New England Weather...

2018.3.11

New England Weather...
“Outtakes”. A snippet of thoughts to kick off this blog post:
Not unexpectedly in our area of the country this time of year, we had some weather-related disruptions to our normally scheduled week last week.


What I am looking forward to putting into practice, or continuing:
Hopefully, a more normal schedule. And, continuing work with the BeWell Expo sub-committee (more on this in a future blog).


Quote(s) that resonated with me this week:
Practice the pause. Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you’re about to react harshly and you’ll avoid doing and saying things you’ll later regret.

~ Lori Deschene


Each week I pick a topic or two to consider reflecting on when I sit down to write my blog each Sunday. I typically take pictures, jot down notes, and put some thoughts together throughout the course of the week. This week was a little different, which I can sum up in three words: New England weather. My first choice of topic was going to be a reflection on #EdCampSWCT 2018 which was scheduled for Saturday (3/10). That was canceled. Next, the NGSX Science training workshop that myself and some NCPS colleagues attended last week. We only made it through one of the two scheduled days. Even the snow day makeup date was canceled. The opening of the “Through Our Eyes” Art Show? Postponed. You get the idea…

For those who may be reading this outside Connecticut, or New England, we experienced another Nor’Easter that left us with close to 20” of heavy snow resulting in downed trees and power lines. This caused a huge amount of road closures and power outages across our region. As always, our terrific maintenance staff had our buildings ready to go, but access to the schools was just not safe, or even possible in many cases and students were out of school for three days.

So, this will be a short post this week with a few pictures below to capture some of the happenings over the course of this snowy week.

In case you are interested in checking out more details of the above-listed events, please feel free to do so here:

https://edcampswct.com/

https://ctsciencecenter.org/education/mandell/ngsx-info/

https://ncadvertiser.com/118133/through-our-eyes-school-art-on-exhibit-at-carriage-barn/

Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog. Have a great week!
Tags: Snow day, NGSX, family, Safe Driving Week, Through Our Eyes Art Show, @APBedard81


Please feel free to contact or follow me:
Twitter: @DavidGusitsch
Blog: https://davidgusitsch.blogspot.com/
Email: david.gusitsch@ncps-k12.org


Here are a few pictures from this past week:
The CT Science Center is an impressive space. I would have loved to spend an entire day there exploring:




Learning about NGSS and science phenomena with the egg in the jar experiment:








Saxe MS AP Steve Bedard and me checking out an infrared camera during the lunch break:




My little guy Nicholas giving me a depth update on Wednesday evening. We were at about 13” at that point:




Following the storm, we got a nice family “snow hike” in on Thursday at our favorite park down the road from us, Huntington State Park:




As mentioned above, our terrific maintenance staff were back to business right away. Stan and Gary are preparing for the Safe Driving Week events at NCHS:




A look from the 3rd floor over the front of the building on Friday:




An unlucky road sign from the trip home on Friday shows how much of an impact this storm had:

A Time to Reflect and Give Thanks: Grateful...

2017.11.24

A Time to Reflect and Give Thanks

Grateful...

“Outtakes”. A snippet of thoughts to kick off this blog post:

We all have much to be grateful and/or thankful for. Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year. I am thankful for my health, family, friends, my job, and the simple things in life.

What I am looking forward to putting into practice, or continuing:

Keeping everything in perspective and appreciating all that I have to be grateful.

Quote(s) that resonated with me this week:

Give thanks. Be grateful.

A healthy person has a thousand wishes, but a sick person has only one.  ~ Indian Proverb

The best things in life are free.

Being that we are out of school for a few days, this is a personal look at Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays. Actually, it is my favorite time of year. The timing is great. Being in education for almost two decades, I have always enjoyed the fresh start of a new school year. The excitement of the returning students, the exuberance of the faculty and staff and the buzz of the extra-curricular activities are exciting. As the year “settles in”, this first break is an opportunity for me to recharge my batteries, reflect on what matters in life, and really focus on how lucky we are for everything we have (which is different for everyone).

First and foremost, I am grateful to be healthy. Ralph Waldo Emerson famously stated, “the first wealth is health”. Coupled with the Indian proverb listed above, I try to keep this in perspective and not take for granted that I have a home to get a good night sleep, the means to have three healthy meals (and snacks) a day, and the resources to balance work and activity to “be well”. Sometimes, I need to remind myself to KISS: keep it simple, or, keep it slow and steady. A little bit goes a long way. A few sets of push-ups, air squats, and pull-ups throughout the day, a nice steady jog or hike, or just getting out and getting some extra steps. None of this requires a gym membership, equipment, or anything but a commitment to “do a little something”, every day.

Next, I am thankful for my family. I am blessed to have a supportive wife who is a great mother to our three kiddos. Life is not easy, but we stick together as a team and make it work as best we can. Ellie, Brooke, and Nicholas bring joy (and sometimes challenges) to our lives each day. As I sit here and type, I am watching them help Grandma and Grandpa in the kitchen and play with their cousins around the house. Times like this allow me to sit back and marvel at the independent little people they have become. I am grateful to be out at my parent's house in rural Pennsylvania with immediate and extended family, creating memories for hopefully the rest of their/our lives. I am also grateful for the rest of extended family that we are not together with today, but see throughout the rest of the year.

I am grateful to work in a school and district that unequivocally values education, and not just the academic part of education. The arts, athletics, and extracurricular activities are all held in high regard, rightfully so. They make up a well-rounded education and play a role in educating the whole child. The focus and emphasis on social-emotional learning (SEL) and a positive school climate are a priority at all levels. It is reassuring to see this as a consistent focal point throughout the year. I am also grateful for the great people that I work with, they are some of the most caring, dedicated professionals around. To learn more about NCPS and NCHS, you can check out my “Stakeholder Blog Series” and “Orange Frog Workshop” posts, respectively.

Relative to work, I am also thankful for the global professional learning network (PLN) that I have the good fortune of interacting with on a consistent basis. They continue to share best practices, latest trends and research, and provide critical feedback. This helps build confidence and motivation to continuously improve. Ultimately, the goal is to make improvements that will best serve our respective students.

Finally, I am grateful for the things in life that are free. Taking the time to smell the roses, so to speak. These include jogs in Waveny, catching a sunrise, checking out a sunset, looking up at the stars on a clear night, hanging out and chatting with friends, and finally, spending time with family. For anyone who may be mentioned in some capacity in this post, I am thankful for you!

Please feel free to contact or follow me:

Twitter: @DavidGusitsch

Blog: https://davidgusitsch.blogspot.com/

Email: david.gusitsch@ncps-k12.org

Here a few pictures from this past week:

A sunset jog at Waveny (11/20)

A sunrise from the porch at my parent’s house (11/23 - Mansfield, PA)

A sunset from the porch and a walk with my parents (11/23)

The family (11/24)

Extended family (11/24)

Playing a little football in the front yard (11/24)

1285 Days: Nicholas D. Gusitsch & T1D (A Personal Story...)

2017.9.30

Nicholas David Gusitsch

1285 days

“Outtakes”. A snippet of thoughts to kick off this blog post:

T1D is complicated.

People misunderstand T1D.

We are lucky to have such good friends, families, and a strong little guy in Nicholas!

What I am looking forward to putting into practice, or continuing:

Staying positive and advocating for Nicholas/T1D.

Quote(s) that resonated with me this week:

Never give up.

1285 days.

Today is September 30, 2017. It has been 1285 days since Nicholas was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes (T1D), at almost exactly 3 ½ years old. 1285 days is how long Nicholas had been alive from his date of birth on September 17, 2010 to diagnosis on March 25, 2014. From this point forward, he will always have had T1D for the majority of his life.

He really only remembers LwT1D (Life w/T1D). He does not recall walking up to the fridge and grabbing a drink of juice or walking up to the cupboard and grabbing a snack without a blood glucose check and delivery of insulin. He does not remember being in pre-school and playing with his friends and having snack without having to check numbers and balance his levels.

Now it is part of his life and who he is. Up to this point, we have had to educate people on his needs and tendencies. Now he is becoming a good self-advocate but this is hard for someone who is seven years old, trying to explain to other seven year olds why he has to have juice, or glucose, or sit out a few plays, or feels “shaky”, or needs a shot, or why he is wearing “those devices” on his body. There are many variables that play into his numbers and whether they go high or low. Food, exercise/activity, temperature, stress, growing, sleep (or lack thereof), mood, and many more that are not popping into my head as I type.  

Looking back, we had a lot of learning to do on March 26, 2014. After spending the night in the emergency room and then a small hospital room, we had to be brought up to speed on what our new normal was going to be. BG (blood/glucose) levels, insulin, ketones, ketosis, diet and carbohydrates (not what they are, but how they physiologically affect you with everything that you eat/drink). How to test. Where to test. How to bolus. How to log numbers. How to portion food/drink. How to balance between long lasting (“the N”) and fast acting (“the H”) insulins. Who to talk to. Later came more learning and medical device companies: PDM (personal diabetes management), basal and bolus rates, Omnipod, Dexom CGM (constant glucose monitors), Solara Medical, Freestyle, and many more. We are fortunate to have good insurance, but we would gradually learn that it is another fulltime job to manage costs, bills, coverage, etc. while trying to do what is best for Nicholas.

As we left the hospital, came the reality that we were responsible for managing this life-threatening disease (more on that later). Almost like the feeling when you come home with a newborn and you reach for the nurse call button and realize, “you’re on your own to figure it out”. We were fortunate with our support network. Our endocrinologist Joann was/is amazing. I reached out to a friend Mike who has a son with T1D and him and their family have been a constant support. I bumped into a longtime friend, Mary Lou, who works at Danbury Hospital as we were leaving that next morning. I will never forget where we were and the look on her face when I told her why we were there. It was very telling. She knew many things that we had no idea about, but would soon learn. She came over a few nights later and helped us talk through the diet/nutrition part of our new journey (and has also been there to support us).

We met many people through events, charities, etc. The T1D network is strong, caring, and giving. We met another person (also named David) about three months after diagnosis who has a T1D daughter. He played wiffle ball with Nicholas, chatted with us, asked us our address and sent us a box full of supplies that he “thought would help”. They did. And so did the fact that we felt comfortable knowing we weren’t in this alone. He has also periodically checked in and shared some of the latest events, technologies and advocacy that has gone on around the world. It is great to know the level of work, volunteerism and dedication that is going into finding a cure for this disease.  

And then, of course, there are our families. They have continuously helped and supported us through everything. There are many more people as well, but too many to list. Thank you to everyone who has been part of our journey up to this point.

As we consider T1D and its impact on all of our lives, we are fortunate. About a 100 years ago, this would have been a death sentence. Terrible. We are lucky to have the resources, the medicine, the network capabilities, etc. But that does not minimize the lethality of this disease. Two days ago in my office at work, a teacher was telling me a story about a former student who was 22 years old who just passed away in his sleep. He said he had type one diabetes. Immediately, I knew it was a hypoglycemic incident. This person had no idea that I had a son with T1D and I mentioned how closely that story hit to home. This is one of many stories that are all the same. Another colleague at my last job recently lost a cousin to T1D at the age of 25. We hear about these stories through people we know or through common friends.

This is where/how this disease presents a challenge. You may do everything right, or the same, and something may still cause a low bg. If you are not able to catch it, it may be too late. This crosses our mind every time we say goodnight to Nicholas. Some people wake up to their lows. Nicholas does not. We are lucky to have the technology to alert us when he is low. Technology is not always accurate, or fails. Often. Seemingly, always at night (or, at least that is how it feels :) ). Either way, we go to bed every night with this on our mind. This translates to about five good nights of sleep a month. That may not sound like a lot, but those five nights are AWESOME! The rest, we get through with a little help from our friends...

Besides a cure, if I had one wish with this disease, it may be that it had a different name. Those who live with T1D in their lives will know what I am talking about. The confusion between type one and type two diabetes. They are not the same. From a public standpoint, having the “same” name gives the impression that you can do something about T1D. Questions we here: “will he grow out of it?”; “can you manage his numbers by watching his diet?”; “he can’t eat that, can he?!”; “is there a medicine that he take that will help manage his numbers?”. Most of these are because as of 2015 there were 30.3 million people living in America with “diabetes” (according to diabetes.org). Of those, 1.25 million have T1D. That is about 4%. I could go on forever, but where do you believe that most of the funding, research, advertising, etc. go? It is a disservice to all those with T1D to lump them into a category with another disease that has different treatments, diagnoses, impacts, etc. It is worth noting that I know people with type two and I care/hope for them to have a cure as much as I do for type one. My point is, they are not the same...

Below are some links to people and organizations who are doing good for the cause:

JDRF

Helmsley Charitable Trust

Double H Ranch

Newman’s Own (100% of profits go to charity)

TypeOneNation (through JDRF, many companies here)

SLAM T1D

Luke and Jedi (T1D service dog)

Nick’s Gang :)

Below are some pictures. Some tell a story in themselves. Some are just fun memories. Here are some of the estimated hard numbers on how many times Nicholas has been poked, prodded, stuck, etc. since he has been diagnosed (i.e., poor little pin-cushion):

1285 days x 12 tests a day (approx) = 15,420 “sticks”

1285 days - 90 days when we went to the Omnipod = 1195 / 2.5 = 478 pods

1285 days - 180 days when we went to Descom = 1105 / 5 = 221 Dexcoms

Now it is time for a little advocacy and public service announcement. Knowing the signs and symptoms of T1D can save a life. T1D can happen to anyone, at anytime, at any age (Saving Luke - Luke and Jedi - Fighting Type 1 Diabetes Together):

Excessive thirst

Weight loss

Frequent urination

Vomiting

Difficulty breathing

Trouble seeing

Fruity or acetone breath

Sudden bed wetting

Irritability (more than normal)

I write this because this is our life. I shared this much because this is a date/event in his life that will only happen once. Maybe Nicholas will read this someday and understand a pivotal moment in his life a little better. Hopefully by then, there will be a cure and we can all look back and “fondly” recall “how it used to be”.

Thanks to anyone who read this far. You are a true friend (Or family. Some family will read this far. :) ). Now, off to calibrate the dex...

Please feel free to contact or follow me:

Twitter: @DavidGusitsch

Blog: https://davidgusitsch.blogspot.com/

Email: david.gusitsch@ncps-k12.org

Nicholas in front of some of his thousands of needles and medical devices.

Some of his supplies, devices and “statistics”.

The section of his closet that reminds of Nicholas, our little, playful 7 year-old boy. And, the section of his closet that reminds us that he has had some serious medical training at a young age.  

A Day in the Life of…

Sometimes there are highs, sometimes there are lows, sometimes there is the dreaded “no data” (seemingly most often at night).

Sometimes there are level numbers. For a little bit. Often a roller coaster. And, a quick peek at some of tech challenges...

A look Back:

In the hospital and “day one” home.

Approximately 1 week before diagnosis (tired and skinny)...

March 26, 2014 - Getting ready to leave the hospital after diagnosis:

“Celebrating” one year:

“Celebrating” Year 2:

“Celebrating” Year 3:

And, a little fun along the way:

June, 2015

October, 2014:

November, 2014

NCHS Welcome - Gusitsch

July 6, 2017

Dear NCHS Community,

I hope that your summer is off to an amazing start. My name is David Gusitsch and I am honored to have been named as the new Assistant Principal at New Canaan High School. I am excited to serve the community in this capacity, look forward to meeting everyone, and most importantly, working with the students of NCHS.

Because family is important, I would like to share a little bit on a personal level. My wife Amy and I are celebrating our fifteenth wedding anniversary this July. Amy also works in education having taught fourth grade in Wilton and now as a math interventionist in Bethel. Our children love school and stay active in extracurriculars year round. For the upcoming school year, Ellie will be entering seventh grade, Brooke will be entering fifth grade, and Nicholas will be entering first grade. As a family, we enjoy skiing, kayaking, hiking, and fishing at Huntington State Park, which is down the road from us. We are all looking forward to our upcoming visit to Lake Winnipesaukee (NH) toward the end of July where we visit with friends, recreate, and recharge from the wonders of nature that the lake has to offer.   

On a professional level, I am entering my eighteenth year working in education. My background includes working in Illinois and Connecticut and experiences with students, staff, and stakeholders at all levels, PK-12. Most recently, I served in an administrative capacity as the District Coordinator for health and physical education for the community of Westport. During my time in Westport, the program was recognized nationally as one that was innovative, implemented best practices, and incorporated latest research, trends, and technology. Some of our work was instrumental in highlighting the brain-body connection and bringing movement based learning into all classrooms, at all levels. This research was well received and contributed to the collaborative approach of educating the whole child and providing a well rounded educational experience for students in any discipline.

At NCHS, I look forward to getting involved in all facets of the school community. A priority for me includes maintaining the social-emotional needs of students and the positive school culture. I will continue to encourage and support a healthy balance between academics, the arts, athletics, clubs, and activities. New Canaan High School is one of the premier public high schools in the country, located in a wonderful community. I intend to contribute to this great legacy while learning, growing, and evolving together.

Wishing each of you a happy, healthy, rejuvenating summer,

David Gusitsch

NCHS Assistant Principal

Here is a family picture from the recent Wilton HS graduation (June, 2017). From left to right are: Me, Brooke, Ellie, Nicholas, and Amy.