Dear Sleep: I’ve Missed You

Want to hear a joke? Sleep. Yeah, I didn’t get it either, until recently. Years ago, my relationship with Sleep got put on the back burner. I had my reasons, but I missed sleep a lot. I didn’t realize how much until we got to spend the whole night together again.

This post has been sponsored by Dexcom Canada. All opinions are mine.

Dear Sleep:

We used to be so close. We hung out every night. All night. Sometimes, even during the day.

We both knew it would change when I had a baby. It always does. Babies change relationships. All relationships. Things were going to be different for a while. We’d get back into the swing of things somewhere down the line.

But then something else happened. Something unexpected.

My baby was diagnosed with a chronic auto-immune disease: Type 1 Diabetes. It strained our relationship more than I thought possible.

It was different from getting through infancy. There was no getting through this with you.

I dove right in

Type 1 diabetes took our time and took over my life.

I was counting carbs and doing injections during the day, and setting alarms to wake up every 3 hours to check his blood sugar during the night.

You have to understand, I was making sure he was safe. I was keeping him alive. I couldn’t spend that time with you like I used to.

Sometimes I had to get him to drink or eat in his sleep to get his blood sugar back up. I worried about what that was doing to his teeth, but at least he got to spend time with you.

Sometimes I had to give him injections in his sleep to get a high blood sugar back down. You have to be alert when drawing up and injecting a hormone that simultaneously has the potential to save his life or kill him.

Sometimes I had to sit with him as he cried because the finger poke hurt and woke him up.

I am very sorry, I wish things were different, but I just couldn’t spend that time with you.

Finally, I turned to other parents of children with T1D

Some of them told me I could still be with you. I just had to stop checking him during the night. He would be fine.

But I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t sleep soundly for 7 or 8 hours not knowing what his blood sugar was doing.

What if he was dipping low in the night? They said he would wake himself up, but I had heard too many stories of children having seizures in bed or not being able to move or call out for help. What good is waking up if he can’t do anything about it?

What if his pump site came out and we didn’t notice until the morning, when he already has off the charts high blood sugar and ketones?

How could I Sleep, knowing that these things could happen?

I’m not going to lie

Coffee and I started to get really close. I still thought about you often, but what else could I do?

Every night, waking up every 3 hours.

It was torture.

I knew I had to get up, to check on my baby, but my body just didn’t want to do it.

Then I started hearing whispers

Whispers from other parents of T1D children. They said they were spending the whole night with you. And they were still monitoring their children’s blood glucose during the night.

That didn’t sound right. Could it be true?

It had been years. I would have known if that was possible… wouldn’t I?

But the same word kept popping up over and over: “Dexcom“.

What is that? Why hadn’t the doctors told us about it?

No, it can’t be that great. I put my head down and spent more time with coffee.

But they didn’t stop

It seemed like every day someone was talking about it. “Dexcom saved my child’s life last night” or “I slept through the whole night!” The latter accompanied by a graph with pearly white dots so straight a non-diabetic would be jealous.

I started to believe them. It must be real. It must be possible. Other people are living it. Maybe I should too.

I didn’t know what a Dexcom was.

I was hearing about receivers, transmitters, and sensors.

People talked about it connecting to their phone, or tablet, or smartwatch.

It was all very over my head. And while it sounded good, I was hesitant to try something new.

But I missed you so much. If there was a chance that this Dexcom thing could help bring us back together, I had to give it a try.

So I gave in

I wanted you back.

So I researched. I learned.

Words and phrases that had previously held no meaning for me, like “continuous glucose monitor”, “sensor”, and “trending blood glucose” started to make sense. Things were starting to click.

So I set my son up with a Dexcom.

It was quite something. Not only could I see his blood sugar level every 5 minutes, but it also told me if it was rising, falling, or staying steady.

But the part that was really helpful… the alerts and alarms.

All I had to do was set the numbers. It had one alert to let me know if his blood sugar went higher than I wanted, and another to let me know if it started going too low.

Instead of setting alarms during the night to wake myself up to go and check, I was only being woken up when something was actually happening.

No more waking up for no reason

Before, the alarms just went off at midnight and 3AM. While it was good when his numbers were in range during the night, it was a bit frustrating that I had to interrupt our time together for no real reason.

Now, if his numbers stay in range all night, we can hang out like old times.

Not only that, but because I can see his numbers all the time, I can adjust his basal rate more accurately. I can bolus more confidently. So he stays in range more frequently than ever before.

Which means more time for us.

It won’t be exactly like before, as there will still be our other friends like Pizza, Beach Day, and Chinese Food. They’ll still take most of my attention some nights.

But we will figure it out.

Because life doesn’t always turn out as planned. It often likes to make situations seem impossible. But with you by my side, I feel like I can clear any hurdle life throws at me.

Yours truly,

A T1D parent

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How long has it been since your child was diagnosed with T1D? Do you manage to sleep through the night? Tell us about it in the comments! To learn more about Dexcom’s Continuous Glucose Monitoring, head over to Dexcom Canada for more info.