Listening

Beep! 

"Mom!  I am 85! Can I eat?"

I glance at the clock and read 5:50 p.m..  Dinner is a mere ten minutes away estimated finishing.  Tonight we are having pasta and sauce with a side salad.  It is a simple dinner and all I need is for the pasta to finish cooking.

I holler back. "You're fine!  Dinner is almost done."

"But I am lowwwwwwww!  And I am hungrrrrrrrry!"  She yells again.

Feeling impatient, I tell her to wait as I am draining the water off the pasta.  The steam is filling my eyeglasses and I am having trouble concentrating on not getting burned and talking to an impatient child at that the same time.

"Just wait!"  I say with the same impatient tone that is also in my head.

The hot water jumps up and bites me squarely on the knuckles, making me whimper. 

Suddenly, a sound cuts through the noise and pain and I can hear a can of glucose tabs being opened.  The bottle is new and the plastic wrap is making a tell-tale crinkle noise.

I drop the rest of the pasta into a bowl so that I can figure out where the sound is coming from.  Walking past the bathroom, I see the same hungry daughter that I had just asked to wait, eating glucose tabs.

"I am low and I know it said 85, but it feels lower.  I need something now!" She says defiantly. 

As if on cue, Sigums (our CGM) bleeps a warning... 67 mg/dl and pointing down. 

Shaking my head at the situation, all I can do is tell her that I am sorry and that I didn't realize that her blood sugar was dropping so quickly.  We sit quietly until the low feeling has passed and then, I hug her and apologize again.

Later that night, I tell the Naturally Sweet dad the story and he in turn, gives me a hug and tells me it is going to be alright.

And while I know it really is alright and we are fine, I can't help but once again feel a deep ache for what type 1 diabetes continually delivers to us. 

Some days are just so hard.