Winter Post

Life is busy. Basketball season is in full swing which means 2 games a week, typically 1 at home and one in the Valley. We were blessed to have Mike & Carol stop by for one of Morgan's games. Mike has a chemo infusion in town on Friday's so it worked out that we were able to visit with them.

Crebbin Men and Woman!

Morgan's first Formal. He had a great time and so did his date.

Falls Sports and New Additions

I find it hard to believe that summer is over and school has started. It went by too fast. Usually this time of year, everyone is ready for school to begin. Not this year. The boys are growing up and we enjoy spending time with them. We know it won't be too long and they will have better things to do than hang out with Mom & Dad.

Lucas is running Cross Country this year and it looks as if KU will have a great team. He looks good out there running for the Pels!

It is hard to believe he is a freshman. When the heck did that happen?

4K/18:02

Morgan(#12) decided early that he was joining the football team this year. He plays WR and works special teams. He had a couple of great hits and a recovery. KU beat North Valley.
Running in the plays.

After many months of searching, waiting and indecision we finally decided to add to our family. I have no idea which one of these will come home with us, but how am I supposed to just pick ONE?!?!?

2 weeks old.

Everything is Bigger on the John Day River...

We love going here. The country is beautiful. The company is amazing. No phones, no internet, no computers. We really can't call it fishing, because there are so many fish. We call it 'catching'. We saw a herd of mountain ewes with their lambs, 12 rams, hundreds of fish, 2 FA-18 jets, and not many people. Pat and I watch our boys have a great time, in and out of the water, playing horseshoes and just being plain goofey! The memories we make during these 5 days are recounted in the 8 hour car ride home and over the next 12 month's, until the next John Day River trip.

Did I mention that we love this trip?

Been a long time.

Life is crazy busy right now.  I think it will slow down, just a tad bit with summer.  Lucas had his 8th grade graduation dance tonight.  He looks too young to be finishing 8th grade.

Lucas and his date.

I have a suspicion that this is who he will really be hanging with!

Nice looking young man.

Morgan also finished a great track season.  Earning his Varsity letter and going to the state finals as an alternate.

(I never noticed this until now, but if you look really close, in the background of this picture, I was able to get another family member, without even knowing it!)

We have a busy summer.  Morgan is having surgery in a couple of weeks to fix a deviated septum that he has suffered with since he was 5.  Summer basketball league has started.  We have a float trip planned down the John Day river.  Pat is hiking with his brother in the Eagle Cap Wilderness area.  The boys and I are renting a cabin on Wallowa Lake for the week and just having some 'down-time' before August gets here:  which means football and cross-country!

How can it be?

I already have our summer planned out until August? It is only April! Between basketball summer camp, our John Day float trip, Pat backpacking the Wallowa's and Morgan getting his nose fixed....We. Are. Booked! School will start earlier that usual at the end of August. Football practice will be thrown in sometime before then and we will have to be home for that and I think Lucas may be doing Cross Country. Whew. We haven't even finished track yet.

Lucas has been running great times in the 1500M and the 800M and actually had a great throw in his first discus competition.

Morgan is pretty proud that he has made Varsity track running the 200M and the 4X400M relay. So instead of the luxury of home meets on Friday's, we get to travel on Saturday's. Fortunately for us though the District meet will be hosted this year at OIT!

This is a great site to get up-to-date cross country and track times for all of our participating Crebbin's: CLICK HERE

Track and Spring Cleaning

Spring track has started once again.  Both boys are participating this year and fortunately it looks like I won't miss out on too many of either boys meets.  Except the meet on Thursday.  Lucas had a meet in Medford and Morgan had a meet in town.  I decided to travel to Lucas' meet.  He ran the 1500, 800 and the 4 X 400 relay.  He did awesome in all of his races and his relay team shaved almost 20 seconds off their PR from last year.

Finishing the 1500M

Typical, this was the pass on the way home from Medford.

We also decided to tile the boys shower.  

This is before....

This is during.  

We don't have the grout in yet.  That will happen today.

I almost hate to put the shower doors back on, the tile looks so pretty.

Morgan went over to North Bend this weekend to run in a  Frosh/Soph meet there.  He is doing very well.  He runs the 100/200/4X100 and 4X400 relays.  He also throws Javelin, but I don't think he has competed in that area yet. He runs a sub 25s 200 and may actually get to run on the varsity 4X400 relay.

I'm not the only one

Today after church Morgan and I went to a local burger place to pick up lunch. As we were standing in line taking in all of the people I noticed a little boy about 7 years old sitting at a table with the ever familiar little black pouch, testing his blood sugar. I think that this is the first time in 3 1/2 years that I have seen another child checking their blood sugar. I told Morgan "Look, look" His smile was wide. I told him he should go up and talk to him. Morgan was actually pretty nervous. He wanted to, but didn't know how to approach the boy. I gave him some suggestions but ultimately Morgan went out to the car, got his meter and came in and checked his own blood sugar. I told him he should go up and say something like "Hi, I saw you checking your blood sugar, I check mine too". Well he did just that. The boys mom asked about Morgan's pump and other stuff, but in the end thanked Morgan for coming up and saying hi. Her son had said 'I'm not the only one' and it really made her day.

I know as a parent sometimes I feel alone in this, especially in the early "daze" but I took comfort in knowing that I was not the only parent up at 2 or 3 in the morning checking blood sugars. Counting down 5..4..3..2..1...praying that the meter would give me a good number so I would not have to treat a low, only to have to check again in 15 minutes and again in 15. Places like TuDiabetes, Children with Diabetes and my wonderful sister-in-law who helped out in the beginning and even now 3 1/2 years into diagnosis. It can feel like 'we are the only ones' but we are never really alone.

Catching up

I have thought many times that I would try to blog everyday, every-other-day or at least on a regular basis; but I just don't have anything that interesting or thought provoking to blog about! But just when I think my life is pretty boring, at least to someone on the outside-looking-in, we have some interesting things happen. Not that any of this is interesting to anyone outside, but it is something to blog about!

We have a small town political storm brewing here in Klamath county. Whether or not to merge the 2 school districts. It pretty much has created "them vs. us" and Lucas was joining the 'Vote No on the merger" rally for a walk down Main St to gather at the Court House. I think he was just going to hang out down town! My assumption was proven correct when he phoned and said it was pretty boring, they were going to hang out downtown for a while.

My little protester.

Morgan is almost finished with basketball. So far, the freshman team is 17-1, 10-1 in league play and we have 1 game left. I asked Morgan if he ready for basketball to be over and he looked at me like I had 2 heads....'I love basketball mom, why would I want it to be over?'....uh, because I am ready for Spring? Blood sugars have been tough. What works this week, won't work the next and I really need to check his over night basal rates. Checking his rates during basketball is really futile because there is so much change. Game night is different from practice nights and we just try to temporarily adjust as we can. A few nights over the past week or so he has woke up with some high blood sugars...250+, which, to me means that he has had a rebound from a low blood sugar. Asking Morgan if he had a low during the night gets me no information. He just say's 'No', I don't think he wakes up from his lows, he just sleeps through them. Well, when I went in to check him the other morning I found this....

It confirmed that at least he had a low that night. He chewed up the top to a tube of glucose tablets thinking it was a glucose tablet, we are fortunate that he didn't choke on the thing while trying to treat his low blood sugar! He has his final game on Tuesday. I think I will start testing his rates next week. When I test Morgan's basal rates, I will typically check his blood sugars every couple of hours over night. This will tell me if he is getting too much insulin...low blood sugars, or too little...high blood sugars. I can then adjust his insulin pump accordingly.

We seem to have also found the magic bullet if you will regarding his high blood sugars during games. Adrenaline always causes Morgan to spike during games and he has been very wary to start a game with too much active insulin flowing through his system. During a recent game he had about 5 units of active insulin at the beginning of the game and he never went above 150. AND he played great. So the key for Morgan is to have a few units of active insulin at the start of the game and monitor alot during. Better late than never!

Pat is sick again with a nasty virus settling in his chest. Please pray that he gets over this bug quickly!

By the way, I am voting against the merger

The High Price of Adrenaline

Morgan tries very hard to keep his blood sugar 'in range' for his basketball games. He knows that he plays much better when he does. But sometimes that other hormone called adrenaline rears its ugly head. For Morgan adrenaline causes a major rise in his blood sugars. We can always anticipate an increase in his blood sugars when he plays basketball. Always. We have found that if he goes into a game in the very low 100's he will typically have decent numbers through his game. Last night was very unusual for him. He started his pre-game at 116, in 15 minutes climbed to 170, 30 minutes later 295 and climbing finally reaching a high of 343, in 1 hour. Needless to say, he did not get to play the second half of his game. At all. He was frustrated and giving insulin to counteract the rapid rise in blood sugar.

We discussed what we could do to help him get those high's down faster. So we decided to try a new insulin, Apidra, which is marketed to work faster than his usual insulin. We will have it on hand for his next game, just in case.

As to what could have caused that adrenaline rush of high blood sugars? It could have been that instead of the brake, he stepped on the gas pedal of the van as he was trying to park the car before the game. I know I had an adrenaline rush!

My Ebenezer

1 Samuel 7:12 (New Living Translation)

12 Samuel then took a large stone and placed it between the towns of Mizpah and Jeshanah. He named it Ebenezer (which means “the stone of help”), for he said, “Up to this point the Lord has helped us!”

The Ebenezer stone was meant to be a visible reminder of God's faithfulness to the Israelites. I have been thinking about Ebenezer Stones in my life lately. Times in my life when God has proven His faithfulness to me. Times when His hand has guided my life down the path that HE has for me; not the one I thought I wanted. There are 2 rather large stones that really stand out to me. I am sure there are more smaller stones along my path that I have yet to fully give God the glory for.

The first large stone is when I met Pat. My amazing husband of almost 20 years. 20 years. I have been with Pat longer than I lived under the care of my parents. What a blessing. When I met Pat I was still in college, just broken up with a boyfriend that I had clung to for over 2 years. I thought I had a lot vested in that relationship and wasn't sure that I was ready to "rebound" into another relationship. But this Pat guy was very persistent. He knew what he wanted, even if I didn't! God worked His plan and somehow I just followed along, almost blindly. What an amazing journey. Pat and I were married almost 10 months after we first met. There were many people in my life at the time who thought I had lost my mind, but I was not worried, I was never nervous: I felt sure that this is what I was supposed to be doing, even if at the time I wasn't giving God the glory.

My second stone has just recently been erected. I raised this stone just last week, after the death of my dad. God has always been faithful to me, God will always be faithful to me. I have tried for so many years to be a daughter to my mother. To have a relationship based on mutual respect and friendship. For so many years I have tried to work on that relationship, only to have it thrown back in my face in the most hurtful of ways. When my dad died, I had not spoken to my mom in almost a year. Now I was going to have to face this person who disliked me so much. But you know what? It didn't matter once I gave God control. I don't need human approval, God loves me, God will take care of me, God is ALWAYS faithful. God has His plan and I should not be trying to do things MY way, but trying to seek God's will in everything I do. Once I gave my non-existent relationship with my mother up to God....I have had a huge burden lifted from my shoulders! Thank you Jesus!

I want to listen and hear my LORD. I want to give Him glory in all aspects of my life. I want to to follow blindly, firmly knowing that He is forever faithful. I want to rejoice in the path that He takes me. I want to know what exciting things He has planned for my life and I want to see those small Ebenezer stones that will line my path.

Potstickers..

Yummy! Around here, we love potstickers. Pat and I tried to make them years ago when we lived in Seattle and they just did not turn out like we expected them to. So we would either just buy the big bag from Costco, or wait until we went to Chinese to have them.


Well, there is a blog that I just love to follow. This gal is an amazing cook and she just happens to be Chinese as well. She posted about cooking potstickers and I thought 'I am going to try those'. I did and the filling was absolutely delicious. The dough, on the other hand left a lot to be desired. I used store bought, pre-cut pasta for them...they did turn out on the frail side. But the taste was still really good. I even had enough left over to freeze.


When I get my Kitchenaid stand mixer back from the repair shop, I am going to give this another go with homemade dough!

Happy New Year!

Long ago, I quit staying up to ring in the New Year. I am just no good the next day if I stay up late the night before. So new year's eve is just another night to me. In bed early and up early!

I am also not one to make 'new years resolutions'. Too much pressure and disappointment when I don't keep them. But I do have one goal that I AM going to complete for 2009. Something I have not yet done but really need to accomplish. I am going to read my Bible, cover-to-cover.I bought a daily Bible last October in hopes to get started. But I was too far behind and wanted to start from Genesis and work to Revelations. Not start in Corinthians. So today I will get started. Pat on the other hand has done a remarkable job and has stuck with it....way to go babe!

Updates.

When I sent out Christmas updates this year, I put our blog address on them and then didn't even update the blog!  Isn't that just typical?  I get so busy baking and candy making that even the laundry gets backed up this time of year.  We were fortunate enough to have Mike & Toni come down this year.  Traveling through the worst of storms and arriving safely with their 4 kids.  It was great to have them stay with us for a couple of days.

The boys got to open an early Christmas present with their cousins.

Mame and her Grandkids.

We had a wonderful Christmas and I really enjoy having the boys home for a couple of weeks.  The weather has cleared up and all of the snow we got before the holiday is now melted, leaving a soupy mess.  But at least the sun is shining.   The holiday decor will come down this week and I'll move on to the next project.....Spring cleaning

SHOUT MERRY CHRISTMAS

Twas the month before Christmas
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.
See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a 'Holiday'.
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.
At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears
You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS , not Happy Holiday!

Go Beavers

This post is for P.A.T.

Love ya Babe!

"We congratulate you..."

on being selected for Federal jury service. I have never served jury duty, ever. It always sounded interesting and I thought I would actually look forward to it when the time came for me to serve. But, this service was in Federal Court. In Medford. At 8am on aWednesday. I dug my heels in. I went, along with about 8-10 other people from here. The process for selection was nothing like it is on TV. It took about 4 hours to select a jury of 13 (12 jurors plus 1 alternate). 4 of us were from Klamath.

Fortunately it only lasted 2 days, we found the defendant guilty: a felon in possession of a handgun. I later found out that this was a recurring problem for this guy. He is now looking at 15 years to life in prision.

"Take Your Medicine Before Practice....

So it doesn't interrupt our practice."

Now why the hell didn't I think of that? I usually don't have to deal with stupid, stupid comments from ignorant people, but this comment is from someone who is going to be Morgan's basketball coach.

Basketball tryouts started this past Monday. Morgan came out of it with a glucose of over 400. Not good. He can't function well when over 250 and it showed. When I got there to pick him up he was uncoordinated, breathing hard and just didn't look well. I spoke with the head coach, who has known Morgan since 1st grade and is completely on board with Morgan's diabetes. He wants Morgan safe and wants to know what he needs to do to keep him healthy. Basically, it came down to Morgan being uncomfortable taking care of his diabetes in this new 'high school' arena. He wants to participate 'just like everyone else', not be singled out for being different. His blood sugar had been 95, so he downed a ton of carbs and went back to work. With the adrenaline and carbs, he sky-rocketed to a very unhealthy number.

Pat and I decided that until EVERYONE (Morgan, Coaches, Parents) was comfortable dealing with diabetes, I would just attend tryouts this week and help Morgan manage his blood sugars. This way, he could focus on basketball, I could keep an eye on him for signs of hi's or low's, and he could gain the confidence to walk off the court to take his blood sugar and treat it as necessary. Tuesday and Wednesday were great, he stayed below 250, took insulin as needed and checked his blood sugar about every 45-60 minutes. No problem. Until last night.

Morgan had forgotten his ankle braces so I ran home and got them for him, so he was late getting on the court. A little into practice another coach (Coach B) told Morgan that Coach M wanted to talk to him....in the stairwell. I figured he was being scolded for being late and didn't think anything of it. But over the course of tryouts, I had to call Morgan off the court to have him check his blood sugar. He was 135, too low for comfort, but he ate a little and had some Gatorade, they were just going to be shooting and not running. Well, he did end up running and he would not come off the court when I tried to get his attention. When I did, he was 106, shaking and pretty emotional. I could not figure out why he was so upset. I told him that I was there, I wasn't going to let anything happen, he was okay, just sit out and lets get his blood sugar up. That's when he told me about the stairwell....

Apparently, Coach M told Morgan in the stairwell that he "needs to take his medicine before practice so it doesn't interrupt"! I could have committed homicide or at the very least ripped the skin from that man's back. I spoke with the head coach, told him what was said. He was furious. He said that there is no room for that kind of prejudice and ignorance on his staff and he would take care of it.

This man has no idea of what he has done. Morgan was just starting to feel like he could take care of himself without having to worry about what the coaches would think. Unfortunately, ignorant people say stupid things and have no clue what it is like to deal with this 24/7. I wish we could just deal with it for an hour in the morning and forget about it until tomorrow. Life would definitely be much easier. I don't know what is going to happen. I think an apology to Morgan is in order. AND a very lengthy coarse in diabetes education.

It is only November 5th...

and this is what it looks like outside.  I hope this is not a sign of the type of winter we are going to have this year.

My very talented 'tile guy' finished up my entry before the snow started flying.  Of course, I love it.

Our 'tile guy' is especially talented in the art of sculpting.  He made a little present for Pat.  Do you think he is telling me that my grout looks like poop?

Lets hope he doesn't give up his day job.

And so it begins

For the last week or so we have had a wonderful break.  Morgan has not had Cross Country and therefore I have not had to worry too much about his blood sugars.  I did take this week to really hunker down and make adjustments and take more care in his carb counts, i.e. weighing his breakfast, writing carb counts on his lunches.  And the results?  Amazing numbers, at least for this week.  He started open gym for basketball last night, which means a lower basal rate over night, which typically relates to a higher wake up number....until I get it figured out again.  But not before basketball officially starts next Monday.

On a lighter note....this is what I woke up to this morning.  I guess it is time to break out the snow tires. 

Beautiful Sunrise

Pat has been doing a lot of hiking on the hill behind the house.  He went out before sunrise on Sunday and took this beautiful picture of Mount Shasta and the city.