We had checked out from the hospital and were on our way home. It had seemed like we were at the hospital for an eternity. I was nervous as I looked at the clock and wondered if we would get home in time to not mess up the regulated meal time that they had been having us use with our son to keep his blood sugar level.
I called home and made sure my husband was making dinner. This would be our first meal out of the hospital where we would be on our own for counting carbs and administering insulin, and we didn't want to mess it up. I figured a packaged meal would be easiest as it would tell the carbs right on the side, so I suggested we just have Hamburger Helper.
When we got home, the other kids had made a nice cute poster with Pikachu (a cartoon character called a Pokemon that our son liked) with a big Welcome Home on it. I felt a little bad it was really windy so the poster had ripped in half and was hanging sideways. It was the thought that counted anyway.
Once inside we were running around like crazy trying to make sure we got everything right. I couldn't believe there were so many different prescriptions. Where was I going to put them all? As a few of our kids have asthma, we have a whole shelf designated to asthma supplies and nebulizers, so now it looked like I needed to designate a whole shelf to Diabetes. While I was trying to fit a million prescriptions on a small shelf, my husband was wildly making dinner and trying to figure out carbs.
We were just so worried that if we didn't get our son dinner by 6 pm that something bad would happen. It was kind of like bringing a new baby home from the hospital and not wanting to mess anything up. We would learn to relax a bit more soon. I hope.
The counting carbs thing posed not so easy. While Hamburger Helper did list carbs on the packaging, it was confusing because it listed a number, but we didn't know if this included the ingredients or just the dry stuff in the package. Plus, it was confusing because it listed different percentages on the box from dry to cooked? My husband was adding in the carbs from the milk added and then doing some mathematical equation to divide this and that to figure out the carbs when I was thinking that can't be right. Plus, it suggested a serving size as dry and not cooked, so how was I to know how much an actual cooked serving size would be??!!! I couldn't believe this could be so complicated. Obviously we didn't know what we were doing! How could they have let us come home?
Well, as we are instructing our son to check his blood sugar, we are madly guessing on carbs and measuring out cups of stroganoff and milk and trying to guess if our spoonful of green beans is an actual serving size. All this at the same time as trying to get 3 other kids situated at the dinner table was quite an event. Plus they were wondering and asking why our son was getting all his food served on his plate while theirs sat empty.
Well, in the craziness of it all, somehow we figured (guessed) on carbs, got his blood sugar checked, hoped we did the right amount of insulin, got it injected, then sat down to eat what was to soon be a "normal" family dinner? We hoped things would get better and we wouldn't be freaking out so much. I tried to keep my "everything is OK" face on, but I was slowly losing it on the inside.
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