Back to school

I have to laugh.  I have just spent the last half hour trying to unlock our oven from its child SAFE mode.  I had accidentally locked it this morning when I cleaned a little more enthusiastically than usual, and wiped the display face with a flourish and hit, it seems, a clever combination of buttons that activated the Safe mode.  No problem - Google is my friend, and I simply typed it in to a search.  I have to assume the designers of these ovens either have sadistic streaks, or very clever children who have cracked all their previous attempts at safety locks.  I trawled the internet, even putting in the exact model (which comes in two versions it seems, both with different instructions.)  Any way , the long and short of it is, after I had stopped to drink a mug of tea, I finally managed to unlock it, and start reheating the leftovers which will be supper.

It was frustrating.  And I wouldn't tell even my best friend how long that took, and how many times I tried to guess the combinations of key presses before looking it up and how I had to laugh at my foolishness.

It came on top of a frustrating interaction with Walton's Stationers, suppliers of TD's stationery requirements for grade 11 (Grade 11 ! - how did that happen so fast!) We ordered and paid for the books last November, as requested, blissfully expecting to pick up the cardboard suitcase they are packed in at school last Tuesday.  Ah no, it was not to be.  They had received the payment, but not the list of items ordered.  No problem, mistakes happen, and I sent off a copy of the form to the email address supplied.  TD could fetch them the next day, and she would just delay the covering until the next afternoon.  No luck with that either.  I phoned, and was promised the parcel the next day.  It didn't arrive.  And so on.... I won't bore you with the daily dash of expectations.  Waltons promised today  1pm would be the real thing.  Sadly, the driver saw the school initial W, and decided to take it to the Waterfront instead.

I had to laugh. The person in charge offered to fetch it and deliver it herself, and because I was dashing about this afternoon, we decided to meet half way in a deserted parking area.  She apologised, and handed me not only the stationery box, but a little brown packet with the following label for me to give to TD:

"We're sorry for making you feel blue.  We're going to keep working on being sharper but, for now, here are some treats for you."

(The fact that they had a nifty little rhyming label shows that TD was certainly not the only person who had started the school year writing her notes on pieces of paper that will need to be rewritten into the books.)  The gift was a kind gesture - TD loves stationery, and a few gel pens or a rainbow eraser with the little brush on the other end that smells of bubblegum  (remember those?) would have delighted her.  But no, the treats inside were chocolates and a sucker. So it was an insulin heavy gift, which TD consumed on the way to orchestra rehearsal. She came home with a high glucose reading.

This year looks as though it may be as chaotic as last year.  TD has hit the first term running, and has very little down time this week.  On Friday, she and a large number of fellow musicians, go away on the school's  annual band camp.  This is one of the highlights of her year, and is much anticipated.  It was on this camp a couple of years ago that a discussion about Star Wars led to a friendship and romance with O, who feels like part of the family now.

I have started stocking up with some provisions to supplement camp food.  TD is confident and adept at the diabetes management.  She has many friends who know what to look out for in lows and highs.  All should be fine.

Should.

That shadow follows me everywhere. 

It takes a village to do the homework......

And breathe......


Greyton is a pictuesque village about an hour and a half drive from Cape Town.  It nestles quietly in its green surroundings in the the shade of the Riviersonderend mountains.  The word I most associate with the place  is Tranquility.  TD's grandparents had a thatched cottage there some years ago, so I am familiar with the beauty of the area. I took TD to see the house (which has changed a great deal since my parents lived there)  on our first Mother/Daughter getaway a few years ago.  Quaintly, the new owners kept the name : Snail Morning.  That gives you an idea of the pace and focus of the area.

But, once a year, around this time, Greyton swarms with teenagers.  TD's school sends all the grade 10s on a camp to Greyton.  Luckily, they go in three batches of about 70 at a time, and after 20years, the townsfolk are used to them.  In fact, they help the learners with the questionnaire about the place that hasn't changed in all the years that the school has been visiting, even though some of the questions are now irrelevant.  It is part of the quaintness of the village that they embrace the invasion and kindly help to share the homework.

Of course I did my usual scare/educate routine for the teacher a week before they left, trotting out the same old info sheets that I have been using since grade 6, modifying a few details along the way.  And as usual, the teacher was eager to hear, learn and inject the grapefuit with an expired emergency kit.  TD's numbers have been all the place (I might have mentioned that once or twice recently 😏), so the practice round was very necessary.

The run up to the trip was epic.  The Saturday night was the much anticipated Grade 10 dance.  Ah, TD and all her friends looked beautiful, and had a magical night. On Sunday, after a sleep in,  we celebrated our wedding anniversary in Wellington and then needed to play Settlers of Catan, so we did. On Monday, TD had a regular school day, followed by extra murals and stayed to see the dress rehearsal of her friends one act plays. (Her school day lasted from 7.30am to 10pm)  So when Tuesday rolled round, TD was somewhat tired.

Breathe....

I was a bit anxious about this time away, more so than other times.  From my chat with the teacher, I knew TD was going on a hike into the mountains in a small group with no adult accompanying them.  I feared a low.  And sure enough, TD had a 3 half way into the mountain.  Luckily she caught it early enough (she could still think rationally and open her glucose) and dosed herself with sweets, and some  friends helped her.  She had several more hypoglycaemic events over the next 24 hours, and  even more hypers.

The highs seemed to concern the teacher more than the lows. TD went very high during the night - above 20.  Although this is dangerous, it is not as dangerous as 3 in the mountains, but I think maybe the teacher was mixing up the hypos and hypers.  A very easy thing to do when all this diabetes stuff is new and overwhelming.  She kindly checked TD at 2am and suggested TD take insulin to bring the level down.  TD phoned me to chat, and both she and the teacher messaged me a number of times during the early hours of the morning, and by breakfast time, TD had stabilized.  I bought the teacher a big box of chocolates, because I thought it might be going overboard to buy her the Superhero cloak she deserves.

And breathe...

TD came home safely, having had a wonderful time.  I thought she might be worried about all the highs and lows. "How was it?" I asked.  "The chocolate shop was closed"  she said.

And breathe.

The picturesque village of Greyton

Music camp notes

Sometimes words are inadequate, I think.  Some concepts, feelings, delights or horrors can’t always be articulated effectively with the boundaries of letters.  Sometimes we need to look deeper, and for me, that means listening to music.

Of the four of us, I am the only one who does not play an instrument.  I am writing this while waiting for TD at Beau Soleil Music Centre, where she is rehearsing with the strings ensemble.  They play beautifully.  She is also part of the school orchestra, one of three double basses in the 60 strong pupil group (aged between 13 and 18).  This past weekend, the school took all the orchestra, concert band and jazz band learners away on a music camp. (As I have already mentioned, it is a Very Good School.)

If you want parents of T1 teenagers to go weak at the knees and tremble slightly, just say the word “Camp.”  A lot of preparation, care and anxiety goes into sending someone with T1 on a camp.  Apart from the usual clothes, tuck, soap and toothpaste, I packed a loaf of whole wheat bread, sugar free jam, nutella, bottles of water, pronutro –a breakfast cereal- and Ensure (a meal replacement drink).  I also included extra iceblocks, extra insulin, needles, the food diary and a slab of chocolate for slow release evening carbs.  All of this had to fit into the tiniest of cooler bags so that TD didn’t feel too conspicuous, and her luggage blended in with the rest of the group.  (The fact that that her instrument is by far the largest in the orchestra did not escape my ironic sense of humour.)

Before any school camp, I make an appointment to speak to the teachers concerned.  I take along my “Camp Pack.”  It consists of a typed handout I give the teachers, my notes to make sure I verbally cover all the things I feel I want to tell them, an emergency kit and an orange.  I let them know what to look out for in highs and lows, where the potential dangers lie, and what to do if things don’t go according to plan.  I explain the insulin routines – the long acting insulin is injected at 6am and 9.30 pm, and how  the short acting insulin dosage  is calculated at mealtimes.  And then I give them the orange and show them the emergency GlucaGen Hypokit which is given to a person with T1 if they have gone so low  that they are unresponsive and unable to ingest glucose by mouth.  It is a life saving procedure, so I feel it is only fair to give the teachers a practice round.  Mixing the solution and injecting it is not as easy as it sounds, so a trial run is a good idea.

So TD went off to camp on Friday afternoon amid much excitement and a little trepidation.  Of course I worry when she is away: not so much in the day time, because TD is very capable of managing her diabetes and knows (usually) when she is going low.  It is the nights that make me fearful.  When she is asleep, she cannot “read” her body in the same way.  She won’t be aware that she is going low.  And she won’t know how low she is.  This is what I worry about.

All the parents are invited to a concert at the camp on Sunday afternoon, so that we can listen to the groups perform (and take our children home…)  It was a hot, hot day.  Roadworks meant we arrived only 15 minutes before the concert was due to start.  As we took our seats, TD came to say hello.  She had had a good camp.  She was unbelievably pale.  And her glucose reading was 2.2. This is breathtakingly low, and she says it had dropped very quickly.  Two sachets of glucose later, and still looking wispily pale, she and her fellow musicians put on an excellent concert.

This was her second low on the camp :  she had had another scary dip to 3 the day before.

TD made a lot of friends at Music camp.  She spent much of the free time in the pool.  She played card games.  They stayed up too late.  She wasn’t too sure about all the camp food : all the usual teenage camp antics.  It is an enormous responsibility the teachers take on, and I am thankful to the school for adding to TD’s memory bank of happy times.

Music is such a powerful form of communication.  When I listen to the school orchestra, and think about the power of co-operation and collaboration and leadership to bring about beauty and harmony  I find I don’t need any more words for a while.

So – here is a soundbite of the school orchestra for your listening pleasure: