It's bad enough to get sick-any kind of sick-but add diabetes into the mix and you can have a real problem on your hands.

I've been sick only a handful of times since I was diagnosed. And when I say sick, I mean the kind of sick that keeps you from eating and leaves you laid up in bed for a couple days. It wasn't long after I was diagnosed that one of the kids got sick and I kept wondering when it would hit me. And then I realized that I literally didn't know what to do with myself if I did get sick. I didn't know what to expect from my blood sugar or how to manage it.

So I did some research. Actually, I wrote an article, for which I talked to my former diabetes educator at length. Ever since then, I've been meaning to do one of the essentials of sick-day management: put together a sick day kit with things like fast-acting sugars and a glucagon kit for low or high blood sugars, in addition to phone numbers for members of my healthcare team so my husband can call if I'm otherwise incapacitated. Have I done it yet? Nope.

I think about that kit every time I think I'm getting sick. It was on my mind most of the day Wednesday as I plotted my route to the bathroom at work just in case I thought I was finally going to blow. It's on my mind again today since No. 1 got the quickest stomach bug I've ever seen on Saturday. (Let me just say, thank God for empty Tostitos bags or the elevator in Mom's building would smell a lot different today.)

Nothing significant has hit me yet; in other words, my stomach is in knots, but I'm not confined to the bedroom yet. I no longer feel nervous, though, that I won't know how to take care of myself when or if that bug finally gets the better of me.

A word to the wise: know what to do and how to take care of yourself (or your child with diabetes) when you get sick; and stay on top of your sugar when you feel a bug coming on.