Getting In Synch With Your School Nurse
We recently moved houses and schools. At our last school we had 3 other children with Type 1 diabetes and so we thought that we were in “good” hands because the nurses that supported the school and the teachers both had a fairly solid understanding of Type 1 and how to manage a child with it.
When we moved to our new school we were somewhat worried to find out that our son would be the only student with Type 1. However our fear subsided when we met the nurse. She too had Type 1 diabetes! She immediately showed our son her pump and he showed her his and they were quickly on the same page.
For the first few weeks at the new school we felt everything was fine. Our son is quite mature for his age and tends to take care of himself well but we soon found him returning home quite high each day. After some questioning we finally realized that the nurse was correcting his “low” BG ratings with juice. This of course is fine, however, for her “low” meant anything in the 80′s and so our son would be taking in juice and rocketing up to the high 100′s.
We really should not have assumed that just because she had Type 1 that she would manage it the same way we would. In fact, it’s probably safer to assume that everyone with Type 1 manages themselves in different ways primarily because the disease experience is different for everyone.
We’ve decided to manage our son a bit lower with the hopes of averaging around the 90-110 range with an A1C of around 7.0. We do this because we’ve found that our son, when he experiences lows, still does a really good job of identifying it and treating it quickly. He also seems to be able to go pretty low without any real negative effects (like in the 40′s). Of course we don’t want him this low, ever, but having him in the 70s appears to be just fine.
Others however may find themselves completely out of it even in the 60′s and so they tend to manage themselves higher.
After realizing what was happening we simply had a conversation with our nurse and explained what we were trying to do. We also had our son’s doctor reiterate it with a short note explaining not to undertake any ‘corrections’ unless he was under 70.
Once again, open and honest communications has helped to ensure our son’s days are smooth and healthy.
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