Insulin went into the pump on October 21st. We had our last meeting with Jenny in SF and she got us rolling with everything hooked up and working.
I could write 28 pages on the pump, but most of it wouldn't make any sense to you, so I won't waste anyone's time.
He gets insulin 24 hours a day. We have made changes to the amount of insulin twice already this week. For a quick example, every hour he will get .125 units of insulin. Hardly any - but yet some! Remember, we are trying to mimic the human pancreas the best we can. We have since increased his hourly insulin for certain hours of the day to .175. Seems like a tiny amount, and it is, but that's what this is all about ... Tiny adjustments until we get it right. We also changed his lunch carb ratio from 40 to 35 and back to 40 as he has been going low in the afternoon at school.
Low sugar is something we haven't had to deal with much. Trey's always ran high and the scary thing now is, we were comfortable with that. We were ok with 250. Shame!!!! With the pump, our new target is 100-150. In the last 6 months we haven't seen numbers in this range much and when he would get to 150, we gave him food to increase his sugar.
With the pump, we have been having some lows. Not scary, bad lows, but numbers under 100. A couple things here: 1) his mood is sooooo much better when he is under 150 2) mom's mood is sooooo much better when he's under 150 and 3) We are no longer OK with seeing 250 on his CGM readings. I have been trying to catch his lows before we hit 70's so we can provide a snack to bring him up instead of juice. I really hate it when he has juice because he goes from under 100 to 300 in 20 minutes. It's what the CDE's want to happen -- a fast rise, but I personally hate it because it causes such a mood swing that I almost need a Jagbomb to deal with him. Lows will be something we need to keep an eye out for and it's very common with people on the pump.
We were so accustomed to Trey's meltdowns that we started to just figure that's how he's going to be. Well we know now first hand that high blood sugar messes up your emotions. Uncle Jeff has made comments about that before, but until we actually got Trey in the right range with GOOD blood sugars, we didn't really see it. Now we do.
He wears the pump on one hip and the CGM on the other. I ordered him a SPIbelt so he can put them together in this nifty belt but it seems to be causing some problems with the tubing on the pump getting kinked (which leads to insulin not being given correctly). He is able to sleep with the pump on and it doesn't cause him any grief which is nice. He isn't a fan of changing the site every 3 days, but he says it's better than four shots a day in the tummy.
Today they are having a "holiday party" at school and they made a Witch's Brew. I've worked very close with the nurse and teacher to be sure Trey get's to participate in this. We are looking at roughly 25-35 grams of carbs of shit like cereal, chips, and candy. I cringe when I think about it, but I also realize that it's a MUST that he participates. We will be giving insulin to cover this snack-mess. He's a kid first .. Diabetic second. Enjoy your party buddy!!
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