Comment by PetahNZ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PetahNZ | Hacker News Reader

Its almost uncanny the similarity I have to Graham. NZ, programmer, daughter T1 diagnosis about 2 years ago. A CGM and insulin pump were absolute game changers for us. We went with the Dexcom CGM (not funded) and t:slim pump (funded). The control IQ software in the pump is great and we have got her time in range to > 95%. One scary story to share though, as we started trusting her school/teacher aids to administer/supervise bolus and corrections (before she was on a pump) it only takes one small mistake to potentially kill her. She was had high BGL and needed a correction to take her back down to 7 mmol. There is a bit of math to do, but they made a mistake and corrected her to 0 mmol. Luckily because we had the Dexcom we were alerted. We tried contacting the school when we saw her dropping, but got no answer. We rushed to the school to find he delirious lying on the field alone. It could have been worse but we are grateful for the technology that we have that basically saved her. Needless to say, we don't trust anyone else with those calculations any more.

We tried contacting the school when we saw her dropping, but got no answer. We rushed to the school to find he delirious lying on the field alone

I hope you filed suit. That level of negligence is going to get the next kid killed.

I understand the anger (and I would feel the same) but think of how hard it is to have someone put their child’s life in your hands.

Ignoring liability, that’s a very heavy responsibility.

What? Watching the kids is the most important part of the job. I can understand a mistake with dosing (we can't expect the teachers/aids to be skilled nurses too). I can understand the phone going unanswered sometimes. But a kid laying delirious in the field?? Making sure the kids are all still alive is like the bare minimum task for guardians, regardless of whether they have diabetes or not.

Probably best to get teachers, etc out of the loop.

In an imperfect world, and where everyone fires off a lawsuit, I don’t see the upside. Sooner or later mistakes are made. Humans are imperfect.

Unless this was a tiny school that only has one or two people in the front office, there is zero excuse to leave the phones unmanned.

Hey, We do have a lot in common. We have not trusted anyone with Sam’s management yet. That would be my nightmare situation though, and more reason to put technology with safeguards into the loop.

It's been 8 years since our now 10 year old son was diagnosed with T1D. Pre-Covid he was in school (in the USA.) Only one potentially serious incident when the staff accidentally gave him 2X the insulin he was supposed to receive for lunch (this was when he was on a lousy Medtronic pump/CGM combo.) Fortunately the staff realized their mistake and called us immediately. We live a few minutes from the school and so a crisis was averted with a stack of glucose tabs before his blood sugar dropped dangerously low.

We've homeschooled him since Covid (he has no desire to go back and socializes with other kids outside of school.) He's now on a Dexcom / Tandem pump + iPhone mini (for transmitting Dexcom blood sugar levels). We have three SugarPixels (https://customtypeone.com/products/sugarpixel) - one for our bedroom, one in the kitchen and one in my office. A game-changer for us was the free app called SugarMate. It integrates with Dexcom and will call you with an automated message when blood sugar level goes below a specified threshold. This helped us sleep through the night knowing if his blood glucose level went dangerously low we would be woken up by the automated phone call.

Holy hell! This is literally my nightmare. I'm so sorry to hear you went through that and so glad she is okay!

"find he delirious lying on the field alone"

Really, really sorry about that. We have similar but different issues with one of our children. I understand the constant stress that something could happen. I wish you the best of luck.

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