Gadgety!

Check it out!

That there armbanded gizmo is my new pancreas! We went on-line at 10 this morning. I'm still trying to think up a name for it.

It's the Minimed Paradigm VEO insulin pump w/CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring) capability. I'm not using the CGM yet, as the protocol commonly seems to be get the pump started, and test, test, test, then start the sensor to do all the in-between metering.

So far today we've dealt with the abrupt cessation of background insulin, a delayed first meal, followed by a somewhat substantial brunch for that first meal, a late lunch, an RPM workout, and then a carby pasta dinner and a Valentine treat (I don't have the results for that one yet, waiting for my post-meal-test alert still). My early suspicion is that at least my meal dosage will need to increase, as I suspect the diabetes team was a bit conservative in my dosages. No hypos, though, and the highs weren't crazy-bad-high, but were double-digits.

It's going to be a little bit to get used to. The nurse who did my boot-up this morning mentioned a few things that hadn't occurred to me... like going to the bathroom when you have a pump clipped to your pants but the infusion set stuck into your upper belly can require a bit of juggling - the tubing's only 23 inches. Ooops. And apparently doorknobs are a known hazard. As are pets who chew on things they find lying in the bed when you're asleep, like plastic tubing. Sudo doesn't typically chew, but Blue lately has decided she likes chewing on the odd elastic-like thing she finds. Sudo does, though, pick things up and carry them off. He already did that with the plastic cap from the insertion set. I can see I am going to have to organize, inventory, and lock up the heap of supplies I'll now need for this thing.

I survived my first gym workout, without anything coming unglued or falling off me, and without any hypo reactions though I did drop from 8 something to 4-something over the hour workout. I happened to grab a shirt that had an MP3 player pocket which held the pump at my shoulder - nice! Except it's only one shirt and I need 4-5 workout shirts a week and none of my branded ones (I try to wear the team colour for teaching) have that pocket. So, accessories on the list to try are a runner's race number belt which has a small zippered pouch, and some elastic armbands such as the one in the picture above. If those all fail, apparently I can buy a sports harness for it that goes over the shoulders and holds the pump mid-back, under a shirt.

That's day 1 so far. Tomorrow we resume normal workday activities after a morning doctor visit, and then Wednesday is a full day - work then gym.

I'm off now to figure out how to turn off all the middle of the night beepy things so as not to wake spouse when I have to get up and test at 3 am. There will, I hope, only be a few days of THAT to deal with, or I'll be punchy from the lack of sleep. More pump adventures soon!