Taking a trip requires a lot of brainpower!

Tomorrow morning I will leave ridiculously early on a pair of flights to take my older daughter, Amanda, and I to Pittsburgh. I am very much looking forward to this trip because it will be the first time I've had Amanda to myself in quite a long time. Amanda is 20 now, and I am so grateful that she still wants to do things with her mom. I won't write too much about Amanda because, unlike Sarah, it embarassses her. She's my quietest child and prefers to remain mostly anonymous.

So instead I'll focus on the challenges of leaving for a week when you have another child with diabetes. Okay, so it's not just the diabetes. Sarah is my youngest and she's been attached to me like superglue pretty much since she was born. And I have to admit I'm pretty attached to her as well. But when she was diagosed with diabetes 16 months ago, that kind of put our attachment into overdrive. Intellectually, I know that this week is going to be good for both of us. Sarah needs to see that she can take care of herself when mom's not around, and that someone else can do just as good a job at helping her care for herself.

Sarah is staying the week with my mother, though dad will still play chauffer to her various classes during the week. I think it will be good for my mom too, because although she's been with us a fair amount since Sarah was diagnosed, she hasn't had any experience with nighttime - which is usually the only time Sarah really needs any help these days.

So in preparation for her week with grammy, I wrote a novel, most of which (took out the personal stuff) I have posted here. Okay, it's not THAT long, but once I started thinking about the amount of little things that go into keeping Sarah healthy and safe, it just kept getting longer and longer and longer. It's hard to explain what goes through my mind when I'm deciding how to handle a nighttime bloodsugar. How I'm weighing the time and her sleep needs, her insulin on board, how much she ate and whether that might kick in, and whether a basal reduction will work given the current circumstance. I guess I could have just bequeathed her the pink panther book, but it's so generic and I've kind of got Sarah's care down to a science. - If you're a parent of a child with diabetes, please feel free to use any part of this you find helpful, and change anything for your own use.

So tonight I will take Sarah to my mom's in the evening, where we will change her site so my mom can watch and learn. Tomorrow, Amanda and I leave around 4:15am (yikes!!!) so that we can get to the airport in Pittsburgh before dark. Monday and Tuesday we will relax and have some fun. We plan to drive into Ohio and spend some time touring through Amish country, something we've both always wanted to do. Wednesday we head back to the airport so that the Principal Financial awesome trip planners can pick us up and take us to the resort where Amanda can completely chill and relax, along with some horseback riding, cooking classes, and possible art tour, while I learn more about the ins and outs and regulatory issues with retirement plans.

Sarah and I will still be connected through cell phones, text messaging and facebook. I love technology!!!