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Rodents of Unusual Size

Hello, internet. So I finally got hooked up to my insulin pump last Thursday. I drove to Austin (a couple hours) for the training because I didn’t want to wait another week, and I’m SO GLAD I DID.

On Friday, Andy and I drove to Broken Bow, Oklahoma to visit with my family in a cabin by Beaver’s Bend. I think I would have been miserable had I not been on the pump yet with the poor control I was having with shots recently. With the pump I was able to eat whenever, and go on a long hike without worrying about balancing insulin shots.

Adjusting to the pump was so easy.  And I don’t mind it being attached to me in the least. I quickly learned that most of the time, I can hook it to the middle of my bra and you can’t see it, and I don’t notice it at all. I had always assumed I would have to have it hooked to a waist band, and this always made me hesitant because I knew that would annoy me. But the bra (or the top of my shirt if I’m lounging around the house or sleeping) is perfect.

And words cannot express how cool it is to press a couple buttons to figure out exactly how much insulin I need for a meal.

I’m not hooked up to the continuous glucose monitoring system (CGMS) yet. The training for that is tomorrow, and she’s coming here, so I won’t have to travel this time. I’m quite excited to see what my blood sugar is doing during the times I don’t prick my finger! I honestly don’t know what to expect there, but I know finding out is going to help me a great deal.

How the CGMS works is that it’s a separate thing attached to your body and it takes glucose readings from under your skin and transmits them wirelessly to the pump every 15 minnutes or so. You still have to prick your finger 2-4 times a day to calibrate the CGMS. But pricking only 2-4 times a day is much better than 6-8! Plus, the CGMS shows a graph of your BG throughout the day and will alert you if you’re going too low or high.

Haha, I can’t wait to see what’s going on during exercise and sleep.

So far, on my pump, I’ve been setting my basal rate (rate of insulin delivered per hour throughout the day) to about 50% during the night while I sleep. Otherwise, I go low. This amuses me for some reason, given my history of nasty night lows. I really wonder why my body does this at night.

Anyway, similarly, I’ve been increasing my basal rate to 125% of normal while I exercise and for a bit after. And this worked out fantastically today and yesterday. Friday, I didn’t adjust it (kept at 100%) and was high afterward.

My blood sugars aren’t completely awesome yet; there’s an adjustment period for figuring out the right basal rate, correction factor, and insulin/carb ratio. But the first guess at these rates is already a billion times better than how I was doing on that god awful 70/30 insulin.

And instead of taking 100 units of insulin a day, I’m already down to 60-65. YAY!

In other news, check out this fucking rat. My god, the TAIL. I just cannot get over that picture. A friend of a friend posted it on Facebook. This is R.O.U.S. come to life!!!