Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Diabetes in the "Wild"

This past Sunday morning, hubby and I decided to take our girls for a special breakfast. Despite the stolen hour of sleep, we woke up "early" (for me anyway) and took the girls to Cafe du Monde for some delicious beignets (fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar -- the yummy goodness in my blog title photo)...and a Mocha Au Lait for me! For those that might be wondering -- yes, Charlotte can and does eat beignets...powdered sugar and all! They're a "special treat" so it's not something we indulge in often, but we've learned to SWAG the insulin bolus pretty accurately...an awesome accomplishment if I do say so myself!

Pic from a Cafe du Monde breakfast with the cousins in May 2011
Occasional weekend breakfasts at Cafe du Monde are something our family has done since I was just a wee one...and a tradition Jay and I have continued with our girls! These trips are usually pretty uneventful...but this one was a little different. As we were paying for our breakfast another young family enter the cafe...I immediately noticed that one of their children was wearing a 2010 JDRF Walk to Cure shirt. Of course, I quietly pointed it out to my family...I'm pretty certain that at that point Charlotte began to internally groan at me, but she managed to tolerate my excitement from this "D in the Wild" experience without any outwards signs of annoyance. In true D-mama fashion, I also did a quick scan of each family member for obvious signs of D (a pump or visible meter case) but with no success...so I "let it go" figuring that their D-connection was maybe just a friend of this boy. 

We continued along on our way, taking our food and choosing a table. We sat down, Charlotte checked, we SWAG'd her bolus and started eating without another thought....until that family sat down at the table kitty-corner to us. When they sat down, I could see in my peripheral vision that the mom and daughter were involved in an exchange all to familiar to Charlotte and I. I saw the little black case pulled from the mom's purse and out came the glucose meter and lancet...the "shunk" and "beep" followed quickly! I tried hard not to be too obvious as I watched this interaction...although hubby would tell you I wasn't very successful. I noticed that there was bit of discussion and then a quiet scramble as mom went to take a peek at the boxes of beignet mix and then searched on her phone what I have to imagine was an app like Calorie King for the carb count for the beignets. At that point I wanted to leap from my chair, introduce myself and share our beignet SWAG information with them...it took a tremendous amount of restraint for me not to do it -- but I didn't. I wanted to start up a conversation with them....ask them if they lived near us, how old their daughter is, when she was diagnosed, what type of insulin she was using, what their biggest D challenges are, etc...but I knew I would just end up embarrassing Charlotte (and quite possibly this other little girl). So I just sat back with my family, enjoyed my breakfast, and thought how seemingly ironic (but incredibly wonderful) it was to have this "Diabetes in the Wild" experience in a place full of such sugar-coated goodness!

3 comments:

  1. You have great diabetes awareness constraint! I don't think I could have kept quiet.LOL

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  2. You have waaaaaaay more restraint than I do!

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  3. I have yet to have a "Diabetes in the Wild" experience but when I do I hope I have the pleasure of meeting such a wonderful family such as yours!

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