A few weeks ago we took our kids to Disneyland for the very first time. This was somewhat ambitious of us as Ainsley has only been diagnosed for 8 months, she’s only 2 years old, and she’s still wildly honeymooning.  Still, I have learned over these months that we cannot live in fear and that, as a parent, I will not allow diabetes to take the experience of life away from my daughter. Thus our mantra has pretty much become, “If we can’t get rid of you, then you’ll just have to come along.” And off we went.

We didn’t go without some serious preparation, however. The week before we left, I combed our support group archives, diabetes forums, Twitter. I read all the tips and tricks and, most of all, I read about mini-g. I had heard about it before and thought to myself, we really need to get set up for that,  just in case but I’d never done anything about it.  Before we left, I filled some extra glucagon prescriptions and we loaded up an insulated pack with regular insulin syringes and the glucagon. And thought no more about it.

I don’t know if it was the travel or the flu the week before or the alignment of the stars and moon but pretty much as soon as we set out on that trip Ainsley’s BGs went all to hell. High highs, plunging lows – we were on the BG Scream Machine.  Our first day in the park, I cried as I stood in the middle of Adventureland because I was watching the Dex instead of my daughters’ faces, and I couldn’t get Ainsley’s sugars under control no matter what I did, and I knew that she couldn’t feel well at a 400 or a 40, and diabetes was ruining the most anticipated trip of all time.

Eventually, a little bell rang in my mind and said, “Remember, when you’re riding the BG roller coaster and can’t get off, the basals are probably really wrong.”  Thank god for that small voice of experience. At her age  - and honeymooning –  Ainsley’s basals rarely stay the same for any length of time and on occasion we have seen this kind of thing happen when there was a big change. I decided to go whole hog and ratchet the basal way up because we were only in Disneyland for 3 days and I was damned if I was going to lose another minute. We reverted to known foods and low carb and that night I stayed up all night watching the Dex and tuning the basals. It’s important to note that I couldn’t have done this without the Dex. Not at all. It would have taken way longer and wouldn’t have been safe. I <3 CGM technology.

The next morning as we packed our diabetes backpack for the day, we agreed to pre-load some syringes with glucagon. Just in case. Off we went and we had a much better day. The new basals (double and triple her old settings) were performing great and we were seeing much less variability.

That night we had reservations for a (very expensive) dinner at Ariel’s Grotto which afforded us with premium seating to Ellory’s Great Disneyland Dream – the World of Color show. It’s a very cool outdoor show in California Adventure Park all done with giant fountains and light projections.  The dinner at Ariel’s Grotto is prixe fixe; I was prepared for this and had researched what would be served as much as possible. I knew a huge dessert tray would come out at the end. I even asked the chef if there was any possibility of carb counts – no go. Ainsley had been doing so great all day that we decided to just let the kids go whole hog and eat themselves sick. Ainsley was beside herself with joy – she ate tiramisu, white chocolate film strips, chocolate cups filled with mousse. And I sat by watching, tacking on another 10 carbs here, 20 carbs there, until we were done. We went off to wait for the show to begin.

The Dex was showing Ainsley to be in the 200s which I thought was pretty much to be expected and not too bad, actually. She and a bunch of other children were running around playing while we waited. Something about her behavior must have been off, some small thing that triggered in my subconcious and I thought, something’s not right. We tested and instead of being in the 200s, she was 90, now with double arrows straight down on the Dexcom. Not immediately a cause for panic, we checked the IOB  - 2.5 units onboard. For Ainsley, this is a very large amount of insulin. An amount so large that I didn’t think that at 90 with double arrows down we could catch it up fast enough with food, definitely not without a truly horrible low first. Greg and I looked at each other and jumped into action. I grabbed her up, he whipped out the glucagon, and in less than 10 seconds she was back on her way.

We tested and tested. The glucagon pretty much stopped her descent right where she was and held her steady throughout the show. We were able to hold our kids and enjoy the experience with them just like a major event hadn’t almost happened. It worked beautifully.

It chills me to think what might have happened. Without the Dex, we wouldn’t have immediately known her rate of descent. Without the IOB feature on our pump, we wouldn’t have known what a whopping huge amount of insulin was acting in her body. Without the DOC, we wouldn’t have been ready to go with the mini-g. That night could very easily have ended with her in the emergency room instead of oohing and aahing a spectacular light show.  We count our blessings.

Since then, we really feel like a load has been lifted. The fear has been taken out of glucagon, and that is no small thing. If you are thinking of trying mini-glucagon, the recommendations are as follows (and use a regular insulin syringe):

• ages 2 years and under: 2 units
• age 2 to 15 years: 1 unit  for each year of age
• age 15 years and older: 15 units

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. Information I share here is not intended to replace the advice of your doctor or other medical professional.