Thanksgiving prep

Our preparations for Thanksgiving have been a little different this year. Ok, a LOT different. Mom made the menu as usual; she will be doing most of the cooking, with me making Grandmother's dressing. But this year we have to think seriously about carbs, so we sat down to do the calculating. The conversation went a little like this:

Mom: How much in the turkey and ham?
Me: They average 1 per serving.
Mom: Ok, let's work on the pies. One cup of flour for the crust, and we don't have to count the butter, right?
Me: Right. So a cup of flour has 88, plus the filling (more adding). So that's 62.5 per slice if we cut it into 8 slices. How about the broccoli and rice? (We add up the total carbs for the recipe.) But how many servings?
Mom: We'll just have to measure that once we get it made.
Me : Yep, we have the total, we can divide on Thursday.

On and on like this for each recipe. We have carb counts for every dish that will be on the table Thursday. Some are already figured per serving, some we will have to finish once it is cooked. Because of our advanced planning and awesome math skills, Seth will be able to enjoy a reasonably normal Thanksgiving dinner. Lots of food, lots of insulin. Is it worth it? Absolutely!

After the calculating, we rewarded ourselves with banana pudding. Yum!

How important is math?

A student asked me the other day if I really used math outside of school. I answered that yes I do, every day. She wanted to know how, so I explained that my son has an illness that requires us to calculate the carbs in every bite of food he eats, and to calculate his medicine to match the food. Her response? "I would die then." I assured her that if her life depended on it, she would learn math quickly. She didn't seem so sure.
We had similar thing happen in our last diabetes education class. The lady sitting behind us was beside herself trying to calculate her son's insulin to carb ratio. She was very frustrated, to say the least. Jason turned around to help her, ever the teacher. He patiently explained it to her again, but when we left that day, I wasn't convinced she knew how to do it. Thankfully, I heard her say she had a friend that could help her. And she will do what she needs to do in order to care for her child. That's what good parents do. We do it so that our kids can live a reasonably normal life, and do things they love, like this:

Photo a Day Challenge

Seth and I have taken on the National Diabetes Awareness Month photo a day challenge on Instagram. It has been interesting, sometimes fun, sometimes really hard. The first day, cereal was his struggle. I wrote about that last. I am so proud of him for taking on this challenge. Here are his pictures since Saturday:

Of cereal and anger

Today I am both proud and angry. I am so very proud of Seth. He has taken on a photo challenge for National Diabetes Awareness Month. Each day this month, he is posting a picture on Instagram related to diabetes. Day 1 challenge was struggle. What did he post? A picture of a bowl of cereal. And that's why I am angry. Angry at diabetes for taking this away from my child. You see, Seth really loves cereal. I mean, he REALLY LOVES cereal. He would eat cereal any time of day. Yes, he can still eat cereal. But not without planning, calculating, and injecting. That's why I'm angry. A teenage boy should be able to eat a bowl of cereal without having to count. Every. Damn. Carb. We pray every day for a cure. Until then, we are thankful for the life-saving insulin that he injects 4 times a day or more. One day, we will KDA.