Last week Ethan had another regular appointment at the Diabetes Clinic. As expected, everything was routine. All the usual stuff. He is growing well – pretty much in the 75th percentile for both height and weight. His blood pressure was normal. But being the mother of a CWD (child with diabetes, if you’re not familiar with the lingo), I tend to hold my breath a little while we wait those (very long) five minutes for the A1c results.
7.2!
I have never dreaded hearing Ethan’s A1c results, but this time I really did expect them to be higher than at his last appointment. The past three months have revealed a lot of swings in blood glucose readings, which I attributed to him being in DKA at the end of January. His numbers haven’t been horrible; they just haven’t been consistent. I would start to see what I thought was a trend, but then it would change. So while I was very pleased with an A1c of 7.2, I finally understood what other PWD (people with diabetes, more lingo) have talked about. Sometimes that coveted good result is not a good reflection of the work that you have put into managing diabetes. It is simply an indicator of where your blood glucose has been for the past three months.
In Ethan’s case, the highs in the 400′s were balanced out mathematically by the lows in the 40′s. This particular A1c shows that, on average, his numbers were in a good range. It does not indicate that they were always in a good range, or that we did (or did not) work hard to maintain them in a good range.
I’m not sure this will even make sense unless you have, or care for, someone with diabetes. But now I understand.
Sometimes a good result can be a little hollow.
Our Max had his first “out-of-range” A1C this Thursday….an 8.0. It was like a punch in the gut. We finally seem to be out of honeymoon and after a family meeting, we all agreed that we could “tighten up” and that the A1C is just part of a much bigger picture.
Insane that only a year and a half ago none of us knew what it was.