"Did it hurt real bad?"
"It burned," Charlie said. "It felt like I was on fire."
"Do you think mommy and daddy want to hurt you?"
Charlie nods in the affirmative.
"That would be really mean; like really evil. Do you think mommy and daddy are evil?"
He nods up and down again, dipping his waffle in a small bowl of sugar-free syrup.
The slight smirk tells me he doesn't truly believe that, but it sucks to hear that from your child nonetheless.
That was this morning. Last night we took Charlie to hell and back with two site changes. The first site change was so absolutely horrendous that we just HAD to do it again, the monsters that we are.
Susanne and I had to turn our heads away from the awful bruise and spurt of blood the first infusion set left on Charlie's butt. Without a tissue handy, I quickly pulled his underpants up to absorb the blood. We've learned to muffle our gasps for Charlie's benefit. We use the Sure-T infusion sets. I'm starting to wonder how normal it is for bloodshed just about every time we remove the little needle. Anyone?
Still, Charlie screamed his head off as he does for every site change as we did our best to hold him down.
Two hours later, Charlie's blood sugar was 420. We peeked into the little window that shows where the needle goes into skin. The window was red with blood. Bad sign. Bad site. Just bad.
After finally calming down from the first site change and falling asleep on his wet pillow, he's rudely awakened as we tear away at the tape on his bottom for a second time. This time he doesn't scream, he roars. This time I'm not just wrestling a crocodile. It's a dragon that I try to pin down and flip over on its side. He's gotten so strong.
Susanne decides to test him once more before correcting the 420. Thank God she did. He was really 220. We're reminded of how important it is to clean the finger with an alcohol wipe. Slight marshmallow dusting on his fingertips gave a false reading and almost made us give him a disastrous amount of insulin.
Between the whipping winds outside and Charlie's howling inside, Maeve can't sleep and comes downstairs.
"Are you ever going to be done changing his site?"
Sigh.





