First Impressions...

As of today we've been 'pumping' for all of 5.5 days. It's been a little trial (and some error), but the general swing of things seems to be going relatively smoothly compared to what I was preparing myself for. We still have glitches we're going to need to work out, set changes that will go array, and the battle over taking the old set off (baby oil + hot bath are our friends - unfortunately we do that at night time, which isn't ideal for a new set because we need a few hours to be sure it's working properly!). Overall, though, I really can't complain.

I especially can't complain because my little girl LOVES her pump. I mean literally, she loves it. She talks about it all of the time, and about how great it is. She shows it off. She is pretty careful with it (for a 4 year old), she listens to the 'rules'. She expresses how happy she is that she doesn't need shots every day any more.

So really, who can complain about that? Like I said - it's not all puppies and rainbows, I may or may not have messed up a set and done a new one a few hours later that was questionable (but probably fine, but who knows?), I may have given too much or too little here with insulin - but generally, her few lows have been less severe (we haven't had anything below 59! That is HUGE for us! Mostly mid-60s if they're lows now which is much preferred to 40s). We've had a few highs which we're working the kinks out on, generally night time has been a little easier - we just have to get the dosing right and we should be doing pretty well.

It's early. I don't feel like throwing it out of a moving car, smashing it with a hammer, or anything else crazy yet. I hope this sticks. I want to knock on wood and hope the kinks we're seeing in the process that we're trying to iron out are the worst. It's a little frustrating but I knew there would be weird changes needed and to just roll with it. Not be afraid to keep giving and just watch what happens and learn from it.

It's been nice for us, and great for her!

Frank told me last night that Sierra had a little conversation with him about it last night - something to the effect of:

Sierra: "Daddy I don't have any diabetes any more because I have a pump now!"
Frank: "Oh, well sweetie you'll always have diabetes, but we don't have to do shots every day now, and that's great right?"
Sierra: *thinks about this* "Oh. Well. Yeah I guess that's ok because I love my pump and it's ok as long as I get to keep it FOREVER".

Sad and cute all at once.  What an awesome kid.

And so the journey continues...

Tomorrow is the day.

That's right! It's arrived... our pump start date.

For the last week, Frank, myself and even Sierra have worn her Animas Ping pump during our one week 'saline' trial. Where we learn how to properly load, inject a set (more on that later) and most importantly, see what it's like to be hooked up 24/7 (oh, and how to use all of the fancy buttons and functions of course).

This has been a long process for me, mentally and emotionally, I think. A lot of internal stuff going on, but while part of me feels a little sad to see the tube coming out of her little bum-cheek, a bigger part of me sees a little hope. A little more freedom. More flexibility (for her AND us). More control over smaller doses to help us when 1/2 a unit is just a little too much with a regular shot, but finding the right 'in-between' is a guessing game at best.

So far, I'm pretty amped about this change. Sierra had her set put on last night for the first time, and she was AMAZING about it. No numbing. No moving, she was awesome. She even said it didn't hurt (wow really? I felt a little sting when I had mine put on my tummy!). She's had it on since and been very good about it. She carries the pump in a child-sized "spibelt". Sort of like a tight, small fanny-pack that is popular with runners to keep their stuff on them w/o it bouncing around with each step.

She didn't like sleeping with it on, which I get, there are clips holding it together that are hard, so we let it just hang out, and it worked (fingers crossed here, knock on wood). She's at school today... I'm interested to hear how it goes :)

Anyway... tomorrow is the big one. We go into the doctors office and they work on all of her numbers with us and we go LIVE. We put insulin in and she's "shot free" aside from the every 2-3 day set injection we have to do with the pump cannula.

Here's the skinny on sets... essentially it's a slightly larger needle with a small cannula (tube) attached to it. We do a quick inject (the sets come with something that does this for us w/ the press of a button, more or less) and then pull the needle out and the tube stays in, then we attach tubing from her pump to the set. It's awesome! One click you're in! You can remove the tube/pump attachment and just keep the set in (safely) so she can get in water or whatever - even though it's water proof there isn't any real reason for us to keep it on her for a 15-20 minute bath here and there. Nevermind the ocean - sand trap!

I'm excited for this next step, even while I'm cautious and a little wary. This is not the end-all-be-all, but it's the best I feel we have right now, and hopefully I'm right and the switch from MDI (Multiple Daily Injections) to the pump will be a positive thing for Sierra and our family.

Sadly, this will not diminish or stop my nightly checks (Yep, still doing that!), but I'll have some options available through the pump now that can hopefully keep me from having to wake her for any issue. She can sleep peacefully if she's high while I instruct the pump to give her a little extra insulin, or I can slow down her constant trip if she's moving out of her safe-range and night so that she doesn't drop any lower (ie: I won't have to shove grapes in her half-sleeping mouth!).

These are good things. I anticipate (and have been told in all truthfullness to anticipate) that there will be a rough few weeks. Some have said I may feel like throwing the damn thing out the window after a week or two - but to stay strong, to know it's just a minor bump in a lifetime of aid.

I'm going to try and go in with that. Know that I will probably mess up, but I will learn, and I will learn as fast as humanly possible. For Sisi.

Wish us luck!

File this under 'bonehead'.

Well, I finally discovered the tricky problem we'd been having about Sierra's "mysterious" non-sense making highs post-lunch time at school until evening, when she'd drop low all night.

Despite my husbands request that I try to find a day to go with Sierra to school all day to observe and see what was going on, I had somehow convinced myself that would be futile. Not just futile but I'd all spend all day looking for everything wrong and stress myself out doing so.

Wow, I was wrong. Oops? Lesson learned. It's my fault she kept having the ongoing issue twice a week that hopefully (at least the nurses tell me it won't) harm her long term at all since it was only a few times a week for a couple of months. Still, I definitely have the guilt, but it's mixed with great elation and happiness that we discovered a very boneheaded mistake on my part was essentially causing the problem and now it's 100% addressed and she's back to normal. Just like that.

So what was it?

Well... so let me back up here. When I first trained and sent Sierra back to preschool for a few months I did all of the shots, went over I thought everything (and probably 'mentioned' that there were 2 kinds of insulin, however - since they'd only ever need to give her short acting at meal times I didn't go very deeply into that portion). As they started taking over the lunch time shots I sent only her Humalog (short acting) insulin to school because there was really no reason for both.

Then I got a nifty 'wallet' made by a friends grandma for Sierra's insulated lunch box "D-kit" and decided to include both kinds of insulin because there was special spaces for everything and that way if we ever wanted to just go out after school pick up I'd always have things for dinner if we needed it (when she gets her 24 hour dose of Lantus).

Brilliant! So I just started sticking it in there.

Major flaw? I neglected to make note of this to the teacher who does her shots. I didn't point it out. They both just say "insulin" on them. No indication beyond that. So... despite the different colored labels one would probably innocently assume I just put extra insulin in there as backup. Maybe we were trading brands? The vials are similar, I didn't mention it, so it must not have been all that important.

D'oh on me. Big time.

Live and learn.... live and learn. This is a constant adaption process, I'm just trying to keep up.

I'm glad we found the problem, even if it took longer than it should have and unnecessarily stressed us all out more times than it needed to. Moving forward...