Work Smarter, Not Harder
I’m all about this motto. Work smarter, not harder. It applies to so many areas in life—- And guess what? When you have a child who has Type 1 diabetes and celiac disease, you really need to apply that one to your daily routine.
This week my daughter was asked to go over to a friend’s house for a play date. Not quite as daunting as a sleepover, but daunting no less. Actually if I’m being honest, it’s the school nurses’ daughter who invited her over, so I really lucked out on where my kid has been hanging out when she’s not home——doctors and nurses homes so far. The school nurse sees her daily anyways, so no big deal…I’ll drop her off, she’ll play, I’ll pick her up and they can handle any high or low blood sugars together.
Now to get everything together. I packed a box of gluten free macaroni and cheese that she could eat for lunch, a gluten free granola bar, applesauce, and a sugar-free kool-aid in case her friend was having juice too. I packed a regular juice box and some Starburst in there to treat lows. I always pack food when she goes outside of the house just in case there aren’t gluten-free options wherever she is. No biggie.
Alright—-now for her diabetes stuff. I packed her glucometer and test strips just in case her CGM accidentally gets ripped off because who knows with kids what they’ll be doing. And shoot—-it’s 10:55am and we’re supposed to be there at 11:00am….GET YOUR SHOES ON…LET’S GO!
On the drive over, I run through my mind if I packed what she needed. I’m sure it’s fine though, and they are already comfortable with treating her diabetes.
I feel like it’s whenever you get comfortable, something ends up changing. We get to her friends house, and her mom (sweetest lady ever) is there, but her dad (school nurse, also sweet) is not. He is out with his other daughter. And the mom knows very little about diabetes. Well….crap. Time for the quick run down. Not a big deal, but for someone else who doesn’t know diabetes or celiac, I’m sure it’s a bit overwhelming. And as I’m explaining how to treat a low, her symptoms, etc. I realize I didn’t pack her Basquimi. Or an extra infusion set. Or pens.
Here’s where it got me thinking. Why have I been stressing myself over the past 2ish years about packing things when we go places. Didn’t I say I was a list person? Why do I not have a list all ready, set to go that I can pack up things. And why am I sending my kid with an old paper target bag to put all her stuff in? I’m pretty sure I can work A LOT smarter in this situation, and not stress over the whole thing each time.
Here’s what I ended up doing…
Bought a cute little bag that she picked out for her diabetes supplies Cute Bag from Amazon. Don’t worry…no kick backs if you end up buying it too. She just really liked it and it’ll look adorable when she wears it.
Made a list of items for her bag and separated it into 2 sections
Items that can stay in the bag, ready to go
Items that we need to put in the bag before we go
Taped that bad boy to the inside of our cabinet that we keep all of her diabetic supplies
Seriously…why did this take me so long to do? Life will be so much less chaotic if I have the bag ready to go and know exactly what I need to put in there. Here’s a few of things that I came up with.
Stays in Bag: Extra infusion set, Needles, Alcohol wipes, Glucometer with test strips (we have 2 so can do this), Ketone strips, Tegaderm, Gel Packets (for lows), Starburst (a few in a ziplock baggy), Basquimi (again we have more than one set so we can do this), extra charging cord for pump. For the meds, I write the expiration date in permanent marker nice and big so that it’s obvious when it expires, so that we won’t be walking around with any expired meds on hand.
Pack before we go: Gluten free snacks (depends on where we’re going as to what we’ll pack for that), fast acting insulin pen in cooling case, her iPhone (we use this for her CGM).
And there ya go. Lists for the win…again. They really do make life so much less stressful when you know you aren’t forgetting anything.