Bring Your Child to Work Day 2012

My wife's company, Novartis, does an amazing job every year with Bring Your Child to Work Day, they put a lot of resources and manpower into creating an informative and fun day for the kids. This year the focus was on how products are imagined, marketed, and brought to a store near you. People from all different parts of the company spoke to the children and explained what their department did and why it was important to the process. After each "talk" the kids performed different tasks with the goal of producing a cookie that they could sell at the end of the day.

All of the proceeds from the cookie sales are being donated to our JDRF chapter so the last talk of the day was from me and Arden. We explained the difference between type I and type 2 diabetes, gave an overview of the JDRF and had a hands-on look at Arden's OmniPod insulin pump and her DexCom CGM. Insulet was kind enough to send me some non working or dummy OmniPods so that the kids could try them on if they wanted to.

The day was a wonderful success raising $1,100 for the JDRF, an amount that will be matched by Novartis 100% for a grand total of $2,200! 

One of the best parts of the day was watching the kids work so hard on their cookie ideas, boxes and then seeing the hustle they all showed selling the cookies. It was while they were selling that I began to really notice all of the OmniPods on their arms and I have to admit that it was a very warming experience to see the children so enthusiastic and excepting of it. If I had enough pods I think every kid in the room would have been wearing one.

Arden and her team sold chocolate chip cookies and their marketing hook was that they had a celebrity endorsement, if you look closely at the boxes you'll see, "Arden's Favorite Cookies" on the sides.

Big thanks to Novartis, my lovely wife Kelly for suggesting that the JDRF would be a great place to send the funds collected and Insulet for sending the pods for the kids to wear. 

I explained to the children that advocacy and awareness is what people with type I need the most from them and that I hoped they would tell someone about the good work that they did. I was very proud of all of them for the attention, effort and concern that they displayed throughout the day... it was a great experiance for everyone!

Pictures: OBX 2011

Wild horses, dolphins, Arden's OmniPod, our dog Indy and look for the temporary tattoo that Arden wears when we travel.

Arden making her way into the surf with an OmniPod on her leg.

Visual Record

Day One: After the Low

Arden’s BG was 167 when we left to get her hair cut.  She had a great time even though see was so tired.  

A Recap of her low BG...  Everyday I take some time to reflect back on the shots I’ve given Arden and the results they produced.  In hindsight I should have given Arden a quarter of a unit less at 1:30 pm.  I didn’t give the proper weight to two factors.  1. She has been a bit under the weather over the past couple of days and 2. She sometimes trends lower in the early afternoon.  Then again had I gotten to the food 10 minutes sooner none of this happens and her BG would have been near perfect when I checked her at the 2 hour mark.  So it goes...

The rest of the afternoon... Here are the rest of Arden’s BG for the day: 7:18 pm she was 348 after an ice cream cone.  I gave her a half of a unit then.  At 9:15 pm (2 hour mark) she was 220 and at 10:43 pm she was 199.  I’m going to let her rise up a bit over the next hour or so and then administer a half of a unit of Levemir around midnight.  She should wake up under 200, should.  We’ll see in the morning.  Good night.

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The following are archived comments from this post. You can post new comments below.

mom

scott  after watching all the video i can only guess how much it affects
you. i thought i really knew all about diiabetes but watching the video i saw there is so much to learn

Friday, August 17, 2007 - 12:05 AM

Day One: 1:30pm at the Dentist Office

I checked Arden’s BG at the dentist office at 1:30 pm she was 259.  She got one unit of Novolog to cover the high (259) and lunch that I knew/thought she’d be eating at 2:30. We made one unscheduled stop on the way to lunch that took me 20 minutes off of my schedule.  When we got home with the food...

Day One: 11:33 am... Cole wanted a snack

Arden and Cole

Well 19 minutes later and an issue has come up.  It’s something we all take for granted... Cole got hungry and wanted a snack.  Now Arden is eating again.  This means my dream of a BG around 160 in an hour is shot.  I now have to watch how many tortilla chips Arden eats so I can factor them into her next shot.  

I can’t give her insulin now to cover them for a few reasons. 1. I don’t like to give insulin on top of insulin if I can help it. 2. She could change her mind and stop eating the chips.  3. She’s about to get a bath and as odd as it sounds her BG always goes down when she gets a bath. 

So Cole wanting a snack is a giant obstacle in my day.  It’s also why I eat standing at the counter in the kitchen with my back to Arden (I usually pretend to be cleaning).  

Fun Fact:  Complex carbohydrates bring Arden’s BG up slower but farther then a simple Carb does.  Also sometimes a simple carbohydrate drives her BG up quickly but then plummets again.  You only need to over correct for one simple carb high to learn that lesson.