Media-crity

I’m sorry I’ve been MIA. Between long work days, going out of town, and no real good news to share, time has gotten away from me.

Friday I had a follow-up with my endocrinologists office for my pump. My pulse rate is down to 72! What a huge improvement over my average of 110 just three weeks ago. The medication is finally working. My blood pressure is still low, but not dangerously so. Gayle, the wonderful nurse practitioner there (and fellow diabetic/pumper) was just amazed with my progress and how steady my blood sugars have been. I’m also amazed. I’m not used to such perfect readings! I also have more energy. Before it was hard enough for me to get through the work day without being completely exhausted. I would be counting the seconds until 5 pm from about 4 pm on. By the time I’d get home I was spent. This week, though, I worked a 16-hour day on Tuesday, then worked until 6 Wednesday and yesterday with barely a yawn. It’s a wonderful feeling.

Next she wants me to give the Continuous Glucose Monitoring System a try. It’s a sensor that goes under your skin and stays there for up to 3 days at a time. It monitors your glucose (continuously!) and sends the readings to the pump every 5 minutes or so. The pump will then alert you if it’s too low and requires treatment or too high and requires insulin. It’s not a “closed-loop” system at this point—meaning that it won’t just make decisions on its own. I still have to actually program the pump to deliver my insulin. It also requires daily calibration with a traditional blood glucose fingerstick. The technology is still pretty new so there are some kinks, it’s not always 100% accurate, it can be 10 minutes behind what the actual glucose is. This also means that insurance isn’t so keen on covering it and the sensors are relatively expensive. She’s going to really petition my insurance company for me, pointing to my retinopathy as a reason for needing even tighter control.