Thursday, July 5, 2007

Pumping Away!

The morning of PUMP DAY has finally arrived and I'm happily basaling away!!! Last night I laid out the pump paraphernalia that I would need with me:



And took my last shot of Lantus for the foreseeable future:



I won't miss the Lantus a bit - every time I injected it burnt and I was getting sick of drawing blood every now and again - you are going to be much easier to break up with than my Novolog Pen.

I arrived at the Naomi Berrie center on 168th street at about 8am and was starving. Having taken only 5 units of lantus last night had my blood sugar running a bit high but that was to be expected. I met with Leigh and we set my settings and inserted the infusion set! Since I had done the earlier trial with the Minimed pump I only needed 1 appointment to set up. Right now I only have 2 basal rates, .35 from midnight to 4am and .4 for all other times. This process really is fascinating and I'm excited to see how my body reacts to different types of activities. It will be alot easier to do long periods of strenuous exercise now since I won't have to devour countless Carb Booms and Cliff Bars to maintain my bs.

At 9am my bs was 140 - I bought a blueberry muffin and a large coffee at the corner coffee truck and headed back up to the office. I delivered my first bolus with the purple pancreas and did GMAT problems for the next hour and 1/2 at the center. At 10:30 my bs was 170 - I always have a problem covering for muffins (note to calorie king - you need more muffin examples in the database!). Leigh said she'd rather have me high to start than low so I was free to leave and go to work. I just checked my blood sugar at 1pm and had a bs of 69 (guess it wasn't the lasting effects of my cold that made me feel shaky). Perhaps I need to lower my basal rate during midday but that will be shown over time. I did miss having to go into the bathroom to shoot myself in the stomach with my trusty novlog pen but I think I just might be able to get used to sitting in my chair, hitting a button and eating without having to retuck my shirt pretty easily. This is going to be alot of fun!

Tomorrow I will finally reveal why I decided to have a purple pancrease.

6 comments:

Shannon said...

Congratulations on the pump start!!

Bernard said...

Congrats. My 4-year old son would be proud of you. His favorite color is purple!!

Scott S said...

Good luck with the pump ... the key is getting your basal rates set properly, once those are ok, the rest is much easier. You might also benefit by joining the Insulin Pumpers listserv (www.insulin-pumpers.org) for a lot of input from seasoned pros.

Dances with Corgis said...

Yay!

Are the batteries to the pump rechargable? Would they ever die on you in the middle of the night or something? Would it alert you to that?

Muffins I would imagine are tough just because they are ALL carbs and sugar. Think about those ones at the Runcible spoon, I bet they have a zillion carbs.

I am so psyched for you!! :)

Dances with Corgis said...

Also, while I am asking questions, can you explain the difference between a basal and a bolus? I am assuming a basal is with the pump and the bolus is with the pen?

Major Bedhead said...

Congratulations!!

Good luck with it - sounds like you've had a pretty smooth start.