At risk of sounding self-indulgent with my complaining, the bad parenting streak continues; tonight I did something I rarely do, which was lose it with Nick over a diabetes-related issue. Not “lose it,” exactly, but I did snap at him, not about his blood sugar being high, but about how he dismissed my desire to check it earlier in the night.

A 9:30 p.m. check alerted us to a 300 reading. Protocol is supposed to be a bolus (insulin delivery via the pump) and then a recheck in 30 minutes to make sure his blood sugar’s coming down. We usually wait a little longer, 45 minutes to an hour, to do the check, just to make sure his body’s had time to react. He didn’t want to check again for a couple hours. I said I was worried something related to his pump or set wasn’t working properly and we should check earlier in case that was the problem. He argued. I acquiesced.

It’s his disease after all, and the fact that he’s suffering and I can’t fix it is bad enough. When he’s particularly high or low, I take the lead as his blood sugar being that far off can affect decision-making ability, but overall, he’s got a lifetime of caring for himself ahead of him. It makes sense to me to let him, to the extent possible, be in charge of how to handle the diabetes. First, he’ll need to be able to; second, it’s small compensation for being at the mercy of a currently incurable disease.

(I’m really tired and not writing well.)

But tonight I tried to convince him to check earlier. I didn’t want to be dealing with a continued high blood sugar at midnight. He’s due for a set change tomorrow; high blood sugars the night before a set change are not unusual. But he rolled his eyes and treated me like I was an idiot for suggesting we check at 10:30 p.m. So, I waited until a little after 11 p.m. Still around 300. He bolused. We checked again at midnight-thirty. Still over 300. At this point, I got cranky. I understand why he wanted to wait, I really do, but damn it, we should have done things the way we’re supposed to according to the doctors earlier on. I said as much and a useless exchange followed. I broke my rule about hassling him when his blood sugar is out of whack, my rule about centering any drama around the diabetes and my rule about engaging in argument in the middle of the night. I feel lousy. Probably not as lousy as Nick. He’s the one with the diabetes, as he kept pointing out.

Speaking of which, time to go check again….

232, a good sign. Now to set the alarm for 3 a.m. to make sure his blood sugar level has continued dropping to an acceptable level, but not gone low.