Pumpie, and Dex

It has finally happened!!!
I have my insulin pump and my continuous glucose monitor (CGM) hooked up and working!  I love them.  The CGM is great since I don't notice when my blood sugar is low until it is REALLY low (we're talking in the 30s or lower here :O )  For those lucky readers who know nothing about diabetes, your blood sugar is supposed to be from about 70 or 80 to about 140.  You may have experienced what I like to call hungry feeling.  If you experience this you often get hot, unable to think hard or focus, shaky, and of course super hungry, usually for sugary foods.  This feeling means your body is experiencing a low blood sugar.  Your body can usually correct this and most healthy people would not pass out or die from this, however a person with diabetes takes insulin to bring blood sugar down, which when too much is taken can result in an extreme low causing the person to pass out and even die.  In fact we (diabetics) have to carry a special syringe with us incase we pass out from a low, kind of like an EPI pen only ours gives our body the quick burst of energy it needs.  I have never passed out (knock on wood!) though I have been as low as 27 :O (yikes!)   Like I mentioned above I don't notice my lows until I am really low, this feels awful and isn't good either.  Enter Dex, my continuous glucose meter.  This handy little invention goes under my skin and sends a blood sugar reading to a hand held device every 5 minutes.  It shows me trends which are helpful in adjusting my insulin doses as well as to know when I must eat.  Twice my CGM has alerted me of an impending low before the symptoms hit, allowing me to eat some quick carbs and fix the problem before I started to feel like crap!

Dex

My next new "toy" is pumpie, my lovely insulin pump.  The pump has a little tube that goes into me and stays there, hooked up to a little device that has insulin in it and can give me insulin throughout the day without any pokes!  I also have the ability to enter my carbs that I eat to get insulin for my food.  Before my pump I used to have to give myself a shot every time I ate, this tended to drive me away from food.  For instance with dinner say we are having pasta, I would have to decide at the beginning how much I would eat and then give myself the insulin needed.  inevitably I would wind up still hungry and want another serving or "surprise" there is super yummie chocolate cake for desert.  When this would happen I would either have to deny myself the delicious food (not a great idea when you are trying to gain weight) or give myself yet another shot. (not a whole lot of fun)   With the pump all of that is gone, I can now eat and eat and eat without a single shot, just a few pushes of buttons on pumpie and boom more insulin is sent right into me!

Chocolate cake you say?  Bring it on!!!!

My lovely pump

How my pump hooks into me

Sweet!

I'm in the hospital once again.  Had a fever, got worse told to go to the ER to have tests, stupidly went to local hospital ER and not hospital with my cf team's ER, got admitted, given antibiotics, responded to them, feeling better, ready to go home, fully capable of continuing IVs at home if need be, Nausea mostly gone as of mid last week!

 The speed version and now you are up to date, wasn't that nice! 

So of course I have a long story to tell.

You are correct you know me too well!

My blood sugar issues are proving to be quite a problem.  My doctor here seems to think my blood sugar is extremely unmanaged and needs to be controlled before I am let out.  Unfortunately this guy has only just met me 3 days ago and I have a, shall I say complicated medical history.  We have explained that my sugars are crazy, don't make much sense, that we are working on them with my docs and that (controlling my sugars) should not be the main focus of this hospital stay.  Do I agree that my blood sugars are not being managed perfectly? YES of course!  I am not of fan of running in the high 300s at least once a day but things are moving in the right direction.  We have finally gotten my lows to be nearly eliminated which are far worse feeling and much riskier than my highs and my highs, for the most part have been lower than they have been.  We don't have the right plan yet but we are making progress and with anything new it takes time to adjust to it and get it right.  Plus if my possessive (in a caring way) transplant team, who I saw a mear 2 weeks ago and who were able to save my life by giving me new lungs and then save it again when said lungs didn't work right away, are okay enough to let me go over 1000 miles away from them, then I'm going to trust them in this situation, instead of the doc who ordered my meds at the complete wrong times (putting meds that interact badly together and trying to have me take my enzymes when I'm not eating anything) and asked me this morning if CF effects my absorption (uh yeah!).  I certainly don't  agree that my sugars warrent a 3 day and counting gig in the ICU.  Unfortunately between my mother, my father and myself, we are not getting through and this is one girl who knows when to put up the white flag. So I have earned another ride on the blood sugar coaster at the CF transplant world fun park!  At least on the plus side when this is all said and done I will have perfected my multi-all nighter with periodic power nap skills, as hourly blood sugar checks are a great training tool in the hopefully up and coming sport, hey maybe I'll get gold!  (Yes the Olympics are on right now and yes I do watch both the prime time and the repeats most nights as that is just about the only decent thing to watch on the hospital tv at 2:30 in the morning!)

I'm not so sure good night is the appropriate way to end this thing,  but as it is the middle of what free (aka out there, no not hippie, the free, in the world, not stuck in the hospital) type people call night and I have a cat nap to be getting to I will leave it at that, good night.