Grape Glucose Tabs: A Love Story

This is a love story, I guarantee you. There are some things that you should know first.

Grace only uses CVS Grape Glucose Tabs when she has a low blood sugar. It's the only flavor she likes and they are not chalky (yeah CVS!). If you are new to the Type 1 diabetes game, glucose tabs are like quick shots of pure sugar. They raise a person's blood glucose levels quite quickly. Along with Juicy Juice and granola bars, they are Grace's 'go to' when she finds herself having a low blood sugar. Low blood sugars are dangerous. Your body and mine all depend on glucose to run all the cells in our body. Low blood sugars are your cells slowing down, trying to conserve glucose to keep you going. Lows are more dangerous than highs, in my opinion. Lows lead to passing out if you don't give your body some glucose in order to run.

Grace uses about a bottle and a half a month. Wow, that's a lot you might say. I don't compare her to anyone else, so I wouldn't really know. Is it? Who the hell cares anyway, she uses what she uses. And no, she doesn't experience 'a lot' of lows. Thank you for your advice you are about to give, but no thanks. She's got this.

This is why she uses a lot of them. She stores them various places in little easy-to-carry tubes.
She has glucose tab tubes:

• in her diabetes kit that goes wherever she goes
• in her school backpack
• in her purse
• in her dance bag for dance class
• in her dance backpack that she takes to dance class
• in the glove compartment of each car
• at the nurse's office at school, in her care kit for emergencies
• in my purse
• two spare tubes on the diabetes shelf in the kitchen, for 'grab and go' needs
• in her bedroom next to her bed
• there are other hidden places she probably doesn't even tell me
• she might have some at a friend's house, I don't even know
• there may be some in her coat pocket

And we reload them from the large tab containers.

I went to CVS to buy them as she was out. Hmmm I thought, none at our local CVS, that's odd. I'll hit the next CVS down the road. Hmmm, empty shelf there too. Checked yet another CVS. Empty shelf. Little bit of panic set in. No problem, the wonders of the internet, right? CVS.com will have them. Nope, they don't. The tabs don't even appear on their website.

Noooooooooooooo.

So I did what any mom would do, I posted on Facebook with a picture of the tabs.
All hands on deck in a time of crisis.

And my friends responded, from far and wide. They encountered empty shelves, and texted me pictures of empty shelves, and said they were going to the next CVS to try and find them. They named the stores they had been to, so others would know they didn't have them there. They sent me texts of 'Score!' and 'I got 'em!' Bottles were handed to me as I entered work today, and more were promised tomorrow, bottle are coming in the mail, and bottles are being dropped off at my door.

I have bottles of CVS Grape Glucose Tabs from Minnesota, Seattle, Northern NJ, Pennsauken, New York, Collegeville, Lansdale, Center City, Pittsburgh and beyond.

To my friends who responded to my call to action so splendidly, thank you. You came through in spades. Grace and I are indeed very lucky to call all of you friends. There is a saying that it's the friends you can call up at 3 AM that matter. You are my 3 AM friends.

Thank you, my village, for making something that at times is so awful, so very wonderful.

Year 9

Grace was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes on January 9, 2009. This year, 2018, makes NINE years of living with Type 1. Nine years is so very close to the big TEN. That reminds me, I have to apply for Grace's 10 year medal from Joslin. Imagine that, ten years. At times, it seems like ten minutes, then there are times that it feels like every minute of those ten years.

Here are the past years if you care to take a look.

Year 8
Year 7
Year 6
Year 5
Year 4
Year 3
Year 2
Year 1

Grace is pretty much on her own. I am still involved with changing basal rates but everything else is all hers. Carb ratios are hers. There are days, sometimes multiple days, that go by and I don't know a BG. I take a look in her OmniPod PDM and sure enough, all the testing is there. Every single day. She remembers to test before lunch at school. She remembers to test when she walks somewhere after school with a friend to get Starbucks. She remembers when she is at her friend's house at a late night party. She stays up later at night if she is high, checking herself. She writes down on our shopping list to please grab some more juice boxes for her and some granola bars, please.

I always tell Grace as she leaves for whatever event she is going to - 'Text me if you need help on any foods' - but frankly, she never does. She may relate later that she had a couple slices of pizza and some chips and dosed 50, and sure enough, there she stands later at a prime 106 BG.

This is a sample text from her about our life right now:

I try not to judge others and their management of their kids and teens, I really do. All I know is that I have learned that this is not MY diabetes. As much as I want to take it from her, I can't. All I can do is promote independence while teaching her what I know. I am not in this to get the perfect A1C. I am not in this to win at who can stay in range the longest and the tightest. I am not in this to prove I can rock a pancake breakfast and see no spike at all. I am not in this to watch her BG 24/7/365.

I am in this to create a young woman who manages her diabetes and is emotionally healthy and owns it. If I died tomorrow, she would be good to go on her diabetes. She knows what to do and is allowed to do it. It took years to get here. She's going to be 16. Soon she will be done High School and off to college. I'm just backup right now, then soon I will fade away. And this kid's gonna be alright.

Happy 9th Diaversary, sweet Grace, you are awesome.

I asked Grace to send me a picture that she would like on this blog post. True to form, she sent me these two.