More Hats…

Let’s take a break from my series on Type 1 Diabetes: My Journey.  The hat craze continues…two cotton hats, one knitted, the other crocheted.  A bit of back story for each of them:  the knitted watermelon hat on the right is made from a Susan Anderson free pattern.  Susan B. Anderson is one of my favorite knitters/designers/bloggers! Check out all her websites!  The hat is intended to be for one of my sister’s daughters who  turned three last weekend!

The crocheted hat is a big-sister hat.  In the previous hat post I mentioned that the baby hat and blanket is for a friend.  She already has a son and daughter who are so excited about their soon-to-be-born baby sister!  So, I had five of the inner circles leftover from the blanket.  Instead of creating the hexagon shaped final round, I decided to make them square and fashion them into a cute hat for the big sister.  Now I’m working on the big-brother hat, omitting the pinks!

I’m also very excited that Knit Wits is starting back up again!  This was a group of knitter/crocheters who used to meet at the old location of Shakespeare & Co. in Kernersville.  We will begin meeting again on Friday mornings from 10 am to noon. If any of you yarnies out there would like to join us, please do so!  Shakespeare & Co. is a wonderful book shop, coffee cafe in a beautiful new location downtown.  Our “motto” is taken from a  Shakespeare play called Pericles:

“When peers thus knit, a kingdom ever stands.”   Yes, indeed!

The Inset

At the other end of the pump and tubing, is the highly important “inset”, short for “Infusion Set”.  We chose a particular kind of inset for Maddie based on several factors: her being a child and needing a slanted insertion rather than 90 degree insertion, and a manual insertion rather than an “automatic” type.  As I mentioned in my previous post, there are several problems you have to watch out for with the inset: possible crimping, air bubbles, or site complications.  The inset has to be changed every three days in order to prevent infection.  Our bodies are so good at noticing the presence of foreign objects, that they begin to attack them, thus creating an infection.  We change the site of the inset in order to keep this from happening.

Site care is very important.  Our “pump book” recommends actually creating a chart of your child’s front and back mid-sections to mark about 16 different places to alternate placing the inset.  The body needs time to heal from the inset “hole” as well as the insulin delivery to that area.  During our shot-giving months, we unknowingly caused something called “lipohypertrophy” around our daughter’s belly button.  This is where the fatty tissue there begins to swell from repeated use.  The insulin apparently causes this condition when it is inserted in the same place over and over again.  We do NOT want this to happen to Maddie’s belly, sides, and back!!

The inset has a “cannula” which is inserted via a fairly large needle.  Maddie doesn’t like looking at it.  I don’t blame her.  We are learning to insert the cannula and then remove the needle quicker each time.  She also “wears” a glob of lidocaine to numb the area as much as possible before we give her a new inset.  It’s about a 1 1/2 to 2 hour process from the time the lidocaine goes on to the actual inset application.  We can’t wait too late in the day to change the inset…we need time afterwards to be able to assess whether the new inset is functioning properly, ie. whether the insulin is actually delivering.  You do NOT want to have to change the inset again in the middle of the night.

Just imagine how a typical 8 year old might react to all this.  I keep thinking we would have hysterics, crying, hiding, running away, in general doing what I myself might do.  But incredibly, we do NOT have a typical 8 year old.  We found this out as she bravely took her shots.  We did not tell her to buck up and be brave.  She’s a very creative gal: she tries different things and then sticks with whatever routine helps her.  She has found that watching SpongeBob Squarepants helps keep her mind off of the inset going in. She likes having a little soda next to her to drink in case she feels a bit woozy.  She likes to have as much “say” in the process as she can, and then leaves the yucky part to us.  We know that she has a bit of dread on inset days…she wakes up and sometimes the first words out of her mouth are, “Oh pooey, today’s an inset day.”  Other than that we don’t see too much resistance.  She is AMAZINGLY brave, courageous, and boldly faces each inset change with fierce determination.

An artist friend, Dan of Dan’s Canvas, said in a comment on the previous post, that his son, who has autism, has taught him so much.  His son has taught him to be “more empathetic, more patient, more accepting.”  This has already been true of our daughter.  We have learned so much from her.  Her acceptance of it all is sobering to me.  She does not merely accept it, but seems to embrace it and truly find joy in it.  I know what Dan is saying is true and that my husband and I, and our other two children, will continue to learn so much from Maddie!

The Pump…Not a Pancreas

After 7 1/2 months of giving our daughter 4 shots a day (sometimes more if she wanted to eat more), she “went on the pump” July 22nd.  This is terminology used for saying that she now wears, 24-7, a cell-phone sized device that administers insulin for both meals and a continuous base-line amount.  This little device has a cartridge containing a 3-day amount of insulin (it can hold more, but with hot weather, the insulin can “go bad”, so we only put in 3 days worth).  It is attached to a length of tubing which is “connected” to her mid-section via an “inset” or, as I’ve heard other parents call it, a “port”.

We were told, in advance, of the transition period required to set the levels on the pump to Maddie’s needs…a period of about 6-8 weeks.  We were told, in advance, of the benefits and limitations of the pump.  We were told it was the best way to manage her diabetes.  We were told that it would indeed add more challenges due to technological issues, inset function, etc.  I was aware on a cognitive level of these things.  I was not aware on a personal, day-to-day experiential level.

To briefly state what the last LONG two months has taught me, it is that THE PUMP IS ONLY A COMPUTER.  It only “knows” and can “do” what you have programmed it to do.  And then, it can only do what it has been told, if you have given it the correct resources to pull from, ie. enough insulin in her cartridge, tubing without air bubbles in it, and an inset that is not crimped or otherwise compromised.  The number of variables as to what can go WRONG with the pump is oftimes overwhelming for me.

I won’t go into all the particulars of what has to be checked every day (that may be A topic for another post), but I will say, that as we have been calibrating the pump (tweaking and adjusting the ratios); I have also had to calibrate my mind–to adjust and correct what I somehow had in my head that the pump would do for Maddie.  I never expected it to be able to test her blood sugar levels…I knew all along she would still have to prick those sweet little fingers multiple times a day (in fact, MORE times now on the pump).  I knew all along that it would not be able to adjust itself to meet her needs.  But somehow, getting it square in my head that this VERY EXPENSIVE, tiny little thing is ONLY a computer, has helped me.  It is NOT a pancreas.  It doesn’t know how much carb she is getting ready to eat…we still have to count the carbs for a meal or snack and TELL the pump this info.  It doesn’t know when she is getting ready to exercise (exercise causes her to use up carbs pretty quickly, so you have to back off on the amount of insulin you give her).  It doesn’t know that she is anxious about taking a test, or excited about a party, or angry, or ANYTHING!! all of which can raise her sugar levels!  There are so many variables a healthy pancreas monitors (our bodies are truly amazing!), but this little device is no pancreas!

Lest you think it is all doom & gloom, the pump DOES have many benefits that mere shot-giving cannot touch.  Once all the ratios and levels are set (for the time being ONLY, since she is always growing and her insulin needs are always in flux), then it will do all the math for us.  You type in the number of carbs she is getting ready to consume (and hope she will actually consume all of them!) and then type in what her current blood sugar level is, and it will calculate how much insulin she needs based on the time of day (it changes throughout the day), based on her insulin sensitivity level, and what insulin she may still have on board, if any.  Very useful, very helpful information.  She is also able to give herself insulin when we go out to eat, instead of us giving her a shot in public.  She also doesn’t have to get the shots, although the burning of the insulin going in is felt every time, just like it was with her shots.  We are even able to adjust the basal levels so that she has less of a chance of going low in the middle of the night.  Yet we are still testing at midnight every night.  We did, however, drop the 3 am testing several weeks ago, for which we are very thankful.  Neither my husband nor I are ready to drop the midnight one…not sure we ever will.

So, in many ways, my husband and I try to THINK like a pancreas.  But here we see our own limitations as well.  As much as we can predict, adjust levels, bolus for fewer carbs, or whatever; we are not able to keep Maddie’s blood sugars within “normal” limits at all times.  We thought, or perhaps I should say, I thought, I would better be able to do this with the aid of the pump.  Every day, I’m reminded that just as the pump is not a pancreas, neither am I.  I am human.  I can only do the best I can with the information and technology I have at my disposal.  And then, I have to leave it there and pray.

Type 1, My Story

Danny Gregory’s most recent post on September 21st, has caused me to think a bit.  He talks about how Everyday Matters, the book, came to be…how he had not thought that his story of learning to live again after his wife Patti’s tragic accident which left her paralyzed, was something he could/should/wanted to share with others.  He knew that drawing was how he worked through the aftermath, how he chronicled even the smallest of things that became treasures in the wake of tragedy.  But he did not feel he could share this most personal, private part of himself.  He didn’t think that something that mattered so much to him and to Patti would matter much to anyone else.  He discovered that it mattered a lot to those who’ve had the good fortune to read his book.

Prior to reading his post, I had been toying with taking a blog-holiday.  I’ve been feeling increasingly scattered, both creatively and personally.  A blog certainly supports this approach: short and sweet entries about WHATEVER!  But I felt I needed a break to sort out whatever was being stirred up.  Typically, my scattered, all-over-the-map creative self, is an indicator that something’s getting stirred up.  I usually won’t see it for a while.  I just have to wait it out.  But after reading Danny’s post, I realize I’ve only shared with you the tip of the iceberg of my story as a mother of a Type 1 Diabetic child.  Here, here, here, and here are just a few of the posts I’ve spoken about and shared with you.  But there is so much more.  So much that is indeed simmering around in my head and heart, and I think I can share it with you.

In beginning this journey of posts, I feel there are several things to state up front.  I am only giving MY perspective, not my daughter’s or my husband’s, or any one else who is touched by Type 1 Diabetes in any way.  It is MY story…how I’M processing all this…how I am learning, growing, grieving, rallying, learning to live again.  Though no one has died, nor become paralyzed, there has indeed been a kind of a death.  A death to a way of life that we will never return to.  I keep having to learn this.

I am also NOT fishing for sympathy!!  I am in no way trying to wrest out of you an emotional response, nor do I invite cheerleader comments.  I am simply wanting to share my journey in such a way as to encourage ANY who might be on a similar path.  Certainly, if you or anyone you know is touched by Type 1 Diabetes, please share this with them…it might encourage them.

And so, what does the above drawing have to do with all this???  I drew it yesterday, standing at my sink, gawking at the temperature gauge, longing to go sit outside on my back deck, but knowing I’d be back inside within a few minutes.  Oh the heat!!  Here in my little part of the world, we are having a record breaking year!  We have had more days above 90 degrees than any other year on record!  It has felt oppressive.  I have had many days when dealing with diabetes has felt equally oppressive.  And though we are looking toward the heat breaking next week sometime, I face the fact that Type 1 Diabetes is here to stay.  It will not go away with a rain storm coming through.  It will not take a break for a season or two.  The work that my husband and I do for our daughter, and indeed the work that she does to manage her diabetes is never ending.  93 would actually be a great blood sugar number for her.  But alas, her sugar numbers do not stay at 93…they are only passing through to some other number, be it 250 or 50.  I’m learning to live with this and to find joy in it.

BTW-I’ve begun a Category for all my posts on life with Type 1 Diabetes.  You can see the list of categories over in the right margin if you’re interested in reading more.

Hat Craze!

We did have a couple of coolish days  a few weeks ago…and we haven’t seen them since! But it got me itchin’ to knit and crochet again.  Especially knit.  And not just any knitting…hats, on double-pointed needles!  The crocheted hat on the left, I made to give as a gift to a friend who’s having a baby girl soon.  It will go with the hexagon blanket I’ve also recently finished.  The knitted hat on the right fits Maddie perfectly!  It took exactly ONE ball of the lovely Noro stuff I had in my stash.  Since photographing these two hats, I’ve completed two others, one knit, one crochet; and I have another hat on the dpns, and another crochet hat planned and ready to go.  These things I call “art in the margins”.  It’s the stuff I fit in when I have five minutes here, five minutes there, when I sit at soccer practice, when I’m helping with homework.  It’s amazing what we can do when we “rescue” those throwaway minutes.  I’ve blogged about this subject before…here…and here.

Here’s hoping your day is filled with rescued minutes!

BTW: My homemade hat trees are simply a round tupperware turned over on a stem vase…they even bobble a bit!  I had been wishing for a cute hat tree to hang and photograph my hats on, but came up with this idea which I think works quite well!

Top O’ the Hill

So, if you’ve been able to follow along my blog posts, you’ll know that I painted this BEFORE the previous three watercolors.  I actually got OUT OF MY YARD and went to the top of our neighborhood to sit in some shade and paint a view down Silver Dapple Lane.  Isn’t that a wonderful name for a lane?  It’s perhaps one of my most favoritest streets in the world.  I could truly paint there for months on end and not run out of lovelies to paint.

I continue to enjoy the watercolor underpainting that peeks through the pastel.  In my head I want to use more subdued, true-to-reality colors.  But somehow, when I pick them up, I put the subdued colors back in my box and reach for the yummier ones.  I end up with something that may be bordering on garish, hovering on “too much”, edging up to “frenetic”.  Well. If so, then maybe I’ll just be content with that.

Perhaps our art mirrors our lives.  And instead of  trying to wrestle our art into looking like something else, perhaps we should just let it be.  Life often feels like it borders on garish, hovers on being “too much”, and edges right up to, if not flat-out IS: frenetic!

Well, at least it’s COLORFUL!

What is it?

There is a quality in certain art I really, really love.  I call it the “What is it?” quality.  I just love to approach a piece of art, small or large, and NOT know immediately WHAT it is.  I love to be taken in by the colors, the shapes, the textures, the value pattern FIRST…and then have the image begin to form in my mind as to what it is.  This is a quality I feel I can sometimes achieve in watercolor.  In fact, I would rather sacrifice technical correctness in order to maintain or achieve this “What is it?” quality.

The uncropped version may actually enhance this feature I enjoy so much.  Those lovely edges give the brain yet one more place to prance around before having to settle in on “What it’s a painting of”.  It reminds me of that dreadful question so quickly asked of a child who has brought his/her artwork to show us.  If we ask right away, “What is it?”, we completely disregard the line quality, the colors, the emotions and intentions of the young artist.  Delaying our cursed need to “make sense” of art, is actually a beneficial thing:  we learn to seek and enjoy art for it’s vast array of beauties contained in places other than the literal translation of it.

I’ve been thinking about this very thing in my own life recently.  I have an incessant need to “make sense” of my life…of the circumstances, worries, difficulties that come my way and continue to come my way.   What is this?  What is it for?  Why is it here?  These types of questions do NOT allow me to see the beauty that is EVERYWHERE in my life.  What I need to remember is: No matter whether this day’s events make any sense, no matter whether I can SEE the purpose of it all, no matter whether it may seem like a mish-mash of color and shapes…there WILL be a day when it will all come together and I’ll see the lovely WHOLE, the beautiful painting of my life.

For now, I need to learn to see and revel in all the beauty that surrounds me, the gifts and blessings that are truly abundant…if I stop asking, “What is it?” and just BE.

Front Yard…Still

Another image from my front yard.  I painted a little series of 4″ x 6″ watercolors from one vantage point in my front yard, facing out towards the street.  My previous post is one, here’s another, and my next post will be the third.  This very same day, I had actually spent the morning OUT OF MY YARD, painting a view up the hill near Mr. Whicker’s farm.

To be sure, it was lovely to sit in the shade, and respond with pastels to what I was seeing.  But somehow, the result was less than…  Less than what?  Less than pleasing? No, it’s an ok painting (i’ll show you soon!).  Less than what I was after?  Well, yes, in some ways, no in others.  Less than what?  There’s something about pastel itself that leaves me less than perfectly satisfied.  It’s hard to articulate my malaise:  is it the over-the-top intense colors that I don’t feel I can quite wrangle into a pleasing melange?  Is it their dusty nature, less painterly, less fluid, and therefore more stiff in their presentation?  Is it the fact that, unlike watercolor, they do not have a life of their own?–where you put them, is where they sit…unless you push, swipe, smudge, erase, etc.  They do not oozle or wazzle, they do not run, spatter, granulate, or vary in shade with just one swipe.  Not wanting to let the pastel malaise dampen my enthusiasm for painting outdoors, I came home, repacked the outdoor equipment (which required less stuff!) and only ventured to my front yard for a watercolor foray.

Aside from needing to spritz my palette with water every now and then to keep them from drying too much, I really enjoyed working with my watercolors outdoors.  Yes, I have painted with watercolor outside before, always small.  One has to work quickly to take advantage of the oozling and wazzling time period.  These little paintings also have a sense of atmosphere about them I like.  I don’t know that I’m quite capturing that atmosphere in the pastels.  I know I can learn to do it.  But I wonder if I even need to when I’m so captivated by the nature of watercolor.  ??

Cropped and uncropped images for you here…goodness sakes you are a bunch of no-croppers!:)  The thing I DO like about the cropped image is how the color covers nearly all the space, and places the emphasis on say, the trunk of the tree, rather than on it’s canopy.  Once again, for me, I’m not sure which I prefer.  Thanks for all your comments though!

To Crop or Not to Crop

That is the question! Well, one of many questions, but one that gives me a bit of pause AFTER I’ve finished the painting.  Most of the other questions that bang around in my head are BEFORE and DURING a painting.  The above image is cropped to its’ 4″ x 6″ intended size I had drawn out on the paper prior to going outside to paint.  But here’s what it looks like SANS croppage:

There’s something about those peripheral edges I love! I’ve always been drawn 2 to uncropped edges…they seem to show the “made-by-a-human-being” ness.  They show the artist’s “hand” as it were, the effervescence, the leaping off the page…as if the colors just can’t be contained by arbitrary boundaries.  Oh how I love that.

Oh how I want that in my inner life as well as my paint life.

No Place Like Home

I haven’t left my yard yet.  I hope to venture out into the neighborhood very soon, but goodness, with beauty like this, just feet from my front door, I could hang out here for a good long while and paint and paint and be quite content.  As I go on my morning walks I see so much I want to get down on paper, to share with you the beauty.  I seem to be “hypersensitive to the beauty around me” these days.  (That quote is from John Denver…one of my all-time favorite singer/songwriters.)  I can’t seem to get enough of the light, the golden-tipped world, the russet -tinged trees, the breeze, the smells, the rustling leaves.  I wish I could capture all of that in a painting, so you could see/hear/feel it too!

I hope you can treat yourself to a walk, a bike ride, a drawing/painting session, or just a leisurely swing on your own front porch to enjoy what we’re given for a relatively short season.

Ahem…well, I just updated the previous post, then realized you probably won’t see this:  a post from over a year ago, using the same title as this one, is actually a watercolor version of the same view in the previous post!  The above painting is the view to the left of my front door, whereas the previous post’s view is to the right of my front door.