Issues

Like many kids who got a rough start in life, Daughter has lots of food issues. I remember an incident from her early days with me. I had made Spanish rice for supper, and when we were done I was pleased to see that we had enough left over for a second meal. I left the kitchen to do something, and when I returned, Daughter had eaten all of the leftovers. She was 3 years old.

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The diabetes complicates the food issues tremendously. Diabetes is hard enough without piling food issues on top of it. Everything she eats needs to be measured and covered with insulin. When she comes to me wanting to eat something, I seek to avoid saying no. I may ask her to wait until a specific time, or tell her she can choose one thing of two she wants. I may make suggestions of substitutions, but my goal is to avoid no.

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I also seek to minimize temptations. She loves pop tarts. At various times she has talked me into buying a box for her breakfast. We discuss the fact that she can have one for breakfast, and she can't sneak them. By the end of the first day, they have usually vanished. I finally stopped buying pop tarts. I generally make just enough food for the meal. Left overs are a temptation, and it is easier to calculate carbs if I just make two servings and then divide whatever it is between us. Generally, we don't have chips in the house. The bag she took the other night was for taco salad.

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Today when she came home from the workshop, she wanted to have a snack. She wanted the rest of the broccoli-rice casserole from Easter. I pointed out her blood sugar was a little high, and eating a snack would increase it, so she wouldn't feel very good. I also pointed out that we would be eating supper within 30 minutes. I planned on the left over casserole and sausage sandwiches for supper. When I called her to come eat, she told me she didn't feel good and wasn't hungry. Just 30 minutes earlier she was begging for food.

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Part of the issue is she has trouble interpreting her body's messages. Within the last two years she has come to me complaining of some ailment. When she describes the symptoms, I'll tell her she needs to go to the bathroom. She'll argue, but eventually go, and come out and reluctantly tell me I was right and she feels better. How many people in their 20's don't know when they need to go relieve themselves?

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She'll tell me her stomach is hurting really bad, and that she's burping and feels like she's going to throw up, and then ask for food to cure it. I try not to make food an issue, but obviously, it is. Tonight she refused to eat her sausage sandwich. She's retreated to her bedroom. I'm not sure if she really feels sick, or if she's just trying to avoid the laundry I asked her to sort and fold. I never know. I have told every school she has been at that I may end up sending her to school sick, but that I will gladly come and get her if she is really sick. My definition of really sick: someone has witnessed her throwing up, or she has a fever.

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Tonight I suspect her complaint has more to do with avoidance. I don't think she's happy with the way things are going at the workshop. She's doing a pretty good job of keeping the workshop at the workshop, and she didn't call me today. She did tell me, though, that they moved her out of the work group with all her friends. Her friends had work today, but she didn't. I can understand why they did that, but it's not necessarily good for her to be in a group that doesn't have work very often.