Transition period

I'm still super excited about being on my pump, and I love the tight control I will be able to obtain and more importantly maintain. There is this one small part of me that is still just scared about it though. I went off the pump for a reason (mainly because I was lazy with my control)and it's just really scaring leaving the world of MDI (multiple daily injections) and going back to pumping. I've been trying to break down what I'm scared of, and I think it's mostly with placement of the pump. I work an office job, and so I wear a lot of dress pants and 'longer' shirts. I have a few shirts where I can hide it in my bra, but with my lack of boobs I'm pretty much confined to clipping it to my waistband, which sometimes creates an odd 'bulge' under my clothes. I know I can't worry about vanity when it's something that is saving my life, but it's something I still think about.

How am I going to wear it while I'm wearing a dress? I think sticking it on my bra is the best bet, but that creates a stupid bulge in 90% of the dresses I have.... Other option would be to attach it to my underwear, but then I'm stuck again with a bulge, as well as my underwear falling down. I have a 'thigh thing' and I guess we'll see how that goes. I think it's still going to create a bulge, but it's worth a try.

What else am I nervous about? I changed my infusion site today and it was a little daunting thinking that I need to do this every single 2-3 days... forever. I know I've been on shots 5-10 times a day and that was forever, but this just seems different. It feels so permanent.

Overall though, I'm really excited. I will find ways to make it work with all aspects of my life, and it will be FANTASTIC!

I got in touch with my trainer today and she and I should be meeting early next week to set up a basal rate. She's just got to get in touch with one of my Dr's and we're good to go!

Anyways, exciting stuff still, and I'm feeling really good about things! I think I'm just a little bit anxious on my own, and I tend to overthink things!

PS, I am SO happy it's Friday tomorrow, finally almost weekend time!!!

Still love it :)

So I'm still not up and running on basal, but I am LOVING this thing for bolusing. My blood has been amazing! I love that it reminds me to test, and I love that if I need more than 6U and less than 7U, I can go ahead and give myself 6.35U, so much better than whole units! My blood has just been fantastic, I am so happy with it every time I check now! I can't wait to be hooked up to basal though, although things are working well with Lantus. I could probably be a part time pumper and work just fine that way, haha. Okay, maybe not.

My replacement pump came today and the screen looks much better. "Annie" (creative name, I know) arrived bright and early this morning and it didn't take too long to get everything reprogrammed and set to my liking. The new pump came with an envelope to put the old one in to send back via Canada post. Easy peasy! As far as the training goes... Well Animas originally said I wouldn't be able to get training until my rep (Anthony) is back from vacation (August 28th I think)which really doesn't work too well for me. I e-mailed my Dr to see if she could give me a starting basal rate and she said that it's best to wait until August 28th, as she is also on vacation until that time.. Aaahhhhh. Animas called today too and said that they have a trainer who wants to meet by the end of the week, so I'm hoping I can get this show on the road. I doubt the trainer can go anything without direction from my Dr. though, this is frustrating! I think I'm going to just try my 1U/hour and see how it goes. Checking my blood nonstop will help keep everything under control, I hope! Fingers crossed at least.

And lets end this with a picture of the pump and meter in their matching black skins. Cause what's wrong with switching up the colour every once in a while?

Day 2

So, I ran in the 2's-3's all night and woke up a few times with that terrible clammy, too hot, sweaty, shaky, low-middle-of-the-night feeling. I tested at 3AM and 6AM and downed a bunch of dex tabs both times... Woke up at 10 AM still low, and decided I'd had enough of doing my own basal rates. I was a genius of course and didn't think that overnight I would STILL HAVE my previous days Lantus in my body helping everything out, so of course I ran low. Seriously, I am too smart. Either way, to avoid worrying the Animas rep who called today to tell me she's sending me a new pump, I decided to cut out the basal rate to 0.00 and continue using Lantus as my long acting and just use the pump to bolus until I'm gone through training. I had nightmares all night long that I... Inserted something wrong in the pump (or something, it was kind of like a memory card) and I voided my warranty and this all could have been avoided had I just gone through training first! I also dreamt that I found a pregnancy test in my closet so I peed on it and it was like double lines instantly. Of course that made me assume (in my dream) that I was further along than I thought I was, and that my last period wasn't really a period and that because I'd been drinking since getting my last period my baby would be born with FAS because I'm terrible. Gotta love dreaming when you're low, makes for an interesting morning!

Anyways, I should get ready for work, and I'm looking forward to getting my new pump tomorrow morning! Those Animas people are quick at getting things out, I'm really impressed!!!

It's HERE!!!!

It's here it's here it's here! My pump (and boxes of supplies) arrived at my office around 10:30 AM, which was amazingly fast! I was hoping for it to come today but didn't have my fingers crossed at all. But here it came, bright and early this morning!

All of the supplies are great, I have way more stuff than I will ever use. I still haven't heard from my trainer, so I have taken it upon myself to learn how to figure out my basal rates on my own. I called and left a message for both of my Dr's but hadn't heard back and I figure I don't need to wait for the formal training... I know the basics, I know HOW it works and what to do, I really only want the training to see if there are any special features of the pump I am not aware of.

Anthony had told me to take my normal 'basal' rate of Lantus and cut it to 80% and spread that out over my day... That worked out to 24U a day, so a simple 1U/hour.... I decided to cut that down slightly overnight (at least for tonight) so that I don't end up low all night long. I am ready to test every 2 hours overnight though, I'm not expecting too much sleep! So I am on 1U/hour from 8AM-10:30PM and .90U/hour from 10:30PM-8AM... We'll see how it goes and adjust from there. I'm sure my Dr will call tomorrow with an idea of where to start, but I think I have a good jumping off point here.

Frustrations of the day...

First, I noticed that the pump screen seems to be 'off' a little bit... Almost like it was placed too far to the left.

So I put that aside (for then) and focused on just learning about the meter remote. I'm still not crazy about 1 touch strips (and having to get enough blood the first try, every try) but I am getting used to them! I actually really like the poker they gave me, I barely feel it at all, I can even test on my pointer fingers, which I usually HATE testing on! I don't like the case they give you for the meter remote, because it's all plasticy feeling, there isn't a good spot to put my log book, and it doesn't fit the meter when it's wearing a skin. After dinner I went to Walmart and found a little pink and brown makeup case to put everything in, and that is working wonderfully so far, I am pretty happy with it!

I called Animas earlier in the day about the screen issue and had a callback within a couple hours, not bad at all. The lady was great and said she'd forward my complaint on to Animas Canada and they would arrange to ship a new pump to me. I hate feeling like I'm 'complaining' but I mean I JUST got the thing, and I can't stop staring at the fact that the screen is off kilter. Although now I'm staring at the screen and can't see it at all, of course. Speaking of the screen, luckily they send out the pump with a screen protecter, because somehow I've already put a huge dent in the screen protector, no idea how! I also had one hell of a time getting in an infusion set, it did take me 3 tries... The first one wouldn't go in, no matter what I pressed on the inset thingy, so I said that it must be defective and threw it out... The second one I tried and tried and tried and eventuallly thought that something must be wrong with the box. I loaded up a third from another box and started dialing Animas... I tried with the 3rd and realized that I was pressing the wrong spot on the inserter, OOOPS. I'm pretty sure I tried both on the first infusion set, but who knows. I felt kinda dumb, I had been texting Jamie expressing my FRUSTRATIONS at how STUPID it was being for not working, when I was just being an idiot. Oh well! :)

Overall, I'm pretty excited. I'm looking forward to talking to my Dr or at least a trainer to make sure I'm doing things right, and getting through reading all this stuff that they sent me. I have my 'pump drawers' all organized and full so that's great, I HATE being unorganized!

I'll update again soon, once I am more into the swing of things, but I am so excited! I can't wait until I am a master of this thing, and that will come shortly. It's still so new to me though, but I'm figuring it out.

It's coming soon!!!

I can't help but post my excitement about my pump being here either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow! I really hope it comes tomorrow, because I'm working 1-9 on Tuesday so I won't be able to play with it until way too late! I'm reallllyyyy hoping it comes tomorrow! But not crossing my fingers yet, I'm just going to wait until it's here!

YAY!

An update, finally!

Well, yesterday I emailed the Animas rep to see if there was any way that I could speed up the process, and today I got in touch with her over the phone. She said that I could go ahead and just pay up front (as my insurance company does it on a reimbursement basis anyways) and order right away. I was a little bit worried, because what if there was some chance that they didn't cover it? I was hoping they'd cover the majority of the pump, and figured I'd be paying approx $1500 out of pocket for it, and I was hoping the supplies would be covered 80%. The lady at Animas said that she didn't see any reason why it wouldn't be covered, but of course they can't guarantee anything.

So, she called Standard life and we got a rep on the phone who confirmed that YES my pump is covered (approved yesterday) and that they are covering it 100%!!!! I am totally blown away by this, and I am so excited. I have it ordered along with a ton of supplies, although I need to change that order a little bit. I have things like a tamper resistant case coming, when I don't need that one, I'd rather have a bra band or something. I'm going to try any get in touch with her tomorrow and go over everything while I'm on the website and make sure that I have the things I actually want/ need.

Exciting stuff, it should arrive Monday or Tuesday! YAYY!!!!!!

Still impatient!

So it's Wednesday and I'm still not pumping! I'm trying hard to be patient, but it's tough... I'm getting towards the end of my novo-rapid, and I hope I don't have to stock up again before my pump comes. I was really looking forward to being hooked up before my triathalon this weekend, but I don't think that's going to happen :( Oh well, I'll have a long time with it soon, I can wait a couple more days.

Standard life apparently takes their sweet time to approve the insurance stuff, so I'm thinking we'll just buy the pump now (because it's on a reimbursment basis anyways) and deal with the insurance stuff as it comes. I can't see any reason why they wouldn't cover it, I have the letter of medical neccesity and all that fun stuff. Only thing I can see holding me back is that I already have a decent a1c. If they deny me based off of that, I will LOSE IT!!!

I've tried to stop doing shots in my stomach, because it will be getting a beating until they fix my pancreas. Which means it'll be a long time. I'm nervous, but hope it all goes well. I'm even getting mildly excited for the one touch meter. I can still use my old freestyle when I don't want to carry the big one, but I think I'll primarily use the one touch.

Anyways, enough for now. Hopefully I'll get the new pump (and all my free supplies) ordered tomorrow and off to me EARLY next week!!! Fingers crossed!!