"This is the most sick I’ve ever felt," Charlie said last night, hugging the "puke bucket" so tightly you would have thought it was keeping him afloat.

He looked miserable, wanting so badly to just throw up and get the awful feeling out of his stomach. Get it over with. These are some of the most difficult times of being a parent of a child with diabetes.

The ketones came on fast; different than in the past when they came from a full day of highs. His blood sugars were fine for most of the day. Charlie was a very picky eater once upon a time and refused even the most ordinary foods. Now that he’s older, he’s trying new things. Like chicken parmigiana.

What we didn’t realize was that the melted mozzarella and tomato sauce in chicken parmigiana would have the same horrible effect on him that pizza does. What we also didn’t realize was that his pump tubing was filled with blood near his infusion set. As it turns out, he was also due for a site change. He does run a little high on the last day of the pump cycle.

It was the perfect storm.

He was 450 when we checked him about three hours after dinner.

It’s very tough to see Charlie in that sort of condition. How many times have Susanne and I stood above him like surgeons working on him late into the night? Ripping open alcohol wipes. Pricking a finger for blood sugar. Pricking another finger for ketones. Flicking syringes to remove air bubbles. Removing old blood-crusted infusion sets. How many more times must we do this?

After the ketones finally went away and we went to sleep, diabetes stayed with me in my dreams. Most of the dream escapes me (as they always do), but I do remember that Charlie and I were at some sort of event for kids who had health issues. Or we may have been on the set of a reality show. We were talking to another family who was there because their son suffered from something innocuous like being susceptible to mosquito bites.

They asked why we were there and I told them that Charlie had diabetes. The moment I said it, Charlie burst into tears, weeping uncontrollably. The father (with an idea in his head) excused himself from the table and ran off smiling and shooting a finger pistol at us. It seemed like he had a great idea up his sleeve. He came back minutes later, trotting over to us and handed Charlie a roll of toilet paper. It was mostly depleted.

Thinking about it now after the night we had, I wonder. Was it Charlie who was crying uncontrollably? Or was it really me, crying through him?

And what the hell is up with the toilet paper?