So.......Why are we pumping?....

You know it's time to question the pump decision when an endo looks at you and says, "You probably won't get a better A1C on the pump than you got with shots." This from the endo we saw today after reviewing the past two weeks of numbers on the pump. She was trying to persuade me that the 200's, 300's, 400's we've seen in the past two weeks aren't all that bad. When I tell her we didn't see those numbers using shots she gives us the line about the pump not being much better as far as bringing down an A1C in our case. So then I begin to question.....Why are we doing this to ourselves? We had a great system down with the shots. Not a bad A1C.....7.5. So yeah...I begin to ask WHY?

Especially since the past few nights have been pretty grueling with the pump. He comes down beautifully after dinner then proceeds to go sky high. Thus keeping us up most of the night giving corrections, checking ketones, and hoping and praying he comes down.

The lack of sleep combined with the lack of help from the endo and CDE made me a little snappy with them today. I wish I could retype some of the conversation we had, but my brain is fried. I will say that the bulk of the time I spent trying to get them to adjust night-time basals/corrections. She began to start on the daytime, but I quickly told her to fix the night.....FIX THE NIGHT!!!!! I need sleep. If I have sleep I can figure out the day. If I don't have sleep I'm not good for much, let alone trying to problem solve something with soooooo many variables. I thought with shots there were a lot of variables.....now with the pump we've added all the pump variables. It's just mind spinning.

Let me clue you in on one variable that through us for a loop last night. J.J. was at the park and comes running up to his dad saying the pump is beeping. Hubby looks at pump and it's completely reset. No basal information anymore, and there are a couple of warnings blaring. He calls me for all the basal settings so he can reset the pump.

I begin to freak. Why did it reset out of the blue? Why would it do that? Is it broken already? So I spend my "quiet house time" troubleshooting the incident. Turns out that insulin pumps are senstitive to static electricity...like most electronics. The plastic slides at parks, combined with J.J.'s nylon shorts pretty much shorted the thing out and caused it to "protect itself" and him from getting an accidental dosage. Who knew? I am so thankful for the internet....I figured out the problem in less than an hour. I discovered that to help prevent it from happening is to wrap the pump in a dryer sheet. Makes sense!!

But again......there's just one more thing to think about. Or how about tonight. I gave a bolus for a snack around five. A little over an hour later....325!! What? So I check the pump......seems that hubby used cold insulin this morning when he changed the set so there were tiny little bubbles in the reservoir and tubing. Those tiny little bubbles can make a huge difference in a kid only getting tiny little doses!! I used close to 20 units of insulin to get all the air bubbles out of the tubing!!:-(

So......yeah.....this pump thing is kickin' us!! I keep telling myself it will get better, and it will be worth it, but man.....I'm soooooo wanting to go back to the familiar.

O.K....this is just written out of tiredness....maybe I should try to sleep!!:-)