Hi mastersd,
I actually think this would be the perfect time for you guys to go on a trip. At least, that was our experience.
My DD was diagnosed with type 1 about six weeks before we were to take the biggest vacation we had ever attempted, a road trip that would include seeing
Disneyland and four national parks. Talk about nervous--we were not only new to all this, but we were going places far from hospitals and often lacking cell phone reception. Our endo encouraged us, though, and I'm so glad we did it. It was the trip of a lifetime.
We had relatively little trouble keeping DD's numbers fairly reasonable on the trip, and the reason, I realize now that she's out of the honeymoon phase, is that she was still honeymooning at the time. She had highs and lows, but they weren't as high or as low as what she experiences now. (In fact, we only saw a number over 200 once the whole trip, and that was when we accidentally gave her a sweetened drink to hydrate her when she had altitude sickness in the Rockies.) Because her pancreas was still helping out a little, she didn't have the wild swings she can have now. You said something about people who are honeymooning having a lot of lows, but that was not our experience at all. Of course, as everyone has said, your diabetes may vary. But I think we would have had a much harder time with DD's numbers if we had done the trip after she was out of her honeymoon. In fact, she was all over the place on our vacation this summer.
One thing our endo suggested to us before that first trip post-diagnosis (and obviously you would want to talk to your own about this!) was to not try to get DD's numbers down as low during the trip as we would at home so the danger of going low would be reduced. Now that we're more comfortable with everything, I don't think I would do that on purpose, but it was probably good advice for us at the time.
Like others have said, we took at least double the insulin, test strips, meters, etc. that we thought we would need. We get her supplies at Walgreen's, so we figured we could get prescriptions filled in most areas, but we also took along written prescriptions for insulin as backup.
Figuring carbs was an adventure because DD was eating foods that she rarely or never eats at home (like East African dishes I'd never heard of, served family style, at a little place in Los Angeles). DD's big brother was such a blessing, though; he used his iPhone to access nutritional databases on the web and did a pretty darn good job figuring out her carbs. I would think it might be a little easier for you at WDW since you have some idea of what foods to expect (and maybe even know what he likes to eat down there) and can also look at menus online before you go. The menus on places like allearsnet.com don't have carb counts, but you could probably look up similar foods on the internet and have a leg up before you leave.
Not everyone is into weighing food, but I found it helpful on our trip. Someone loaned me a tiny Salter scale, and we liked it enough to buy one of our own when we got back home.
You mentioned subbing an apple for dessert. I've noticed there are a couple of camps on the internet forums on whether to let kids have high carb foods, like desserts. Some people feel it's ok to eat pretty much what a typical child would eat and cover the carbs with enough insulin. Others believe it is better to eat a somewhat carb-reduced diet. We lean toward the second camp and feel we've been able to help DD gain better control because of it, though she does have a normal dessert or a plate full of pasta now and then. But it's a personal decision and one that, if you're like us, will take time to work out. We do practice what another poster said--our family eats the same diet as our DD. If she doesn't get it, we don't get it.
One other thing I want to mention is a book that I found really useful called Think Like a Pancreas. It has really helped us work on getting the right doses of insulin at various times of day for DD (she is on multiple daily injections at this point and she now uses a different ratio for her Novolog at each meal). Her numbers have improved a lot.
Oh, one more thing--definitely don't wait for things to get stable! When DD was diagnosed, I innocently thought the doctor would keep upping the dose of insulin until he got the right amount and that would be that. Ha ha ha! I eventually figured out that type 1 is a daily adventure. Just when I think I have things figured out, hormones, the weather, or who knows what throws the whole plan out the window. The one thing I do know for sure is that stable is a very relative term with type 1.
Hope that helps some. I think your family will do fine on the trip. Your son obviously has a good support team around him.
), and we found that he needed the candy on Halloween because he ALWAYS runs low. Moderation is a good thing for all of us. Your son has a long life with T1D ahead if you teach him to manage with moderation rather than completely avoid it will be more realistic and he will be more likely to succeed. The day our son was diagnosed, our endo suggested a nighttime snack of 1/2 C of ice cream - the sugar, fat, protein combo keeps him nice and even at night.
