I'm afraid to say it

Life has been...normal.

I know I've been very quiet of late.  I looked at the calendar today and realized that I have just under two weeks until I go back to work for the school year.  Ack!  WHERE has the time gone?  We did take a little road trip family vacation to beautiful Homer...which was not as beautiful this year, weather wise. 

While we were there, Seth got to go on a 3 day kayak trip across Kachemak bay.  It was unexpected and unplanned for him to participate.  Once we made a family plan and Seth earned it by managing his own D for the 4 days leading upto it (and did so rather spectaclarly I might add) he got to go.  I typed up a 3 page list of instructions, added an emergency cell phone to our plan and Grandpa kept the boat hooked up to his spare vehicle so we could jump in and go across the bay at a moments notice to provide assistance or get Seth if needed.  Our instructions were for Seth to check in with us each night so we could go over numbers.  He also knew to call us at any other time if there were problems or we needed to troubleshoot.  He missed his first nightly phone call, but called the next morning.  After my talking to, no other phone calls were missed.  :)

The trip would involve a 4 hour paddle to get to their camp site, a 3 mile hike one day, a 7 mile hike another day, swimming in glacier water (uber cold), swimming in the inlet (cold), lots of carby food, staying up late, getting up early, no showers and then a 4 hour paddle back to the Homer Spit.  Sounds like a dream right?

I am happy to report that Seth rocked this trip.  There were so many opportunities for D to rear its ugly head, but it played nice and Seth...got to enjoy being as normal as possible...except for finger sticks and putting his pump in an aquapak to swim in the glacial water that 75% of the boys who went, wouldn't even wade in...but (in his words) he had to represent for North Pole, cause we have thicker blood.

On our way back from Homer, we put Mark on the train to Fairbanks...work calls.  Seth and Leah and I stayed in Anchorage for a couple of day and hung out with my mom.  Then on June 25th, we dropped Seth of for Boy Scout Encampment at the Palmer Fairgrounds.  There were close to 1000 scouts there.  Again we had our plan in place.  And again, Seth rocked it.  I was even getting ready to head out there on Thursday to change his infusion set, but he called me and said he had a dream early that morning, as he was waking up, that leeches were attacking his body and he ripped his infusion set out trying to get them off, so he got a new reservoir of insulin and a new infusion set and hooked himself up.  We've practiced him doing it before and when he told me everything he had done, I knew he'd done it right...mom was not needed...or wanted.  I could just pick him up on Saturday.

When we got home, I downloaded his pump and CGM readings and looked at every single one (yes every 5 minutes worth) while he was at camp.  Not one single low and only 15% of the readings were high and those were brought down within 2 hours.  Seth managed himself, there was medical personnel for emergencies only.  For all the junk food I saw out there, I would say that was rockin' it!

As a side note, we are now 6 months into this journey.  These are things that I couldn't even imagine Seth doing when we got the diagnosis.  Not because he couldn't physially do them, I just couldn't wrap my mind around how we would work out the logistics of it.  We made a decision that D would have to work around us and as often as we can, we stick to that.  That is what we are striving to teach Seth. 
For now things have been calm.  I am not naive enough to think we have this managed or controlled.  We are simply enjoying the lull that IS right now.  And I am trying to settle into my role as D co-pilot instead of pilot. Life goes on.