Wednesday, April 04, 2007

The A&P of a Low

Ask the average pumper why they love their pump, and the answers come thick and fast.

1. The ability to look like a VIP, anytime, anywhere. "Sorry man, gotta go-my beep's going off."
2. The ability to STOP a low blood sugar in its tracks-simply program in a 0.0 basal, and insulin will no longer be coursing through your bloodstream, resisting the futile onslaught of a simple carbohydrate overload.
3. Membership in the "Club."
"You pump? Cool, how long?"
"Six years, dude. Back when I started,they freakin' admitted you to the hospital."
4. A greater acceptance of diabetes. You'll never be happy happy joy joy about it, but the pump is one of the better aspects of the disease.
5. One more electronic device to keep track of, along with cellphone/pump/meter/DS/pager/whatever else.
6. The ability to exactly pinpoint basal/bolus needs-completely impossible on shots.
7. Spontainiality- sleep late, run a marathon, eat like a pig!
8. Another excuse to throw thousands of $$'s at the disease-all those supplies add up.
9. A few less pricks..
10. Something to keep you company in the wee hours of the morning.

Ask me why I love my pump, and I'll tell you one thing:
Commitment. It & me- we're a team, out to manage diabetes
as best as possible.(for better and for worse, till death(or a cure)
do us part.

Sometimes, there is no "managing" diabetes. Take this week,when every night I have skyrocketed 100+ points and every afternoon, dropping like a rock. Current basal requirements look something like this:
12-7 AM 1.2 (usually 0.6)
7-12 PM 0.3 (regular)
12-5 pm 0.05 (0.3)
5-9 pm 0.4 (regular)
9-12 AM 0.6 (regular)
Afternoons are like being cured..and nights are like pumping cortisone. Weird.

----------------------
A few weeks ago, my video ipod met an unfortuanate demise(Diet Coke vs Ipod) and shorted out.I'm not ready to commit it to the garbage bin quite yet, I want to make sure it can't be fixed.(those suckers aren't cheap) So it looks like I'll be taking a trip to an Apple store, and as there are a grand total of FOUR stores in the entire state(3 of them in the DC area) that trip will be to Northern VA. I wanted to coincide it w/an ADA Expo, but there won't be any this year.(which isn't fair- the ADA HQ are in Arlington, and they can't even do a DC Expo?) The cherry blossoms are also out, and I wanted to see all that too. I've got a 5 day(starting tomarrow) weekend- this is the perfect time to do it all.

4 comments:

Drea said...

You are so lucky you live near an apple store!! (sorry the visit is as a result of the IPOD versus Diet coke....for the records my macbook drank a glass of wine and survived!!!)

Scott K. Johnson said...

Crazy BG stuff. I hope that things even out for you soon.

Take care and keep us posted!

Anonymous said...

that's odd. a few weeks back i was rght down to 0.125 units p/h through the night. i would go to bed around 100 and wake at 110.

then something happened.

i was back to my usual 0.425u p/h trough the night yet was still higher than usual. it's weird how it all changes, and very annoying.

Sarah said...

my blood sugars are always stupid low in the afternoon. I'm at .3u/hr from 2pm - 7pm. I love my pump, I just ordered the new 522, so excited! And me? I have been pumping almost 12 years now :)