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The insulin pump delivers rapid or short-acting insulin 24 hours a day through a catheter placed under the skin. Raina wears the pump around her midsection and it’s barely detectable. “I change it every three days. She only has to be stuck once every three days instead of being stuck several times a day,” Jennifer said.
Even with the pump, keeping up with how many carbs Raina eats and counterbalancing with the insulin pump is still a mathematical feat. A remote meter allows Jennifer to dial in the right amount of insulin to give her in order to counteract any diabetic issues, such as low blood sugar or high blood sugar.
“With this, I can correct it,” Jennifer said.
However, Jennifer still has to do a finger prick to check Raina’s blood sugar four times a day, including a daily check around 2 a.m. “She doesn’t even wake up really any more,” Jennifer said.
And there are no vacations from diabetes.
“If we’re out at the beach, we’re checking sugars,” Jennifer said.
There’s always the worry about high blood sugar, but Jennifer said she worries more about low blood sugar. During one diabetic crisis with Raina, her blood sugar got as low as 31 — dangerously low. It wasn’t the first time her sugar had bottomed out.
Raina is just like any other kid — junk food is quite enticing. But sugar and other high-carb foods and beverages — sodas, cookies, juice — are what Raina should avoid. That’s just what she craves most.
“I want anything that has sugar in it,” said Raina as she opened a package of chocolate-covered pretzels to eat.
Although Raina seem nonchalant about her diabetes, there are times when she screams, “I hate diabetes,” Jennifer explained. “She gets angry at it sometimes.”
When she was little, Jennifer said Raina used to ask, “How much longer before they have a cure?”
The family just doesn’t sit around and wait for a cure to happen. All four members of the family, including 17-year-old sister, Sydney, participate in the Walk to Cure Diabetes.
“And we participate in different activities to raise money to find a cure,” Jennifer said.
Raina’s father, Jason, participates in the Tour de Cure every year and rides more than 100 miles on his bicycle. Jason is involved in a diabetes study as well. There are four antibodies related to the risk of diabetes: he has two, but isn’t actively diabetic, and Raina has the other two, which make her diabetic. He also made a promise to his daughter that he’d wear a Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation bracelet and would not take it off until there is a cure.
“I have hope,” Jennifer said. “They are getting closer, at least, with better control (of diabetes).”
Currently, studies are under way for an artificial pancreas. Visit www.dnj.com to download a PDF file with that information.
