Waiting on Insulet and the new OmniPod

Grace has been using the OmniPod pump for three years this April. Three years. Three years ago do you know what I heard - that smaller Pods and a new PDM were on their way. As in, a few months until they cleared the FDA and they would be in our hands.

Grace was even in the clinical trials for children with Type 1, on the new PDM. I held the new Pod in my hands, played with the PDM, was trained on it by a CDE OmniPod representative from Texas who was flown to Philadelphia to help conduct the FDA trials. That was TWO YEARS AGO.

And what pisses me off even more is that the NEW customers to Insulet - the ones who have 'cut the cord' are the first ones to get the new system and Pods. We have been more than loyal, outspoken advocates of Insulet and OmniPod for three years.

You know when I may get the new system for Grace? Good question. Insulet can not tell me. As in, when I call, they have no idea when I will be given the new system. No timeline. No date in the future. Nothing. Hmmmm. I'm not a business person, but something stinks about this.

My good friend Lorraine Sisto, who's son Caleb is also Type 1, and who blogs at This is Caleb, wrote a piece stating her feeling about it all.

Head on over there and read what she has to say.
She's been waiting SIX years for this.
Go ahead, ask her when she is getting her new system for Caleb.
Go ahead, ask.

http://thisiscaleb.com/2013/03/31/six-years-of-waiting-omnipod/

Not wanting to

'I don't want to. I just don't WANT TO.'

Those were the words that Grace said to me when I mentioned that it was Pod change time. She was about to 'expire' in a few hours, and I didn't want to do a middle of the night Pod change.

'I understand, you don't want to. But we have to. It's already started. I deactivated the other Pod, so it has to come off and a new one on.'

'I DON'T want to. I just don't want to do it.'

And instead of me stating again why she has to do it, why she must do it, why it isn't negotiable and why it doesn't matter, in the end, that she doesn't want to, but she just has to... I hug her.

I hug her hard and whisper in her ear.

'I hear you honey. I hear you. You don't want to do this anymore.'

And she cries and says 'Yeah.'

I try and say all the right things - I try to understand what it must be like to do this every three days, to wait for the 'shunk' of the cannula into the skin, to have this damn Pod hanging off me every bloody second of every day, to bolus for every thing she eats, for all the finger pricks and the blood and well, all of it.

I can try to understand, but I don't REALLY understand.

But I do understand that it must be hard. I have done some very hard things in my life for a very long time and I do understand the feeling of things being so hard that you don't know how you are gonna get up and do it one more damn day. That I do understand, in spades.

I tell her our mantra, that we don't have to like it, but we just have to do it. And I will be there to hold her hand, help her through it, and move on, so we can do the great things in life.

I tell her that.
And I also tell her that I understand hard.

Blue hair, baby!

Grace has wanted blue ends of her hair, well, forever. OK, maybe not forever like we know it, but foreeeeeeeeeever in her 10 year old mind. Which is like 110 years to you and me.

I said yes, and frankly, without a moment's hesitation. It's her hair and frankly, it's only hair. Hair grows. Hair can be cut at any moment. It's a color, that's all.

Last night was the night. She had to go blonde on the tips before she got dyed blue.

And she loved every minute of it.

I present to you, in the spirit of the blue circle, Grace goes blue.

Relying on Dex

Whoa... I have not posted in HOW long? Wowsa. Well, life keeps you busy, is all I will use as an excuse.

Dexom, how we love thee. There have been less sleepless nights thanks to you. Less finger pricking. Less having that low settle in for a good long spell. Less highs that last and last and last, cause we can ward it off with you, Dex.

One thing is, which I really hate to say is, Grace relies on it a little too much I think. Yes, I know it's a pain in the you-know-what to test when Dex is screaming 70 with a down arrow. I am completely aware of the others who may look at someone who is about to prick their finger and draw blood, though I am not the one they are staring at. I fully realize the complications that arise when peer after peer asks you 'What is that?' 'What are you doing?' 'OMG, you are really bleeding!' It sucks.

Seeing Dexcom read an 82 with a slightly southeast arrow, fearing you are heading towards a low, is call for a granola bar, no?! In her mind it is. And it results in a 234 BG merely two hours later. Cause I don't think she really was 82, I think she had just eaten, and Dexom was a little off. I think she was in the low 100s. Then add in an un-dosed-for 17g granola bar, and BAM, you got yourself a 234 BG.

Problem is, this isn't the first time she has done this. It's been about 3 times now in the last few months, the fear that Dex rings in at 80, the worry about a low, the treatment and then, the rebound high. I get it, the worry about the low. I get it, the trust in Dex and not the testing. And still I converse with her about a different way of approaching it. Might you test, honey? What do you think about testing, sweetie?

I absorb my daughter's eye roll as I suggest that she might think about testing next time this situation arises - the Dexcom ringing in with a 'supposed low' but no other earthly reason for a low, and the need to confirm or deny it's existence with a finger prick.

The eye roll says the treatment of the granola bar was just fine Mom. I saw where I was headed and I stopped it. So what I got a 234. I adjusted.

And I have to remember that my gal is learning, she is doing it herself and it's hers, not mine.
And that she did just fine.