her insulin needs have changed, and that the higher blood sugars we\u2019ve seen the last couple of nights aren\u2019t so much caused by the food she\u2019s eating, as by her body\u2019s growing need for insulin. (Even if people with T1D were to eat nothing, they would still need basal, or baseline, insulin to control their blood sugar; we make changes in her basal rate all the time.) But the high-low debate is a larger philosophical issue, maybe even one that\u2019s inherent to our personalities and the types of things that set our own personal worry bells ringing. It\u2019s also, maybe, a functional way to make sure that her care is balanced\u2014that we\u2019re not walking too close to the edge with lows, or too far from the edge toward highs. Our worries counterbalance each other. The truth is that if Bisi\u2019s A1C is a guide, we\u2019re doing a pretty good job (it\u2019s significantly below the American Diabetes Association target for her age group of 7.5; though some argue that that target is too high).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m curious: if you are parents managing a child\u2019s T1D together, do you have the same dynamic of one especially concerned about lows and the other about highs? If so, is it the same gender split as ours? (Part of my theory was that mothers tend to worry more about lows and fathers about highs, but Bisi\u2019s nurse shot this supposition down. \u201cNo, it\u2019s not a gender thing,\u201d she told me.) Or do you both gravitate towards the middle of the T1D teeter-totter?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":37743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1501],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Kind of D-Parent Are You?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have a theory about couples who manage their child\u2019s diabetes together: that one parent worries more about low blood sugar low and the other worries more about the long-term, down-the-road consequences of repeated highs.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=37724\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Katie Bacon\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=37724\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=37724\",\"name\":\"What Kind of D-Parent Are You?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=37724#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=37724#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Seesaw-2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-04-06T11:26:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-12-27T20:41:43+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/d9db494b4a0cbf28744f6c4a9c73329e\"},\"description\":\"I have a theory about couples who manage their child\u2019s diabetes together: that one parent worries more about low blood sugar low and the other worries more about the long-term, down-the-road consequences of repeated highs.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=37724#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=37724\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=37724#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Seesaw-2.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Seesaw-2.jpg\",\"width\":600,\"height\":401,\"caption\":\"Seesaw 2\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=37724#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What Kind of D-Parent Are You?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/\",\"name\":\"ASweetLife\",\"description\":\"The Diabetes Magazine\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/d9db494b4a0cbf28744f6c4a9c73329e\",\"name\":\"Katie Bacon\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8cc124bd5d3d2d03be80239ba09df7cc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8cc124bd5d3d2d03be80239ba09df7cc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Katie Bacon\"},\"description\":\"Katie Bacon is a writer and editor based in Boston. 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