Letters: Back to School With Diabetes

Daryl & Melissa Davis______ Hello Everyone,

Well, after alittle summer vacation, it's time for Back To School! I'm amazed that the summer flew by so fast! But it's that time again and time to start thinking about school issues again! Do you have a school nurse that will be there for your child? Does the teacher understand about diabetes and is she willing to support your child? Will you be the one going to school to test your child? What is the plan for those typical sugar-filled school parties? Lets get together and discuss it all! And if you have praise for your school and how diabetes has been handled there, please come share your stories! Everyone can use an uplifting story once in a while!

I found a few sites I'd like to pass along to you that may be helpful to you! They are:

1. What School Personnel Should Know About the Student with Diabetes, taken from the Diabetes Handbook! You may have to scroll up just alittle! This one is excellent, with forms you can print out and send to school!

2. Countdown for Kids - Back to school! Get a Plan! This was my favorite one last year!

3. Information for Teachers and Child-Care Providers This one is a new one I haven't seen before and I found it very good!

The forum will be held Thursday, July 31, 1997 at 10pm EDT (9pm CDT, 8pm MDT, 7pm PDT)! Again, for those of you overseas, the time will be 3am Friday morning! I'm sorry about that but I plan to remedy it! I'd like to hold this same forum again Wednesday, Aug 6 during the day sometime! I haven't figured out a time yet but I'll let you know! It would end up being the early evening in GMT time! I sure hope it will help our overseas friends!

So, I hope to see you all this Thursday at 10pm EDT for an informative session! Write to me if I can help you with anything!

Melissa Davis
jrnysend@itexas.net
Melissa's Diabetes Chat

My Own Informational Sheet

Dan & Lisa Diener______ Melissa,

Thank you for your e-mail. It is hard to believe that it's that time of year again. Recently I down loaded all types of information about diabetes care and made my own informational sheet for my son's teacher by picking and choosing information that I thought would be benifical. I think it turned out quite nicely. I even visited some of the sites you mentioned. I included the following information: Defination of Diabetes, how it is controlled, hypoglycemia, treatment of hypoglycemia, severe symptoms, what to do, what glucagon is, hyperglycemia, treatment of hyperglycemia, ketoacidosis, warning signs of detoacidosis, daily routine, snacks, exercise, how you can help a diabetic child, general tips and a personal message to the teacher. If you would like to see a copy of this please e-mail me anytime.

Thanks again,
Lisa Diener

Back to MIDDLE school

Renee______ Hi Melissa

I was slow to realize that part of the reason my daughter was "forgetting" to check at lunch sometimes was because going to the nurse first meant she'd get to the cafeteria late, & then there'd be no seats at the table with her friends - I tried to explain this to the nurse as justification for letting her check in her last class before lunch - They resisted but I persisted- So it was better, but not great... Now that she's going into high school, the "social issues" are less "desperate" and the nurse wound up relocating right outside the cafeteria anyway..

BUT - be aware of the subtle hidden issues like that which diabetes imposes - it's hard enough to be a 12 or 13 yr old without having to be "different"...And telling her to remind her friends to "save a seat" was futile - kids will be kids!

Bye for now - thanks for providing such an invaluable resource..One question though: How can you have time for all this with 5 kids under 6??????? Are you bionic?

Later....... Renee (rmhb1126@aol.com)

School Nurses

From: Sharon, Tom and Steven Tarca ______ Melissa

Our son, Steven, was diagnosed with diabetes in August 1991, just three weeks before he was to start kindergarten. Needless to say, we were having great anxiety about putting him on the bus that first day, and having him out of our care for 1-1/2 hours hours a day!

About a week before school started, I contacted the new principal to set up a meeting. She set up a meeting for the week before school started,with Steven's teacher and the school. We are very fortunate in our community to have a full time nurse in every school, and were extremely fortunate to have Karen Kosma, RN as Steven's first school nurse. She had experience with several other diabetic children, and was totally comfortable with handling a newly diagnosed kindergartener.

Steven's teacher also had some experience with a diabetic student before, and felt she would have no problems with him. As it turned out, our first impression of the school personnel, which was very positive, was true! Steve spent five wonderful years under Mrs. Kosma's care. She handled his lows, his highs, and the days when all he really needed in the nurse's office was a hug and a smile. She would always review his care plan with us, and call us if there were major changes in his daily schedule.

Last year, a new elementary school opened in our neighborhood and Steve had to move to the new school, just for 5th grade. Luckily, we had another wonderful nurse, teacher and principal who were very accomodating to his needs and took excellent care of him.

On August 28, Steve will be starting middle school - his third school in three years. The nurse at his new school called me before summer vacation, to "touch base" and to tell me that she would be at the school two days before school starts in August, so that we can visit and meet with her and the staff. This should help to alleviate any anxiety that we have about starting yet another school - a much larger one with different teachers, different nurse, different schedule.

I feel very fortunate that we live in a community (in central Connecticut) that has such wonderful school nurses, and cooperative teachers and administration. We let them know OFTEN how much we appreciate the good work that they do!

Sharon, Tom and Steven Tarca

Squeeze Lollipop verses glutose tubes instead of the glucagon kit

From: ? ______ Melissa

Did you have to use the glucagon injection on Kristina when she passed out? When Amos passed out the nurse used one of the glutose tubes (Insta Glucose). The instructions from our Diabeties Educator, Marilyn Borgersen, with Dr. Mark's office with Childrens Medical Center, was to squirt some of the glutose onto your finger and open Amos' mouth and rub it on the inside of his cheeks and gums. They told us it would take 30 seconds to a minute and 1/2 and he should start come around. It worked almost immediately when he passed out. Then the nurse told him she was going to squirt some of the tube into his mouth and to start swallowing. He did and he took all of one tube (which is 15 grams of carbohydrate) and then took all of another. The nurse had the glucagon kit and was prepared to use it if the insta glutose had not worked. She says it is considerably easier to squeeze a glob of glutose onto your finger and rub it around on the inside of his cheek and gums than it is to load that glucagon syringe and use it in a crisis and I agree.

We have found that the SQUEEZE LOLLIPOPS we can buy at the convenience store 2 blocks from our house or at any WalMart checkout stand have the same ingredients but add flavoring and coloring and are 30 grams per tube. These are resealable and are sold in the tubes, in little sports bottles and even in little IV looking bags. We prefer the tubes because they are convenient to use. As a matter of fact the convenience/beer store across the street from the motel at the traffic light in Glenrose has this stuff, or they did last hunting season. ( We stop there every time we go thru to go to our deer lease down in Manard.) When Amos gets low, he starts to wilt, so we check his blood sugar level and if he is low we give him a squirt of the squeeze lollipop and he pops right back up to normal, I carry it with us all the time. I 've got one in each of our vehicles, he carries one in his kit and we keep one in the jeep we hunt in, just in case.

I took one of the squeeze lollipops to Dr. Marks Amos' Endocrinologist, to show him. He said that was great and he was going to tell his other patients about it.

It was great hearing from you, I think the internet is going to be a great place for all of us to learn more about the latest developments concerning Diabeties and to share information that maybe we normally wouldn't have anyone to share it with. I'm sure we can all learn alot from each other.

Have you read the information on the new insulin developed by Eli Lilly, LisPro marketed as Humulog? It was approved by the FDA on June 1, 1996. I did a search on LisPro and dug around and found some great information. I hope that Amos' Dr. will consider changing him to this insulin program, I think it will make managing his extremely active lifestyle easier for all of us.

I'll be looking for the pages you mentioned in your note in the future, and I'll drop you a line when we discover something new.

Email Melissa