Monday, July 30, 2007

I'm a REAL pumper now

I have been pumping with Jeeves for almost three months now and am starting to get used to it. I am still tweaking things, but I may actually be getting to a point where I don't have to test at three a.m. every night which is, of course, lovely.

Before I started pumping I did a lot of research. I poured over the literature for the different pumps, I read Pumping Insulin from cover to cover, and I spent months reading blogs to get an feel for the personal side of wearing a pump. One event I have been looking forward to with apprehension is the first time I get the tubing caught on something and yank the infusion set out. It was bound to happen sometime; I was always getting caught on things without a pump, so that tubing was bound to get me in trouble. I tend to slide into chairs and am always getting my shirt caught up as a result. I manage to catch the drawer pulls in the kitchen with my pants pockets as I go past. In summary, I am not an entirely graceful sort of girl, so I have been surprised at my luck so far. Not that I haven't had plenty of near misses. Twice I have even had the pump swinging a foot from the ground by the tubing, with nothing holding it up but the tape on the infusion set. Impressive.

Last night it happened. Yesterday we had our annual family reunion/picnic and as the 20 something girl somehow became my job to entertain all the small children. After three hours straight of running from monsters of every description, which included a robotic baby and a dragon with a stick body and gorrilla arms (?), I finally got to go home and collapse. Face down on the couch I reached back to massage my lower back and managed to flip off my infusion set. I have to explain that the tape had managed to fold itself over on one side, and had been too lazy (and cheap) to redo it, seeing as it was absorbing fine. It didn't hurt a bit, although have my back was suddenly coated with blood. I know there wasn't that much, so how does it get everywhere?

So that's my story. Pitiful, but somehow it's more official now that I have had my first gusher.

6 comments:

AmyT said...

Hi Emily,

Congrats on becoming a pumper!

Have you found me yet over at www.diabetesmine.com?

All the best,
AmyT

Chrissie in Belgium said...

Hi, I was checking out the new members of the D OC and found you! WELCOME! I have had a pump since September 2004! I STILL am totally in love with it. Yeah, ripped out cannulas - this is part of the whole pumping thing. The book "Think Like a Pancreas" by Gary Scheiner was the book I poured over when I first got my pump.

eu said...

I work at dLife and I was wondering if you would like to be added to our diabetes blogger email list? Every week we send a fun video clip about diabetes. If you are interested, please contact me at urbahn at dlife dot com. Thanks!

Judloved said...

good way to create joy in this disease chonic, well done elise ...

Unknown said...

suffer from a chronic disease that is the back pain and I have already four years living with it, it's hard to say but the pains are intense and I have an 8 year old son asking if I can recover and get out of my bed to go for a walk with them park as a family ...

Jeff said...

Hi Emily,

I was wondering if you accepted any guest posting on your site. I couldn’t manage to find your email on the site. If you could get a hold of me at jeff@drugwatch.com, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks,
-Jeff