When is it time to come home?

Last Tuesday, Pete and I flew to Florida to experience CWD’s Friends for Life for the first time.  Although I’ll write more later about everything we did and everyone we saw, I can tell you now that it was an amazing eight days spent with other PWDs and their families.  We got to hang out with some of our very favorite friends!!  When you are on a trip as awesome as this one was, you really do want to stay forever!  So how do you know when it’s time to come home?  Well . . .

• Your blood sugar stays between 40 and 60 for three days straight.  Even after eating chocolate ice cream.  And a pretzel that rings in at 90 grams of carbs.  You don’t ever want to see another glucose tablet again!!
• You receive a call for help in the middle of the night from a very good friend having a very bad low.  Clad in a JDRF Walk t-shirt and PJs for the Cure bottoms, you rush into the night like a Bra-Less Diabetes Superhero.  (Of course, every superhero knows the importance of having a back-up team, so you call the paramedics first.  They seem somewhat baffled when they show up and see you testing your own blood sugar.  Yes, we T1s like to travel in packs!!)
• By day four, it becomes clear that your blood sugars had too much fun at D-Coaster Day and have decided to continue the celebration all week.  They shoot up over 200 if you even look at food, and then crash back down to hypo levels soon after.  It’s not fun when your CGM graph looks just like Space Mountain.  The blood sugar roller coaster continues until you get home.
• After spending a day in the parks, you develop a scary looking rash on your leg.The first question the First Aid Nurse asks?  “Do you have any history of diabetes?”  Great.
• You start to consider four hours a full night of sleep.
• When getting up to test your blood during the night, you walk smack into the bathroom door and cut your nose.It bleeds profusely.  (And those bags under my eyes are proof of the “four hours of sleep” nights.)
• Your insulin lets you know it has had enough of the Florida sunshine and heat . . . . by going kaput overnight and greeting you with a blood sugar in the 300s in the morning.  You immediately go to the Expo Hall to buy a Frio case.
• You miss a step on the bus back to the airport, letting out a loud yelp and wrenching your back and knee.  Limping through the airport is fun.  (Not.)
• When the kennel sends an email from your pet, telling you how much fun she is having, the picture makes it quite clear that she is actually not having fun at all.  In fact, she looks uncharacteristically cranky.And when you get home, she is so excited you fear she will spontaneously combust!!

But do you know what?  With all of those “signs” that it was time to come home . . . . if I could get back on an airplane and do the whole thing over again tomorrow, I totally would.  I wouldn’t trade one single minute of my Friends for Life experience.  (Although maybe I’d get on the plane in a week, instead of tomorrow.  I really need to sleep!!)