Category: Current Status

Since I got my insulin pump (which Cigna STILL refuses to pay for), I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Our A/C stopped working and dumped massive amounts of water on the floor, destroying it. It was lovely parquet. This happened over two weekends, one of which was Labor Day.

Then we discovered that our roof had major hail damage.

Then the husband broke his hip.

Well, today, the final paperwork on the roof has gotten done, and we’re getting a check for part of the work from the insurance company.

The floor is coming in today or tomorrow and will be laid on Monday.

Husband goes to the doctor on Monday and we’ll find out how that is doing.

And the really good news, the new insurance will cover the pump supplies — they claim they have no rules on what Type you are (Blue Cross/Blue Shield PPO). And they tell me I can put the pump payments on pre-Tax dollars. (Flexible Spending Account).

We’re getting somewhere. Now if my husband’s insurance will just get it together and pay their part of his hip.

I picked up a At Home HbA1c test kit today — note these aren’t cheap yet.

Reserve about 8 minutes of time. Nice little kit, works well, though it’s lancelet is a bit big and dull.

Anyway, an A1c of 6.2 isn’t bad!

I’m still under a lot of stress.

The good news, is that the roof is up, paid for, and we’re waiting for insurance reimbursement.

The floor is ordered, but on back order, and they are pulling up the old floor on Friday — school is out for fair day. We’ll put down the new floor when it comes.

For those new to the blog, as soon as I ordered and got the pump, the A/C went out, to the tune of $500 and floored the dining room running the parquet floor which stretches about 3/4 of the house.

We then discovered that the roof was damaged.

And THEN the husband broke his hip.

I’m still worried to death over him and his exploits. He is becoming more mobile which makes me worry more, but at least I don’t have to expend as much energy in his direction. Of course, that means I have no help in getting ready for the floor.

As a result of all this stress, I’m not sleeping well, but am slowly getting back to normal. Eating more as a result of being tired all the time, so using more insulin.

Here’s how the pump is making my life better.

This weekend I competed in dog agility. Dog agility is a sport for people who like animals with too much time on their hands and not a lot of money — if you have money you do steeplechase or something similar.

It’s an obstacle course for handlers and dogs. They both have to run and the handler tells the dog which direction to go. Each course is different.

This weekend, we ran 4 courses. Marcie and I took 1st place each time we ran. Part of the reason we took so many firsts, is that we were only competing with one other dog, but we did make a perfect score on one run, ran two runs clean but slow, and she only made one mistake on one run.

The key to dog agility is to be fast enough as a handler that you are in place to show the dog where to turn, where to jump, or what type of obstacle you take.

We train every Thursday night that we can — we try hard not to miss.

Being on the pump is letting me lose weight, letting me exercise, and letting me get faster so I can be where my dog needs me.

She’s ALSO a very good dog — which means I’m a pretty good trainer.

I still love my pump, so much better than injections. However, keeping things normal is quite a bit of work.

I forget to test once in a while, but I’ve got a couple of students trained to remind me (they volunteered for the job, actually).

I think maybe they just want to see their teacher poke herself with a pin

But I did some dog agility tonight, and I was MUCH faster. It was a bit while, because I was ending up ahead of my dog, even though she was running faster too, and couldn’t figure out where to go.

For those who don’t know dog agility, it’s a obstacle course for dogs and handlers. It’s what you do when you have too much time on your hands and not much money. If you have money, you get a horse and do steeplechase or something.

Anyway, it’s been a good six weeks. I have had lots of things go wrong but have had a good support system to fix them and to learn from.

Animas Corp remains super!

First, I will be the first to tell you that the Insulin Pump is NOT a no brainer.

Also a quick reminder — the pump does NOT measure blood sugar. One of my students thought it did, and he’s been around me for a year. I think many lay people think it does.

Nope, you still have to do the most distasteful part of managing Diabetes, sticking PINS in your body.

But the real reason for the post. From Thursday to Monday, my blood sugar was messed up again. We got it back, and it was a combination of bad sites, probably bad insulin, and just flat out stress.

Eating was out of control. I was constantly hungry, constantly thinking of food. HORRIBLE!

Now that the blood sugar has been normal for the past few days, eating is getting back to normal.

Thank goodness.

Yeah! It’s the fifth week anniversary of my pump!

I would not have survived my husband’s medical ordeal without it. Oh, that’s not over yet. But at least the first (and hopefully only) surgery is over.

I would not have survived my mother helping my husband while I was at a teacher worhshop without it.

I would not have survived the teacher workshop without it.

FYI: Teaching AP Computer Science is FUN. Right now, no one can find the case study files, but the laugh is on the college board, I grabbed them this summer and put them on my website and HID them where my kids and I can find them. Wonder if I can charge people for access?
Would be evil, but then the College Board web designers are more evil. Wonder if they are charging people for access?

I love my pump.

I have had my share of problems. Someone really needs to work on the insertation set thing. They fail too often. In 5 weeks, I’ve had three failures.

Thankfully he’s decided that driving isn’t a good idea. I’m taking Friday off to take him to the doctor and deal with some other things.

He is better though, says the hip doesn’t hurt as much. He’s behaving himself at the house. He goes upstairs, lets me bring him food, and stays there each evening.

Boy, do I need the sleeping time. I’m starting to catch up on sleep, but getting enough to make me cranky, not rested. Did stay in the bed all night though.

DB’s Medical Rants

I’m glad he confessed…

I’m also glad I’m not his patient. Though I might be someone’s patient with the same or similar blinders.

Read my comment.

My husband broke his hip, riding his bicycle. He weighs 160 pounds and is 6′ tall. I’m not sure how he feel and I’m not sure I want to know.

Paramedics on the scene felt there were no bones broken. He didn’t want to deal with the ER I guess, I wasn’t there, I don’t know the story and I am not sure I want to know, but he got home, and I didn’t push the issue, not knowing much.

One week later, he went to his primary care physician who said “I’m sure nothing’s broken but let’s xray just in case”. Yeah, just is case was wise….

Now I LOVE this doctor. I really do. Before insurance stunts in our area, he was my primary care physician and he got me to the right specialists for my allergy, my sleep apnea and the gastric reflux disease and got me good treatment. I’d lost 100 pounds when he was my doctor. So I trust him. I miss him, to tell you the truth, and am debating going back to him. It’s just that I doubt he’ll be on this earth much longer and don’t want to deal with switching any more than I have to.

Anyway back to husband. So on Thursday morning he had surgery. After the surgery, surgeon told me surgery was a success, but was worried about blood flow to the hip, and isn’t sure that is going to be resolved. That means a hip replacement, and we won’t know for a year or so.

He’s on crutches for the next 8 weeks.