(I write this in English since I’m going to introduce myself in an international group.)
We have been out travelling again, this time up to the northen Sweden, Luleå, where some of the cousins to our children live. Since we prefer travelling by train I can tell, without overestimations, that it takes lots of hours to get there. We started from our home in southern Sweden in the morning, with the fresh news that Stockholm was hit by snow. Chaos. People stuck in their cars everywhere. I got a bad feeling that this would affect our trip since the Swedish Railways seems to be surprised every year over the fact that we have snow falling from the sky during winter…
We left our (more and more sad) snowman at home…
We safely arrived to Stockholm. At the homepage it was said that our night train was cancelled. Many misunderstandings later we understood that this was actually not the fact, but that our train for sure would be late. So we went through the ”chaos” to a café where our sweet daughter Amanda became jumpingly happy when she realised they got a sugarfree, fluffy cake. We spent some nice hours there with my brother and his lovely baby son, living in Stockholm.
We are always prepared for (almost) all occasions. We bring lots of food and extra everything of all the diabetes supplies we might need. A few extra hours on a railway station somewhere should not lead to spiking blood sugar because of unplanned intake of junk food. We can change pods and sensors right where we stand, if needed. The most important thing is that we don’t need to worry if we know that we have all we need. Worries go directly from your body leaking into your children, even if you try to hide it. We want to show our daughter that (almost) everything can be solved if you are well prepared.
Dinner on the station floor.
After a dinner on the station floor (there where people everywhere) they finally gave the call that our train was at the platform. Onboard we started the planned procedure of changing pod. My (in a week) six year old daughter is such a hero. Without hesitation she pushed the button that she knows leads to a sting in a few seconds. Not a word, not a sigh, no tears. I’m so grateful.
Changing pod on a train.
My husband and I share all the job with our children, but tonight it was his turn to rest. So my night consisted of a constant spinning 3,5 year old son that kicked me countless of times (we shared bed) while I tried to balance all the things I needed to manage Amanda’s diabetes, preferrably without letting them falling down into someone’s head. My children slept way better than I, but isn’t that the good thing with diabetes? What a mess it would be for our children if they needed to wake up everytime we got to do something to correct their blood sugar!
(By the way, I’m impressed of how much it is possible to move during sleep. Maybe I shouldn’t be that surprised. Last night I turned our children since they both had their feet on their pillows. It just gets very clear how much they roll and throw themselves forth and back, when you share a very narrow bed with them.)
Just in time (!) the train arrived in to Luleå where my brother met. We went to his home, and as always, it makes me happy to see how much the cousins like eachother. Lots of hugs later, we had some breakfast together.
To have diabetes in your family make you having special routines. They may look very different from family to family, but I think that everyone can recognize how clear it is how our life differs from ”normal” (what is normal by the way?) when you meet and stay close to another family. At home, many things more or less go on an autopilot, but when you stay with someone else, as a parent you have to be ahead in your thoughts all the time. White rice means prebolus (we never have white rice at home). A tour to the swimminghouse led to at sensor change. For an afternoon at a café: make some pastry before and bring it with you. Don’t forget something to drink. (My daughter is very sensitive to sugar and wheat-flour, so we try to bring blood sugar friendly alternaties with us.) If we’re going on a walk, always bring sugar, blood sugar testing kit and the remote control to the pump. Be sure we’ll come home again before it’s time to eat. Or bring a fruit if we might be a bit late.
Moose on the streets of Luleå
Thanks to our way of always thinking ahead, we have so far not had any emergencies, even if it has been close a few times. I guess it will happen some day, maybe because of a mistake from us or just because T1D simply can change the rules in an unpredictable way without informing you ahead.
We had a wonderful trip. Adventurous and fun, and I’m happy that me and my husband is such a good team. At the night train on our way back, I again had someone trying to kick me out of the bed, but than my husband took care of all the diabetes alarms. I hope our co-travellers did enjoy the beeping.
Going by train.
A little about us:
Amanda got T1D at 16 months of age. She knows nothing else than a life with diabetes which is sad of course, but also in a way makes it easier to manage. We have a different life style due to her diabetes, but it works fine. It’s in the meeting with the world that doesn’t need to think of the constant balancing of blood sugar that the problems might occur. It gets really clear that her life is different. Different, but still very good.
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