The Life & Times of Finnegan Buckley The terribly exciting and ever expanding world of me, myself

So y’all know that Monday was a total bust, but then Tuesday rolled around and things started to improve a bit.  Mom and I went to Marbles Museum in Raleigh to meet up with Joanna and Truman.  They had a really cool Mr. Potato Head exhibit set up this week that was awesome.  We got to make our own Mr. Potato Heads.  We had a total blast and got completely worn out.  Can’t wait to go back next week and do it again!

Me & Truman packing up the truck

Mr. Potato Head

On Wednesday we went over to Isaac’s house for a playdate and lunch.  Isaac had this cool new cardboard box playhouse that we got to play in.  Then we basically just ran around and played with all Isaac’s cool cars n’ stuff, and we even made our own tent and hid out underneath it.  Nobody knew where we were….soooo fun.

I lost my contact

Mom & Isaac

Thursday I got to have a playdate at my house.  Aaron came over to hang out for a bit.  We spent the whole time playing with my Hot Wheels and making big piles out of the pillows, and then diving on top of them.  Right after Aaron left to go home though, I started feeling a little lousy and my nose started running.  Oh no…not good.  By Thursday evening it was a full blown cold.  And I feel like absolute crapola.  Poor Mom…that means she gets to miss out on her morning off tomorrow morning.  I was supposed to go to Aaron’s house for a playdate on Friday morning but now that I have a cold she gets to stay home and take care of me.  But on a plus note, Daddy let me make some brownies for dessert tonight because he felt so sorry for me.

Who wants a brownie?

So Friday I just hung out in the house all day…..with my nose running down my face and my head being all stuffy.  Crappy beginning and a crappy end to my week.  But everything in the middle was fun at least.  And oh, I almost forgot.  When Dad was finished with work on Friday he took one side of my bed off, which turns it into a toddler bed.  So now I have a big boy bed.  And I made it through the entire night without getting out!  Yeah for me.

TrialNet

On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d call today a 4 so far.  We started off bright and early and went to LabCorp.  Dad even came with us so I thought we were going to do something really fun.  He said he was going to go into work late so that he could go with us.  Oh boy.  Little did I know what was going to happen once we got there.

Mom sat down in a chair and I got to sit on her lap.  But then the mean lady held my arm out and tied a Really Tight elastic on it.  Youch!  I tried to kick her but she wouldn’t stop.  From there things went further down hill.  She took out a big giant needle and jammed it into my arm.  Can you say “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!”  So Not Fun!  No matter how hard I tried to get away I couldn’t.  I think she may have been trying to drain all the blood in my body.  Thank god it was over in a minute or so.  Well at least Mom gave me a Dum Dum pop for being such a brave boy.  Hooray!

So the whole reason Mom and Dad subjected me to this torture was because Mom put me in a study called “The Natural History Study of the Development of Type 1 Diabetes.”  I heard Mom telling Dad that she lives in fear every day of me developing Type 1 at some point.  So the point of being in this study is that there’s a way to tell if I carry an autoantibody that would increase my chances of  developing it.  It doesn’t mean that I would definitely develop it….it would just increase the risk.  Right now my risk is 10-15 times greater than everyone else’s.   And if I come back as negative for the autoantibody, that doesn’t mean that I’m out of the woods…it would just decrease my chances.

The goal of this study is to learn more about how Type 1 Diabetes develops in “at risk” individuals.  Participants in the study are offered the opportunity to enter into prevention, or early treatment studies when available.

So if the test comes back positive for the autoantibody, then we’d move on to Phase 2 of the trial.   Phase 2 is the Baseline Risk Assessment study.  It’s used to determine what my risks are of developing T1 at some point during the next 5 years, based on having the autoantibody.

From there we’d move on to Phase 3 which is basically the follow-up study.  But the key to all this is that by participating in this study we’d be offered enrollment into the prevention study which is now working to preserve insulin-producing cells.  That would help to manage the disease and lessen the chances of complications in the long run.  That’s the part that Mom is really most interested in.

So now the wait begins.  We should know the results in roughly 4-6 weeks.  So stay tuned!

And if you want to learn more about this study, please read this Fact Sheet.

Get screened

If you have a family member with Type 1 and you, or other family members would like to get screened, follow this link to see if you’re eligible for the study.

If you want to help out, by donating to researchers in this field, follow this link to the JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation)!

UPDATE:  We received our letter on Friday, with the results to Finn’s test.  It’s NEGATIVE for autoantibodies!!!!! Yeah.

Look Ma, I can brush my teeth!

Today was a big day.  Mom brought me to see Dr. Taylor today to check out my teeth and make sure everything is the way it’s supposed to be.

The hygienist was not very…hmmm….kid friendly I guess would be a good way to put it.  He kept switching back n’ forth between baby talk and telling me to not touch anything.  The countertop was littered…and I mean littered with toys and fun stuff, yet he didn’t want me to touch any of them until after he looked in my mouth.  Ok, fine, take a peek.  Here you go.  Aaahhhh…

Apparently everything looked good in there.  He said I have 19 of my 20 teeth, and the 20th is starting to come through as we speak.   He also said there’s a chip in my front tooth from when I busted my lip open (and went to the hospital).  No surprise there.

After he finished checking out the goods I got to sit and play with the video games while we waited for Dr. Taylor to come in.  At least they had a Cars game….that was pretty cool.  And I got some really groovy DeWayne Wayne glasses.

When everything finished up checking my teeth they gave me a token to put in the giant gumball/prize machine.  Out popped a tattoo.  It was a little girly (a hummingbird and a flower), but hey, it’s still a tattoo.  Girls dig guys with tatts right?  Makes me even more manly looking.

My girly tatt!