It showed up on our doorstep around 4pm on Christmas Eve - how magical is that? Pretty green, white and orange boxes lined with medical advancement goodies for us to help keep our little diabetic safely in range - or at least respond more quickly and with more knowledge than we've been able to in the last year.
The transmitter was a little large than I was expecting - but I suppose never having actually SEEN the Dexcom 7 (that was the previous version - this version, the G4 platinum was just released about 2 months ago) I'm not sure why I would understand or know what to expect in the first place. Sometimes you just make things up in your brain, I tend to roll with it. I'm often wrong. It's ok, I'm very accepting of the way this works.
Here we have the transmitter - the 'little' gray chip that connects to the set (see that creepy looking medieval looking torture device that is sure to terrify young children and adults alike? That's what we use to attach her Dexcom CGM set, fun right?) and sends wireless data from her cells blood sugar readings to that nifty ipod looking receiver.
The insertion seemed easy enough, when you don't really count the wiggly, scared 4 year old that you can to place this thing on, and really DO NOT want to mess up, because you will not be forgiven for a very long time if you have to stab a darn wire into someones stomach twice.
Ok I make it sound awful - but in reality we're pinching up on the fat stores on her little tummy, it doesn't go very deep so we're (theoretically and in the act ATTEMPTING...) to stay away from any nerves or muscles and only inject in the fat cells. When we originally tried a trial run on the Animas Ping pump, both my husband and myself put a set on ourselves for a few days to see what it really felt like so we could gauge reality with a screaming 4 year old who naturally doesn't like needles. I mean, honestly, if you could just scream every time something pinched you and someone else was behind the proverbial steering wheel don't tell me you wouldn't feel better about it. I would. Sadly, it's not really socially acceptable and we're told as adults to suck it up.
Anyway, it's a small pinch. It's not as bad as it looks. That isn't to say it's comfortable, but it's no worse than the things Max throws at her head almost daily either. So we persevere and keep going.
I tried to prep her through conversation, but apparently didn't do too well, because when I pressed down on the set (which is frustratingly NOT spring loaded, so it takes a minute to pull out.. ugh) to insert the wire she flipped the f out. Understandable, it doesn't feel good and this probably feels differently than her normal set - not quite as fast, not quite as fluid. It scared the crap out of me! I went stoic and finished up as quickly as I could so I wouldn't scare her with my 'omg I just totally stabbed my child with a wire and it clearly scarred her for LIFE' expression.
After a few minutes I was forgiven, Squinkies were given as reward, and we (impatiently) waited for the 2 hours necessary for the information to start flowing on the new fancy G4 screen.
The good news about these sets, according to what is FDA approved vs what many many diabetics (and even doctors) have mentioned - these little gadgets (the sets) can actually work if all of the planets align anywhere from 7 (FDA approved) to 10 or even *14* days. Yeah. People have successfully re-booted the transmitter (which auto-shuts off after 7 days, since that's how long the FDA approved/tested for) for an entire extra WEEK. I felt like 7 days was awesome after knowing we change her pump sets every 2-3 days already. 7 days felt like a huge relief. But after doing some research, I may see how we do on 10 days. It took us about 2 days before we really starting seeing relatively accurate readings (meter vs CGM).
The good news? It's prevented (through alarming us) roughly 6 lows already.
Yep. 6. That's huge. Lows she didn't have to reach because the CGM warned us it was coming.
YES.
That is gold, diabetic parent GOLD. I really couldn't explain it better if I tried.
Sadly, prior to all of the illness we suffered in December (lets just it was pretty much all of December between stomach flu, respiratory cold/fever virus, and an ear infection) caused us to increase her insulin amounts over the course of 3 weeks and now we're "healthy" - she's crashing back down and I'm trying to reduce responsibly, even a little aggressively but she's still having more lows in day than she'd had in 3 weeks before all of this hooplah.
Good timing for the CGM. I'm still working out some kinks, but so far I'm so happy to have it. Not only has it prevented a few things - but seeing a lovely graph over 1, 3, 6, or 12 hours helps me TREMENDOUSLY to see what her insulin (especially at night - basals) are doing. Before this CGM, I knew that she dropped heavily "some time" between 2am-8am. But where to make the change and when to ease up? I could only guess. Today I know for a fact, that drop happens at approximately 4:45am. Meaning I can head it off with less insulin 4:30am-6:30am and she shouldn't wake up low or have any early morning lows once I find the perfect dosing period.
This is tremendously helpful. It's like getting a cheat-sheet before a big test.
Well, her diabetes is sort of the biggest test I have day to day, so I'll take these cheat sheets and proudly use them.
We're only on day 3 of use, but I can see what a helpful, amazing aid this is going to be. Especially as we learn more about it's little tweeks, how to really dive into these graphs and use them to find the best ratios for her, and that annoying, beautiful alarm is a huge bonus.
Maybe one day I'll be able to not set my own alarm once we settled into a reliable routine now and then? The night time alarm is pretty awesome, even more so if we place the receiver next to a baby monitor :)
I'll keep the updates coming as we learn more, for now though, I'm optimistic. (Well, about everything but the next CGM set change, but we have to do what we have to do....).
Belated Merry Christmas to you all!
