Going back to school

Both the schools my children attend have a care plan which has been agreed with both the school and myself. There is also a poster on the wall in the staff rooms with a photo of my children and basic info on dealing with a hypo. All the staff have however been briefed, so this poster is just a reminder and because it is in the staff room, supply teachers and other members of staff who don't have contact with my children get to see it daily.

We have a spare testing kit in their class room with glucose tablets, and in the staff room we keep their pump remotes (which are also their testing meters) and a kit for dealing with hypo - including hypo stop, spare glucose tablets and juice boxes.

We make sure that they eat a glucose tablet before they do PE and we leave these in their PE changing bags.

We also normally do some extra tests during the first week back just to make sure that their mid morning and afternoon bg's are not too low or indeed too high.

I know it's a worrying time and I hope you can make arrangements which both you and the school are happy with.

Hi,

What worked for us in year one is this and so it will continue into year two:

We have a pencil case (red so visible, pencil case so not shouting "medical") that goes everywhere with S, carried by her teacher and transferred from one teacher to another if they are having a session with someone else. Everyone knows what it is and who it belongs to.

In it we keep her handset for the pump (Accu chek combo), finger pricker with some spare lancet drums, tub of strips, spare batteries for pump and handset, a few jelly babies in a bag and a 100ml bottle of lucozade also in a bag. The bottle I got from Boots (refillable cosmetics one) and I marked 50 ml and 100ml on it. I am also laminating some little cards with 'what to do if...' situations eg: 'if she is in the 3s treat with jelly babies, but if in the 2s treat with lucozade'.

In the classroom we keep a bigger bag (from yellow cross) which has a proper bottle of lucozade, spare cannula etc, spare finger pricker, care plan, box of breadsticks, glucogen, hypogel stuff, more jelly babies....

She wears her id bracelet all the time and doesn't notice it. My reasoning was that if we had an accident in the car and I was unconscious the paramedics would need to know it was her that was the diabetic and not me, since her kit bag would be in my handbag.

Each year I tweak it a bit, and just writing this makes me think we need a slightly bigger bag for carrying around, but not too big. eg, carrying the lucozade is a refinement after she went low at the far end of the school from her classroom and jelly babies just weren't raising her quickly enough. Hmmm, trip to WHSmiths I think....

Jess has a plastic box in the classroom and one in the medical room filled with all the bits she needs i.e. blood glucose meter, spare test strips, glucotabs, small can of coke, spare lancet drums, hypogel, care plan, spare batteries. The one in the classroom goes on school trips with her, the one in the medical room stays there as she visits the medical room each day at lunchtime to test and deliver insulin through her pump for lunch. It's handy to have two boxes in school incase one of the test meters stops working or someone forgets to restock the box with essentials at least there's another box to fall back on. Jess also has a tube of glucotabs in her school bag and she has a gluco-carry pouch with four lucozade tabs in there which she wears inside her pump belt incase she's out on the field and feels hypo and doesn't feel she can make it back to the medical room or classroom (haven't had that problem since being on the pump).

I find the lucozade drink is brilliant for quickly reversing a hypo, but the smallest bottle is a bit of a large size to lug around with me. Does anyone know if lucozade or any other sugary drink comes in a handy size bottle like the lucozade alert plus? Unfortunately they contain minimal carb so not going to help a hypo but the bottle size would be perfect for hypo treatments if it were full sugar.

Medical alert bracelet - Jess has one but she only wears it if she's away from school, everyone at school knows she's diabetic so I'm not too worried about that. They would make her remove it for PE, it's difficult for her to get on and off by herself. If they do a school trip she wears the bracelet. However next year she'll be starting in secondary school and I'll definitely make sure she wears something all the time. The school will be much bigger and she'll be new there so not everyone is going to know her. She'll also have more independence with possibly travelling home from school on her own so I think it's important.

Can I ask, why does your daughter wear a badge at lunchtime? Does this not make her feel different from the others, kind of wearing a sign? Is there a reason for needing a badge at lunchtime?

Reading this has reminded me that I really need to update Khaleb's Hypo Action Plan. Things have changed a lot in the last couple of years and I really should have updated it ages ago.

I'd say yes to keeping the medic-alert on. I should put Khaleb's on more often as he finds it annoying at the moment (not used to wearing). I also think that a glucose monitor and hypo treatment should be close to hand at all times. If the classroom wasn't far from the playground I suppose it would be ok but here the classrooms tend to get locked when no one is in them so that would be a big problem. I always carry stuff with me everywhere even if I'm quite sure he will be ok and never use it so I figure the teacher should too.

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