When my kids were younger I would take them to Chuck E Cheese often. We lived in Texas and the summers were hot so the days we didn’t hang by the pool we would hang out with the mouse. Yes it was a petri dish of germs. No I didn’t take hand sanitizer, might not have even required the kids to wash hands before eating. A favorite game was always Whack A Mole. All three of my kids loved whacking the mechanical moles and often we would race since there were two games right next to each other. There was something therapeutic about whacking those plastic heads repeatedly always trying to beat the game.

It is no longer therapeutic. The moles are no longer cute plastic rodents with hard hats and a grin.

The moles are highs and lows, the game never ends and I don’t get any tickets to trade in for trinkets.

Also I am now playing three games at once. Are you imagining me dashing between three arcade machines with a mallet whacking heads? Oh and the mallet – it is always attached to a single machine with a short cord so often I forget which mallet I’m holding and find myself flat on my ass because I tried whacking a mole with the wrong mallet. (giggling yet? It’s ok – I find humor in it too because if I didn’t I’d need to be drunk off the cheap beer)

My kids are 15, 13, and 11. Hormones, puberty, outside play, missed boluses, sports participation, lazy day electronics, lack of any meal schedule, late nights, endless snacking, and more make the whack a blood sugar game all that more difficult.

Yesterday on a FB page for parents of kids with diabetes another mom was waging war on a stubborn high with her 14-year-old son. Multiple highs and multiple corrections with different insulin (MDI) and she and her son likely felt they were using a 19th century flintlock pistol to lay siege on an enemy using 21st century armor. At least that is how I felt between 10pm and now at 6:30am. In the FB feed when she first posted her concerns of repeated highs despite corrections I, like others, had said if it’s a pump it may be a bad site. If it is MDI it may be bad insulin. Any chance the child was sneaking food? This exchange took place long before my 13-year-old returned home from a babysitting gig and learned of his 432.

Of course he isn’t currently wearing his Dexcom so he didn’t realize. He had checked his blood sugar at 7pm and was in the upper 200s. He and the boys he was watching ate pizza (yes part of the issue I’m sure) and he bolused and corrected. I called him a bit before 9 and asked him how he was. He checked BS and was in the 400s. He corrected.  He returned home a bit after 10 and checked, still in the 400s. He corrected again with his pump thinking it was pizza related and went off to bed, well he is a 13-year-old boy and it was a Saturday during the summer so he corrected and went off to veg in front of his Xbox. A bit after 11 I was going to bed and asked him to check again, 512. What? New pump site, new insulin, correction, kisses good night, alarm set for 1am for me. 1am – 355 not a big drop for 2 hours. Another correction. 3am 279. 6:30am 224. Stubborn ass high for sure. A losing battle of Whack A Mole or laying siege to a heavily armored enemy with a flintlock. Either way I am left feeling defeated.

Every person and child with diabetes reacts differently to insulin – oh and there are different brands of insulin that work better in some than others. Teens have raging hormones that seem to taunt the best offensive line of diabetes management.

I think I may have strayed from my original intention of this post which was to describe what it is like trying to help 3 kids of different ages and genders manage diabetes. Different games of Whack A mole – trying to use the same mallet on all three games, etc. It is true – corrections like the ones my middle son completed would have likely corrected my youngest son with little difficulty – less hormones. The corrections would have also corrected my daughter easily on most days. Why is correcting highs in my 13-year-old son more difficult? Perhaps his pump settings such as his correction factor (how much insulin he gets to correct out of range blood sugars) needs adjusting – although we had increased the ratios just a few weeks ago.

I’m not sure this post has any redeeming qualities. I think I was mostly venting. But if you ever feel like you are playing an endless game of Whack A Mole perhaps you will find solace in knowing it is a game we all play at times and if you are a parent of a teen and the game is getting harder, it is normal. I hope you won’t make the same mistakes I have made and accuse your teen of sneaking snacks (although mine really does often sneak snacks but nearly always boluses for them). I have found the less I trust my teen to be doing the right things (how do we define the right things in a teen that wants to be normal?) the more difficult it becomes to help him manage his diabetes. When he is high and I try to help discover why he immediately goes on the defensive. That isn’t helpful to either of us. I have never punished my kids for high blood sugars and I’ve never rewarded them for in-range numbers. I commend them for checking and bolusing but that is about it. Still the temptation, especially towards my middle child, for me to say “what did you eat?” is a strong one. I have said it many times and accusing him (whether I was correct in my assumption or not) has built a wall of defense. I don’t need an additional wall of defense to negotiate while trying to battle the actual blood sugar.

Sigh. 3 kids with diabetes, two teens and one right on their heels.

Thank goodness for coffee, cookie dough ice-cream and the diabetes online community.