So, there's this new man in my life. He hasn't taken the place of Dave or Ian, but he's with me 23.6/7 (no showers for Bob). We sleep together, we eat together, I tell him what's for dinner and he tells me what to do. He's pretty awesome, and I'm in love...with my insulin pump.
Now, this love affair is a pretty new thing to me. Starting in college, I had a 6 year relationship with a pump that shall remain nameless (mainly because I never gave it a name). He was just a means to give insulin, really. There were programmable basal rates, but that was really it. He didn't have a brain or a soul like Bob. I had to tell him EVERYTHING. And putting him on was a pain - literally. The infusion sets were rather harpoon-like, long, and had to go in at an angle. Psychologically, I wasn't ready to be hooked to something 24/7 - it was a constant reminder of a disease that I tried really hard to forget that I had. So I gave it the old college try. And after 6 years, I decided to go back on shots. Me and shots, we're cool. I'm a pro. I will whip it out and inject table-side at restaurants before you even know what I'm doing. So going back to my comfort zone was nice. I was cool with it.
While I was pregnant with Ian, one of the evil bloodsugar nazis suggested that maybe I should go on a pump. I believe my reaction at the time was something like hanging up the phone and bursting into tears, convinced that I was the worst diabetic pregnant woman they'd ever seen. The relationship between me and that group is a subject of a whole 'nother blog. Suffice it to say that my endocrinologist thought I was doing great with MDIT (multiple daily insulin therapy) and said that if I didn't want to change, I didn't have to. Sold. I was already dealing with so much other stuff, diabetes-wise, I thought that if I had to learn one more new thing that I'd be giving birth in a padded room at a nice institution. Then I discovered this blog - Six Until Me.
This blog talks about a lady that could be my twin. About the same age, kids about the same age, same length of time with diabetes. But she has a pump and a CGM (continuous glucose monitoring). I started reading - WHY did no one tell me what these things were capable of? My inner geek was so excited! I had to have one! Fortunately, BCBS agreed to Bob, but not to the CGM (jerks). And now I have this pretty purple guy who knows how much 1 unit of insulin drops my bloodsugar, what my carb ratios are for different meals (I have two different settings), my different basal rates, AND gets my bloodsugars wirelessly beamed to him from my fancy meter. There were also no iPhones when I was in college - in fact, I'm pretty sure we used carrier pigeons - but now I have apps that tell me how many carbs I'm eating. I do a bloodsugar, tell Bob what we're eating, and he can correct for a low or a high (I set a goal range) and take into account what we're eating. It took a couple of weeks of doing a lot of bloodsugars, but he's pretty well set now.
The moral of this post, other than to introduce you to Bob, is that if you have diabetic friends *type 1* and they aren't on a pump and are adults (still not sure about how I feel about these for little kids), tell them to read this. If they have any questions about pumping, tell them to call me. Really, it's been life-changing. Or, you know, in the words of Wilfred Brimley - "If you have dibitis..." :)
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