CWD Pumping Confrence

The confrence in SanDiego was great!
On the drive south, we stopped at a "travel mall" with a bunch of gas stations and a bunch of convienence marts next to them all by the same company. Inside of the mart were these toy dogs. Life-like sleeping puppies that breathe. We saw them in the gift store near the hospital lab last time Brenna had her blood drawn. I got two, one for her and one for Rowan. They were her constant companions the WHOLE trip. She wanted them to be with us everywhere.

We got there on Thursday evening and ate a a little Japanese restaraunt that was across the street from the Marriot Hotel. We spent all day Friday at Sea World. We petted Budwiser horses, sea stars, and almost a dolphin. Raw stinky fish were flung to sea lions. We imagined ourselves in the pool with the beluga whales like the freezing family that was out there. Shopped at every gift shop. Walked through a tunnel as sharks swam above. We got back to the hotel room around 6:30p.m. cleaned up and left to go sign in for the confrence.

We met so many people there! It was so cool. Brenna made lots of friends; child, adult, with diabetes, without diabetes. Mom & I got to go to a lot of the breakout sessions. I enjoyed and got a lot of information from every session I went to. Some were more helpful and more applicable to Brenna than others. I really enjoyed learning about the unteatherd regimen and it didn't really apply to Brenna but it could be extremely useful for teens and I will definately pass the info on to Brenna's diabetes educator. I wish I had chosen to go to the how to choose the right infusion set even though I currently like the ones we get.
Brenna was with the daycare ladies. It was so wierd to leave her with no meter and no instructions. They had a meter handy and stuff to treat lows and were all diabetes educators. Everytime I came to get Brenna, she was getting messy, I know she had so much fun I hope the ladies had as much fun as she did. She made some friends her own age as well. It was so cool. Every vendor waved hi and many knew her by name. She talked to everybody! We wore our conference shirts and name badges the whole time and she'd introduce herself by holding up her badge and saying "I'm Brenna, what's your name?" when they'd answer she'd say "that's a great name!". I love her to pieces!!

So much info in so little time! The food was great but it was hard to remember the carbs from the cards beside the food when you're dodging people and tables all the way back to where we were sitting.
Brenna picked a new pink medicalert bracelet, and a new pink pump pouch. I picked a purple pouch with a clear "window" in the front to make nighttime boluses easier to do - no removing & replacing the pump. We got those from Angel Bear Pump Stuff New books came home with us too! I was hoping Diabetes Mall would have merchandise with them - no shipping and you can actually see what's in the book before you buy! So cool!

The things I remember:
*Make sure Brenna's pump settings are correct
*Don't set a bg "range" to shoot for in her pump pick one number to aim for-- if you were shooting an arrow at a target you'd aim for the center dot not the whole target
*Dry breakfast cereal is the fastest carb in the west (or east, for that matter)
*CGMS are the best thing since sliced bread (or carb counting, or the insulin pump, but you get my point --every speaker mentioned it at some point -- some for a good portion of their program)
*Bolus Bren before breakfast or other meals (at least 15 minutes) to "Strike the Spike"
*Choose your words wisely; don't "test" 10 times a day "check" 10 times a day - testing has a pass/fail connotation - checking is more neutral
*Watch your body language too. If the number is high or low, don't freak or give negative body language just use the data to correct and get back on an even keel.
*Free stuff is fun!
*High & low bg's can affect performance & personality dramatically. Don't pay attention to the words coming out of your child's mouth during a low -- treat the low and ignore the mouth. A few of the T1 grownups gave their kids permission to ask them to test their blood at any time to be sure if they have a grouchy parent or one that needs glucose. Kinda cool actually.

On the way home we stopped at Legoland. I thought we'd be there a couple of hours - we were there until a little after 5 p.m. and then had an 8 hour trip to look forward to. I drove through L.A. (the infamous Los Angeles traffic wasn't backed up too much we traveled at 20 m.p.h. Much better than a dead stop.) Mom and I swapped out a couple of times because we were both tired. I think I may have lost my phone at the Iron Skillet restaraunt where we stopped for dinner after we got over the grapevine. It was also in the same "travel mall" area where we found the puppies earlier in the week. Grrr. All my numbers programmed into it and all the pictures in it of my kids lost. And I just figured out how to send the camera pics to flickr. Oh well. We got home at about 1:30 a.m. Brenna was asleep and I joined her shortly afterward. I think I just recovered from last weekend today. I would have liked to have the boys with us but it was really nice to be able to talk to my mom and just hang out just us girls.