Pod Hockey

I was the sister of two hockey-playing brothers.  A rink rat.  I spent a lot of time at ice rinks and learned quite well how to amuse myself while there.

This little dude loves to run around the rink while sister practices.  He also loves to grab a stick and stick-handle whatever he can find.

One practice, he couldn't find anything, so I looked through my purse until I found a lone discarded pod at the bottom.  I give you...

... The Omni-puck.

Double the basal, double the fun. Not.

It was a lovely Thanksgiving afternoon.  Turkey et al had been consumed, insulin bolused, and the kiddos were outside playing a rousing game of soccer.

The adults were still gathered around the table, digesting our meal when it happened; the long, continuous screech of death which tells you diabetes has decided to screw with your holiday.

As I jumped to my feet, I realized that it was not possible for me to be hearing Elise's pod, since she was outside.  Either I had developed the hearing of an owl or the PDM was the source.  Sure enough; PDM error.  Still sucky, just not as sucky as a pod failure.

For you non-podders (or podders who have never encountered this), when you get a PDM error, the pod will continue to deliver the basal, even though the PDM (once reset) won't recognize the pod that is being worn.  This was great because we were a ways off from dessert, and I didn't want to interupt Elise's soccer game.

I reset the PDM, and when Elise came inside, we changed her pod.  As per our usual routine, she left the old pod on until we could put baby oil on the adhesive to get it off.

The rest of the evening, Elise hovered on the low side.  I ran negative temp basals, bolused for half of more pie, and still she remained stayed low-ish (80s - according to the CGM).

When we got home, I turned off her basal entirely; since we had been free-basing smarties the whole ride home.  I think her basal stayed off for almost three hours.  She came up to about 100.  I was worried about ketones developing (since she wasn't receiving any insulin), so I turned on her basal at 50%.  She went low again.

That night, Fred and I were up checking her almost every 30 minutes.  We alternated between turning off/down her basal and giving her carbs. I was flummoxed... how could she be receiving no insulin, eating smarties and her BG still go DOWN?

Any pod people care to chime in here?

Finally at 6:00 am, I sat bolt upright in bed after just laying down from a BG check and subsequent smartie-feeding.  I yelled, "THE OLD POD!  IT'S THE OLD POD!  IT'S STILL DELIVERING BASAL INSULIN!!!"  I ran to Elise's room, turned the basal off completely on the new pod and gave Elise 12g of yogurt.  Finally, she rose above 100 and stayed there.

Remember this picture from this post a few days ago?  That was this night.

The funny thing is, right before I woke up to check her at 6:00 am, I had a dream that Fred and I were driving down a highway and passed two factories right next to each other.  The factories were somewhat dome-like and both had chimneys with smoke rising from each one.  I remarked to Fred how strange it was to see smoke from both chimneys, because usually there was smoke from one or the other; not both at the same time.

Looks like Lenny and Harold are alive and well. Maybe next time guys, help me figure out my mistake a little earlier, mmmkay?

Yes Elise, there really is a smaller pod

About 5 minutes after I hit "publish" on my last post, a medium sized brown box appeared on our doorstep.

From my blog, to UPS's ears... am I right?

The next day, I called OP and they overnighted the PDM to me.

We are excited to give these a go, but we have a box or so of the old pods to get through first.

But they're here.

And she's ready. 

Giddy up.

Rock, meet hard place

Have you heard the big news?  Omnipod has started transitioning existing customers to the new pod.

I mean, apparently.  I have heard such stirrings in the DOC, but like the mythical Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot, I haven't seen it with mine own eyes.

I have made several calls to everyone I can think of, trying to find out when Elise's turn is.  You see, we are running out of pods, and I'll be damned if I'm going to order another shipment of the old ones.

I've been told that our turn will come when it's time for our next automatic reorder.  And that's where we fall through the cracks.  For some reason, the company we order from can't seem to get us on auto-ship. No biggie... before now, I'd just make a note on my calendar and order when our time came.

We had enough pods to skip an order, so I did just that.  Worried that we'd be forgotten, I put calls in to OP, and our supplier; only to get the run-around that is leaving me exhausted.

According to our supplier, they will not ship out the new pods until OP has sent us an email and the new PDM with instructions for training.  And according to OP, they won't send the PDM until we get our new shipment of pods from the supplier.  Calls back and forth to each company, gave me no resolution, and although I love making numerous phone calls a day in between the laundry, cleaning, butt wiping, meal preparing, diaper changing, nursing, baby food making, bathing, dressing, refereeing, bill paying crap (not to mention diabetes related care); it was getting ridiculous.

It was a very frustrating case of "Chicken or the Egg".  And last week, finally, I had enough.

I called our supplier and told them that I would not be hanging up until someone there would send me a shipment of the new pods, thankyouverymuch.

After pleading my case, finally I was rewarded with a yes!  YES!

Of course our prescription had expired, and they needed new paperwork from our insurance... but all that has now been taken care of and apparently the pods are in the mail.

But... like everything on this journey to the new pods, I'll believe it when I see it.

Why diabetes sucks today... vol. 1

See all those pods? They are all the pods we've gone through since last Wednesday. I took that picture last night, and in that time period, we should have only gone through two pods.

TWO.

If I can still count correctly, there are eight pods in that picture. We went through four of them in one night.

Two fell off with minimal effort.

One wouldn't fill with insulin.

And one just never worked at all.  Elise's BG went from 245 to 475 during the three hours she wore it, all the while receiving almost an extra unit of insulin AND running an 80% temp basal.

On that night, Elise went through three pod changes and two shots.  In a span of six hours.  She's my rockstar.

(the reason some of the pods are written on is so I can remember what the issue was with that particular pod)

All the pods have been called in.  Omnipod is wonderful to deal with in that respect.

I get it. Products fail, crap happens.

It just makes your head explode when it happens to your child.

And THAT... is why diabetes sucks today.  

Just call me MacGyver

That, my friends, is a lot of tape.  It worked though... this pod made it the full three days. 

And don't forget to leave a comment on my Special Sib of a D-Kid post if you want to win this.  Adorable boy giving the stink-eye NOT included...

State of the pump address

We are a few days shy of our 3 month-aversary of pumping, and I thought I'd share a few of my thoughts about the whole process.

The beginning was hard. I think that's well documented on my blog. I think our difficulty was spawned by our very unique circumstances... moving from NPH and diluted insulin to a pump. I think I was very unprepared for it, which made it even more difficult.

Once we got her settings figured out (for the time being), it was like some sort of BG nirvana. Being able to temp basal instead of feeding at night has been awesome. We love the freedom. We love that you can't even tell Elise is wearing a pump. We love being able to say yes to cake and pizza at 2:00 in the afternoon.

When we started experiencing the pump-change highs, I wrote this post. Thankfully, my distress call was answered by the awesome DOC and we're pretty close to figuring out the pre-bolus/temp basal combo we need to combat those highs.

We've had our share of alarming pods. Sadly they always seem to happen mere hours after I've just changed her pump. Elise is amazing when it comes to pump changes, but two in the span of 4 hours is more than any little girl can bear. Otherwise we haven't had any bent cannulas or bleeders. Once we did have a pod fall off right after we changed it.

We miss our dex. I think it would really help us out when it comes to tweaking... but Elise still says no, and I'm okay with it. What I don't miss are the buzzing and beeping! One noisy device is enough!

Then came the lows. Wow were they bad. Looking back I'm pretty sure the culprit was a sneaky tummy bug. I say sneaky because there doesn't really appear to be anything wrong with you, except you feel kind of nauseous. Elise kept telling me her tummy hurt, which is something she says when she's low. So I totally missed that she was ill. Bad mom.

I have learned that with pumping, you carry a bigger burden than when on MDI. You have the capability to tweak to your heart's content, but that can be overwhelming. How do you know what the trouble-maker is? Basal? I:C? Correction factor? Something that has nothing to do with settings (illness, growth spurt, stress, etc.)? I have a love/hate relationship with this aspect of pumping.

I've been asked if I wished we had started pumping a long time ago. My answer is no. We waited over three years after Elise was dx'd to start pumping, and it was the perfect time for us. I was able to learn so much from the DOC, and I felt like we chose the right pump for us.

Once upon a time, Omnipod was not even on our radar as a pump choice. We were all set to go with another company, when I started hearing some unpleasant things about their pump. So we contacted Omnipod, and as I met with the rep and CDE, I was blown away at how we were treated as customers. They truly care for Elise. I cannot say enough about how well we have been treated.


And that's our pumping story so far. We love it. Elise loves it. If you charted all of our ups and downs it would look a dexcom graph on a bad day, but we wouldn't change it for anything... Right Elise?

Pod change highs

Well, it's been almost two months since we started pumping, and things have been much better after a very rocky start.

(That is until, as you all predicted, those lows that we were having turned into heinous highs when the full-extent of Elise's illness showed it's ugly face and that coupled with the craziness of Christmas her numbers have been so coo-coo bananas that I don't even know where to start to fix them).

Holy run-on sentence, Batman.

Anyway, the one issue that is vexing me every three days is those pesky post-pod-change highs. Elise skyrockets into the 300s and doesn't come down for a looooong time; sometimes it can take up to 8 hours.

I don't think it's due to stress. Elise is pretty cool when it comes to changing the pod. I hand her the PDM and she presses the button like it's no big deal.

We also usually do it right before a meal, so I can give her a big-ass bolus. Take today for example:

She was 108 pre-change. We had an issue, and had to discard two pods, so the change took a bit longer than usual, but she was only "disconnected" for 10 minutes.

I bolused her for her dinner, plus another .5 of a unit for good measure. That's a lot of insulin for Elise... a dose like that should drop her by about 125.

She ate, and two hours later was at 340. I corrected and 2 hours after that she was at 359. BLERGH!

I'm hesitant to give her too much insulin because we're without the dex, and I find I am so much more cautious when I don't have a continuous flow of numbers to help guide me. I'm also less aggressive with corrections.

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? Should I bolus her more? Do a change when it's NOT a meal time? Do a temp basal after I change? Does anyone have any tips that have helped them with this? And is this just a pod issue, or do kids who wear Animas or Medtronic also go through this with site changes?

Help me DOC, you're my only hope!

(yeah... I'm a nerd. So?)

Missing the in-between

We are going on day 5 without our trusty dexcom, and I have to say I'm handling it better than I had expected. After being bombarded with a constant stream of information for almost 1 1/2 years, my world has become a little dimmer. Finger pokes allow only little glimpses of what is happening in Elise's body.

I won't lie to you... It has been really hard. Especially in the middle of the night when foggy, sleep-deprived brains are trying to make decisions.

We pulled our sensor on Friday, after four days of the dex giving us the middle finger by way of the ???. On the last day, I think we got 3 full hours of actual data (not consecutive hours, mind you). Friday night to Sunday afternoon were awful due to two pod failures. I miss correcting and seeing that downward arrow to let you know that it's working.

We've had a run of bad luck with our pods... we went through 7 this weekend (not all of them made it onto Elise's body). When we'd get a working pod, we would see some beautiful numbers... although having lived with the CGM for this long, I have to wonder what's going on in the in-between.

As of now, we have no plans to put it back on anytime soon. With the addition of the pod, Elise's skin is a MESS. There is just no real estate left on her tiny body.

But I miss it. Who knew one could love a piece of technology so much?

And we're live in 3... 2... 1

Today, as of 5:06 pm, we are officially pod people. Two hours after our first bolus we're sitting at 383. We almost NEVER see numbers like that and me no likey.

I know it's a learning curve. I know I can't expect to have the same control as I used to at first... but maaaaaaan. Seeing that number is like a punch to the gut. My brain is itching to figure out what went wrong.

But for now, I have a little girl who is absolutely ecstatic over not getting a shot at dinner for the first time in over three years. And that is enough to make me not obsess over that number.

For now.

A1Cs, pumps and other D stuff

Thanks for all the comments on the last post... that is indeed an omnipod, but we're just doing the saline trial right now. We also have an appointment with Animas next week. We're pretty excited about pumping and I'm glad we waited until Elise was ready. She's been GREAT through the whole process, saying "that wasn't bad at all!" after the omnipod was inserted.

I believe we found the culprit to those sucktacular numbers from last week. Bad insulin. All 4 vials at the same time. Freaking Texas heat.

We raised $417 at the Chick-fil-a fundraiser a few weeks ago... almost 100 people (including a whole bunch of D-families) came out to "Eat Mor Chikin" with us. Thank you to Mark, Tracy and the entire staff at Chick-fil-a Southlake for taking such good care of us!

And I saved the best for last... today was our endo appointment and I knew our A1C would be pretty good; at least as good as the 6.7 from last time. And I was not disappointed... 6.4, our lowest yet!

So that's what has been happening around here... I've pretty much fallen off the face of the earth in terms of blogging and reading/commenting lately. I'm hoping I can catch up with everybody SOON!

Guess how we celebrated Elise's 3rd D-anniversary?

I'll give you a hint...