Type 1: Would you trust your OH whole heartidly with managing your Diabetes for a day?

[slip]

For a whole 24hrs would you consider leaving your treatment entirely up to your OH?

Apart from having to spend the whole 24hrs together (I'm breaking into a sweat just thinking about it!) would they be able to cope, do they know enough to keep you safe, or even within target range (!)????

I would think my day would go something like this:

I Wake up: Unable to wake my wife so no BS test, no Basal or Bolus injection for breakfast, no walk for the dog, when she does eventually get up and ready she'd ask me to test, it's high so she'll squeal whilst trying to inject a correction (which she'll either calculate wrong or get the correction ratio wrong), she'll then expect me to 'do something' instead of just sitting on the sofa comatosed. Dog still not walked.

Lunch: She'll work out the exact carbs, do a test, exclaim about the result, calculate my bolus and get the dog to do the actual injection so she doesn't have to. She may do a test at some point later - and force some glucotabs down my throat, even if my BS was 4.something (......as we're going shopping! and no the dog can't come shopping with us - so still no walk)

Dinner: We'll have macaroni cheese for dinner, she'd calculate the carbs in the pasta using the pre-cooked carbs listed on the packet for the weight of my portion of cooked Mac Cheese, by chance she's only given me 10u too much and wonders why I'm incapable of doing the washing up, she does a test and then panics, which could go either of 2 ways, hospital or a whole pot of glucotabs vanish (during this time she's wondering why the dog keeps pestering her - perhaps he can sense my BS is low, she opens a 2nd pot of glucotabs) Also it's all got too much for her and 'wine' makes an appearance.

Bed: She's realized I didn't have my basal this morning so double ups the night time dose, also I didn't have my tablet this morning so that needs to be taken along with the 2 for the night time. But does a BS test, amazingly it's 5.9, she then thinks this T1D is so easy (but that's the wine talking) she also reviews the results from the last few days and says I must try harder.

02:46: I wake in a shivering hot sweat, my wife gently snoring away oblivious of my hypo and my attempts to wake her. My final thought is the poor old dog still hasn't been for a walk......

 

[novorapidboi26]

lol, you don't sound so confident......

I would be happy to let my wife do all the leg work, she knows how to do it all thankfully.....

 

[tim2000s]

Simple answer. No. If I don't trust a hospital medic, why would I trust my other half? And how would she know about all the ins and outs of my living with diabetes?

 

[Natalie1974]

Good heavens...NO...NO and No again...I can't imagine ever trusting ANYONE to manage my diabetes....most especially my partner. While he does a good job of listening and looking interested...I'm fairly sure he doesn't take much of it in and if put in a situation like that...he would be quite freaked out at the prospect.

On a more serious note though. This did get me thinking how it must be for anyone suffering from dementia or any other illness that would prevent you from looking after yourself...to have to put your care into the hands of a carer or family member...that's a pretty scary thought.

 

[novorapidboi26]

being on a pump, the only thing my wife would be required to do is to work out the carbs and test my blood sugar, then just press some buttons......lol.....

even before the pump, she knew as she took a genuine interest while I was attending DAFNE.......

surely if you have been with your partners for many years they would have picked up something.......

I think she may actually do a better job....ha ha.....she would be a lot more strict......

 

[noblehead]

No.....................................

I don't involve my wife that much with the technical side of managing diabetes like working out bolus doses for food and adjusting basal rates.

 

[Jaylee]

On a more serious note though. This did get me thinking how it must be for anyone suffering from dementia or any other illness that would prevent you from looking after yourself...to have to put your care into the hands of a carer or family member...that's a pretty scary thought.

My T2 dad wound up with dementia. My mum his primary carer. Now she new about handling T1 (old school, circa 1970's to early 80's.) & bless her, she was raiding her "memory banks" with regards to what's "off the menu"..But was enlightened when I stepped in and explained about carbs..
My dad was given a meter & prescribed strips which I was upto date on using.. My mum still lived in the days of mobile chemistry labs for vague pee testing..
As for the "care" homes my dad went to In order to give my mum a couple of days well earned break? I used to have to look in on him & check up too to give her further peace of mind.. They had no idea about diatary requirements.

As for the original question..? I trust my wife implicitly. (She'd probably start with a consultation with "Dr Google?) But within the first 30 minutes of the "24" I'd be king of my D castle again... She would walk the dog though..!

 

[Snapsy]

Yes and no.

Yes because I trust that he knows what to look for and what he is doing, and he is used to my pump and how to insert cannulas and how to do my blood tests and how to act on the results and how to count carbs and how to deal with hypos.

No because although I have the confidence that I would not be harmed by his taking full responsibility for my diabetes management for one day, I'm not that sure he has that confidence.

But if he had to, and if I had to ask him to do it all, we would both be fine with it.

I am very lucky that he is so switched on to it all.

 

[iHs]

With twice daily insulin, the answer is yes, as all my OH would have to do is dial up the required morning dose on my pen, inject it in my backside for me and then look at my bg diary to see how much carb I would have for breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, eve meal, bedtime snack and then just make sure he knew the carb content of the food I that eat. He has done all the cooking bog standard stuff so would be ok to help me out if he needed to and at times has been my knight in shining armour regarding hypos and glucose gel so there's not much that he doesnt't know how to deal with.

Basal/bolus - he would be ok cooking the food but would be a bit foxed at working out doses so would have to ask me what carb ratio I was using if he couldnt find it in my bg diary or on my bg meter but it wouldnt take him too long with any luck.
Most of the time he just leaves me to 'do my thing' and doesnt think that much about how I use my pump or insulin pens

 

[AndyS]

I wouldn't say I wouldn't trust my OH but she doesn't trust herself.

She has done shots before but only after I have worked it all out and dialled it up on the pen.

One thing she does work out quite happily is the carb content of meals and she is pretty good at that.

To be honest since ratios and such change fairly often for me I think it would be unfair of me to expect her to keep up. I think if I was ill long term and needed the help then I would probably sort out some sort of chart to help her but otherwise I will take care of it all myself.


/A

 

[Robinredbreast]

I don't have one only a teenager

 

[slip]

Good heavens...NO...NO and No again...I can't imagine ever trusting ANYONE to manage my diabetes....most especially my partner. While he does a good job of listening and looking interested...I'm fairly sure he doesn't take much of it in and if put in a situation like that...he would be quite freaked out at the prospect.

Don't think I could have put it any better myself, I'm sure my wife would be able to keep me alive (he says whilst checking the insurance policy!) and knows enough about my diabetes to have a fairly good stab at it (pun intended) but I know at the end of the day she'd probably say "don't ever EVER ask me to do that again!"


Just to see her face of realization when I ask her 'why not?' to that request.

 

[johncon]

Absolutely no chance. I had a mishap at work the other day while changing my pump line and rang her to get a bottle of insulin out of the fridge for me when I nipped home. Suppose I was rather daft in even expecting her to find where it was in the fridge. I walked into the house and there was a cartridge for a pen on the side, she has absolutely no idea what I do on a daily basis. She's only just worked out that a hypo treatment is not insulin (we've only been together 15 years so I shouldn't expect too much should I?). I remember being told by my diabetes Nurse a few years ago that it was my diabetes so it should be me who manages it, that's what I tend to do and always have done to be honest.

 

[himtoo]

Haha @slip
one of the best topics seen on here in a while.

I would like to say I could trust mine ( she mithers me enough about everything else )
but bottom line -- NO

( i would trust a few of the D's that post on the forum though )

 

[staffsmatt]

Yup, I have regular "what do you think I should have with this meal" conversations with my wife. To be honest I might give it a go, I'd probably run better!

 

[slip]

Yup, I have regular "what do you think I should have with this meal" conversations with my wife. To be honest I might give it a go, I'd probably run better!

Its an interesting thought/concept, I might ask her how she'd feel about doing it, but with my input, and if she's up for it give it a go and see what her take on it is afterwards, I'll also ask the dog what he thinks too!

 

[staffsmatt]

Its an interesting thought/concept, I might ask her how she'd feel about doing it, but with my input, and if she's up for it give it a go and see what her take on it is afterwards, I'll also ask the dog what he thinks too!

You'd be fine with the fog, walk every other hour

 

[catapillar]

Well I don't have a partner, but I have previously considered giving control to someone else for 24 hrs. Unfortunately only when well meaning doctor friends have given me the super helpful advice that I just need better control, as though I haven't managed to think of that myself and I don't spend quite a considerable amount of time and effort trying to achieve better control! I have had to take a deep breath and restrain myself from enthusiastically giving them my dexcom and telling them they can be in charge and see if they can do a better job while at no actual personal risk of passing out hypo or storing up kidney failure. I would love a day off though, so it is pretty tempting!

 

[TorqPenderloin]

I can't even figure out which of her clothes go in the dryer and which ones get hung.

Since I can't even do that, I'd be a fool to expect her to do something as complicated as manage my diabetes.

 

[qe5rt]

My wife is a nurse so yes, add a "nurse" outfit and it's a hell yes.