Thursday, March 1, 2012

Things I have learned from diabetes this month: February edition

-Make sure you enunciate when telling your daughter that you need to change her pull-up at 1:00 in the morning, or she will think you said pump and start to cry.

-Pump changes in the middle of the night two nights in a row suck. SUCK.

-And speaking of pump changes, they are now super easy thanks to bubble gum. I told Elise she can have a piece of (pink!) gum every time we change her pump. I give it to her before I start the change, and I always have a piece too. That way, I can blow bubbles (which I rock the casbah at) for her to pop after she presses start. No more tensing up, no more tears... awesome!

-Apparently, nobody uses the crap out of a meter like we do. On my Telcare BGM post, I received a couple of comments on the sorry state of our One Touch Mini. We've had that little dude since Elise was diagnosed 3 1/2 years ago. It has travelled to Kansas City, San Fransisco, Vancouver, and Portugal with us. We check it against the meter they use at our endo's office and it always is close enough (you know, by 20%), so we've just never replaced it. I've never even thought about it.

8 comments:

  1. love the gum idea! and i say, if it ain't broke don't fix it...lol..way to rock that world traveling meter!

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  2. But, but . . . Remember I called you a badass for keeping a meter that long. That's a c-o-m-p-l-i-m-e-n-t!

    And yes, enunciation is always a good thing. Like when I told the kids we were going to 'pump it up' little Benny responded, "who took a dump?"

    I love how you learn and reflect each month :)

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  3. Super cool idea with the gum! I thought that your meter looked like it had been a very well loved member of your family! xoxo

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  4. We used to do site changes at night, using EMLA and she would not wake up. Had to correct via shot and wait an hour to do the site change though. And she might or might not wake up with the shot. Popping bubbles is quicker..... so inventive! Site changes in general suck. Pumps have remained almost identical, as well as sets, from our DD's diagnosis about seven years ago until now. None of them are pain-free. Why not? Minimed just very recently made good on their promise to bring to market a smaller needle for their cgms (this was promised to us six years ago and I doubt would have happened without Dexcom competition). Still not available in the U.S. We need more competition on the pump front. Fastest growing age of new diagnosis is under five years. These babes and young children should not have to put up with this. Not that I'm not greatful we have access to pumps... just think the pump companies could give this more consideration.

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  5. omg i love the bubble gum idea. how did you come up with that? ingenious!

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  6. yeah for pink gum :) And oddly your meter looks a lot like the ones we have floating around here!

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  7. You know, after you posted that picture Sam Talbot (celebrity T1 chef) posted a video of his very well loved meter. You are in VERY good company there!

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  8. My meter is as old as the one you pictured... It's a Precision Xtra with the glow in the dark faceplate... (An older relative of your "blood ketone meter"... For those that are unaware, these suckers do both BG & blood ketone tests... You just have to buy both kinds of strips if you want to do both kinds of tests...) In Canada, they currently seem to be replacing the Precision Xtra with the Freestyle Neo, which essentially has the same capabilities...

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