Our Little Trooper!

Our oldest son Hunter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 15 months old. We had noticed that for about 4 days straight he wet through his diaper in the night and one bottle no longer satisfied him so we expressed our concerns to our doctor who thought there was probably nothing to worry about but checked his blood sugar anyway. A normal blood sugar is between 80-120 and Hunter's was over 500! We immediately went to Sioux Falls (2 hours away and has a much bigger hospital) and spent 5 days learning how to take care of him. There were a lot of tears and fears but he was such a trooper that he kept our spirits up. I was also 5 months pregnant with Brylie so I was a bit of an emotional wreck anyway! After 3 years of daily insulin shots (crying and screaming with EVERY shot) he is now on an insulin pump. The insulin pump is connected to him all the time and gives him small doses of insulin every hour. We can unhook the pump for baths and swimming. Before he eats he checks his own blood sugar by poking his finger and then we count the carbohydrates that he eats and punch those 2 numbers into his pump and it is programmed to give him the right amount of insulin. This totally eliminates the shots. Yea!! We have to change the site of the pump once every 3 days and that requires a poke but we have numbing cream that we put on the site and that eliminates the pain (most of the time). He still has a minimum of 8 finger pokes a day, but he has always been really good about those. He started checking his own blood sugar last summer as we prepared him for preschool. We taught his teacher how to do the pump and it has been going very well. The pump allows him to eat whatever he wants, we just make sure he gets the insulin to cover it. All of this to say that this coming weekend we are preparing for the annual Walk to Cure Diabetes that takes place in Sioux Falls every year. We raise money for diabetes research and have a wonderful time with family and friends walking for a good cause. Our team name is 'Hunter's Team- Hunting for a Cure' and we all wear camouflage shirts. Last year our team was the largest and we raised over $3000! Hunter got a trophy and keeps it by his bed. He is really hoping to get another one this year. You can visit www.jdrf.org to learn more about it. This past Saturday we held a rummage/bake sale to raise money for our Walk and since it was deathly cold out we didn't get the crowd we had hoped for, but still managed to raise $300. Robb and I couldn't be more proud of Hunter and how he deals with his disease. He is glad to tell anyone who is interested about diabetes and what he has to do to take care of himself. He prays everyday that Jesus would heal him and so do we!