Grrrrrrr need I say more!!!

At last we are getting good numbers some lows here and there but all in all pretty good numbers..then came last week one low after another ugggg..but we deal with it all is good got everything back on track and what happens last night??? I go in to test her at 2:30 am she is high a 358 high ..wow I go to give her a correction only to get a "no delivery" on her pump ...hummm I wonder if that was from before she went to bed that it didn't deliver and she didn't clear it out..ok so I try again, the pump is working fine and does the delivery..sleepy mom here goes back to bed..6am comes around she test 437 goes to correct again "no delivery" shows up on the pump..she test for ketones and a very lovely deep dark purple comes very quickly..sigh here we go I gab a needle give her a shot and on to call Medtronic. I don't know about anyone else but after dealing with diabetes for 4 1/2 years and her being on a pump for 4 years I get a bit annoyed when I keep getting asked questions that has nothing to do with the pump..like "when was the last time she tested, many times a day does she test, does she use tape on her sites, does she change her lancets..ect. I know these are the standard questions but geeeze it gets a bit much sometimes and when your on the phone first thing in the morning and you know the person is reading off a card and has no ideal some of the stuff your talking about it gets a bit frustrating! So after all the questions the next thing is to do a pump test..take her site out see if site is bent....nope not bent( great I just put that site in too)....rewind her pump and give a 7 unit fixed prim does insulin come out....yep it does..ok now put in a new reservoir...ok that's done...now do another 7 unit fixed prim...ouch now that's a good 14 units of insulin down the drain but I do it, things are working fine...hummmm they say, don't know why you got a no delivery maybe just maybe the cannula is hitting muscle ... hummm now teats the first time something just might make since...we have been on the same kind of sites for 4 years she is growing and getting a bit more meaty and more muscle, he just might be on to something..so tomorrow he will be sending out a few new kinds of sites to try out. Dont get me wrong I love for the most part the help line for Medtronic but I hate having to go over the same stuff over and over and feeling like I am talking to someone who is reading off a cue card, and when you ask something out of the realm they go blank on your or if you try to trouble shoot with them they don't know what to say since its not on the read off paper. I just wish they had more diabetics on the pay roll who uses these pumps someone who can understand what your saying with out all the needless questions.. I have noticed most of the sales reps are diabetic now lets try for some more help line diabetics :o)

Ugggg I feel like such a mean mommy

Today was the first day since she was diagnosed that I had to tell her no because of her Diabetes :O( I soooo hated doing that..its just so unfair. Samantha lately has been having a lot of lows I blame it on those darn puberty hormones. Sleep seems to be a thing of the pass for me lately..I hear her CMG even when its not alarming these days I swear even when she is at school I think I hear it... dont get me wrong I love that thing, its just lately its been going off A LOT and her lows seems to take so much more to bring back up.. Just the other night when she went to bed she was at 10pm she was 180 by midnight the CMG was alarming...I get up test her and yep she was 89 with two arrows going down..so I make her drink some juice give her a peanut butter cracker all in all I gave her 20 carbs. By 2:30 off goes her alarm again this time she is 69..off I go to look for something else to make her eat in her sleep..this time I gave her more juice, 4 peanut butter crackers. Just as I was getting ready to check her 30 mins later what do I hear but that lovely sound of her CMG going off again this time she is 72 with only one arrow going down,,an improvement not much but better :/ ..so this time I give her 2 peanut butter wafers these things are 17 carbs each..I know I way over carbed her but lack of sleep and her not going up can make you try harder...lol I recheck her 30 mins later she is 234 I would have thought she would of been in the high 300's after all that but 234..ok I think I'll take that and went back to bed for a little sleep ( I had to be up by 6am for a wrestling tournament for my son...by 5:30 wouldnt you know it Sam is buzzing again...sigh this poor kid is getting sooooo very good at eating in her sleep and me Im getting good at not sleeping and when I do I'm dreaming of hearing alarms...lol at 5:30 she was 71...I swear I cant stand how diabetes doesnt play the game fair..we check, check and recheck...we treat and treat then retreat and still it messes with us..so today for the first time since we entered the world of diabetes I had to tell my sweet girl NO she couldnt do something just because of her diabetes...that was like putting a knife in my heart

wow its been like forever...

I cant believe my last post was back in 09..that makes me sad to think that life with diabetes is now my normal.. its hard to remember life without diabetes in some way rearing its ugly head..having it always on my mind even when I dont think its there. Samantha now is 12 years old, she was dxd 9 days after her 8th birthday Aug 25th funny how we never forget that date, the date that changes your whole life and the life of not only your child's but family and friends too.

Having a girl with diabetes and one that has now entered puberty is a whole new set of rules...did I say rules, what was I thinking diabetes has no rules. Just when I thought I had things pretty set, things change and just when you almost get use to those changes it changes again...like days to weeks of very high numbers correcting over and over again changing setting in the pump testing every two hours sometimes every hour, to only still see high numbers...then out of the blue we have low after low to where you have to force her to eat...and believe me getting a sleeping child to eat in their sleep is NOT easy! As bad as this may sound I will take the highs over the lows anyday.

We went back to using the CGM after a 6 month break ( new insurance company = new battle to get it approved again) I love the CGM I dont think Samantha does..the poor kid is a walking alarm lately...lol I just cant understand how she can tune it out like she does..she walks pass me buzzing all the time.."Sam your buzzing" "Sam cant you hear that" "Sam????" these are my daily comments to her. The CGM is like a love hate relationship here..I love I mean love seeing trends but with puberty trends dont mean anything, I love getting alarms when she is dropping but I hate when she is dropping since she cant drop a little at a time you get to see a nice nose dive graph on the screen only to have a stubborn low that I have to treat time and time again then to have the CGM alarm that she is now high...sigh such is life now. The highs seem to be easy to fix TG for something easy!

Next week she will be starting Volleyball oh joy something new to add to the mix.. they will be having practice everyday after school so that means time to make changes in her pump so we dont get lows..and pray that the lows if she gets them are during the day and not night. wish us luck!

well did started it

Last week Thursday she started using the CGMS so far I dont know if I really like it or not. I know everyone tells me it takes time, that there is a learning curve ect. We are now into day 6 and its not been fun!!! I'm beginning to wonder why I wanted this for her?? I still haven't had a day that its been on track with her BG I have had a few hours in a day it may be close..I have a hard time calibrating her since she runs some wild numbers at times or she wants to eat and not wait that 15 or so mins so I can calibrate the sensor..or like last night I did 3 calibrations but forgot that you have to do one at least every 12 hours so of course I got alarms, and I got one for a high the CGMS had her at 175 but her meter was almost 400 that was at 2am my normal time I check her at night by 3 the cgms caught the high..sigh so I was up again for that one, then I did a calibrations error at 3 when that high alarm went off then I forgot my 12 hours calibration..
I guess I'm at the what was I thinking point when it comes to the CGMS...please tell me it gets better....
trying to take care of the kids and Sam is hard when going on little to no sleep...funny I thought the CGMS was suppose to help us get a little more sleep...lol

Thinking out loud

Samantha has now been on the pump for almost a year and in that years time things have ran pretty smoothly. I fax in her log sheets every few weeks and only a handful of times has the nurse called to have me make a slight change in her basals..Now for the pass month she has been sick on and off and her numbers have been rather on the high side like 300 and 400's no real pattern till just 4 days ago I noticed that her 4pm numbers have been high where the rest of the day is pretty good unless we make a mistake in carb counting or she get a snack at school that was right after her lunch ( for some reason it doesnt come down as nicely) So after reading some post on my favorite web site Childrens with diabetes I figure its time I get brave and start to make a few changes..so I did my first basal increase today I was cautious and did one for 3pm today I put in another basal for 3pm..now my question is the school only test her at 12:30 and 3:00pm and I see the 3:00 number is higher then I like but do I change it for 3 or try 2:30??? how long before if at a certain time do you make a basal??? I think maybe today I should go back to every 2 hour testing instead for meals and when she is not feeling right...I still do the 2am testing maybe I should try for a midnight 2am and maybe 5am... I have my safety net knowing that tomorrow I fax the nurse....I hate always second guessing myself but that seems to be all I do with diabetes and its control :O(
only 11 more days till we have the cgms training :O) I hope that helps

Its going fast!!!

We were just told a few days ago that our insurance will now cover the CGMS then two days later they tell me its been ordered and should be here in a few days....yikes, now all the second thoughts are running through my head...what if its more of a hassle then I want to put up with, what if it doesn't work as well as I expect it to, what about finding places to place another site. Samantha will be the only kid at our endocrinologist office with one (we go to a peds endo) so she will be paving the way for other kids, oh geeze this can be stressful! I wish I could just fast forward a few months to see how this all works out...lol

we have been approved!!!!!

we have been approved for the CGMS Last July I tried for one but found it to be an up hill battle so I gave up, that was till this Jan and Samantha started having a few unaware lows...so I picked up where I left off. I got my Dr to write a letter, sent in all my bg logs, sent in anything and everything I could think of..yesterday I sent in the last letter ( the one from her Dr) and me being the way I am I cant seem to wait for anything...lol so I called my insurance company to find out if there was anyting missing and the rep told me as of yesterday you no longer need a preauth..that I can just go ahead and order it I'm still in shock.. I called minimed to order it today but my rep is out of the office already so now I have to wait till tomorrowI still cant believe this...I was gearing up for a battle too...lol