Category: Current Status

I had SEVERAL major melt downs today.

First, I’m still not mentally really good because while I am finally sleeping I’m still quite a bit behind. Sounds weird, I do this a lot, but I’m scheduling this weekend to get caught up that.

I got new computers in my classroom today, and it was real upsetting since I’m leaving it this school year, under protest, and it isn’t my idea. These are actually what kind of computers I would pick out for teaching my classes and have exactly the right software.

While moving me to a different subject might be better off for the school, right now, I can’t see it that way. I wish they could leave me alone and do what I do best.

I did do a fabulous job of getting things set up, but it always costs me a lot mentally and stress wise. Thus the melt dones.

Got my Animas recall letter today. Knew it was coming. I’m definitely going to be proactive this round about the condition of the pump.

If you read the blog last night and it was behaving strangely, make sure you run a virus scan. I did, freaked, but no permanent damage was called.

Apparently for a short period of time the server had been hijacked. Everything is fine now, but it was a bit scary.

I’m really worried about the recall, and I guess I shouldn’t be but…

When the battery cover on my IR1000 chipped, I was so relieved that they replaced the pump, I didn’t squawk when the replacement pump wasn’t in as good condition as my old IR1000.

The cover was a bit worn, along with the buttons, and it creeped me out a bit when I saw that, because I knew that someone else before me had worn it and didn’t take as good care as I do.

I think I’m going to tell them that when they call to schedule the delivery. Here’s what is going to happen. They will fix the pumps they have in stock and ship them out. Then when the patients return their old pumps, they will refurbish them, and update the software, and ship out those pumps. So I’m sure I’ll get a used pump.

So far, mine looks like it did when it came out of the box, and I expect the replacement to look the same.

Someone on the insulin pumpers list claimed to relay a post from the woman on DLife with the detection dogs.

The post claims they use clothing worn by one of the children when they went low and didn’t induce lows. It’s certainly not proof enough for me.

I still think raising 5 children and training 16 dogs are too much for any small group of people (I am assuming 2, but she may have some help).

I still think it was horrible that the kid was recorded for a TV show going low and that they showed the dog’s alert. I have certainly been left with a very negative impression of everyone involved.

I still stand by my earlier blog entry. I was certified both as a detection dog handler and as a trainer.

We don’t know enough about what is going on in diabetics to develop training methods to produce reliable dogs. Anyone selling such a dog is doing the public a diservice.

I’ve actually noticed some “weird” stuff using the food database, but nothing really seemed to affect the final numbers.

Guess I’m getting a different pump.

Animas Corporation – CORPORATE INFORMATION – Press Release

And whoops, the phone number listed seems to be a fax line.

I’m guessing that the best thing to do is to ignore the food database.
Animas Announces Voluntary Recall of IR 1250 Pump, Increases Revenue Guidance.

And yeah, this page explains what to do:
http://www.animascorp.com/products/recallnotice.shtml

Basically you reboot the pump and don’t touch the database.

I haven’t had a day where I can just sleep out, and probably won’t get that until next Saturday because of the dog show this weekend.

However, I’m feeling better, and finally building back. For example, I actually got through most of the school day without needing something to eat and finally broke down and got some pretzels out of the vending machine.

Here’s what happened for those who haven’t been paying attention … about a month ago, I got some really hard to take news about my job, and I started not sleeping.

Basically I’m staying at the same school but am doing a drastically different teaching assignment which affects my identity. I’ve been a computer science teacher for 13 years. At the beginning I taught only 1 section and have built the program over the years. HOWEVER, our school is a NCLB school, basically our families can leave. We’ve had a hard time getting experienced core curriculum teachers, so most of the people teaching non-core curriculum classes are getting moved to core curriculum. So I’ll be teaching math full time.

I’m not good at change, especially when it is forced on me. It still really bugs me but I’m getting used to it.

On top of not sleeping I went to Europe. I took my CPAP machine with a battery pack on the plane, but couldn’t sleep because the air was just too dry. It got so dry, I couldn’t stand the mask any more. Finally when I got to the hotel, the converter I brought blew out the first night. It blew out all the circuits in the room.

At this point I hadn’t slept for 5 days. I freaked and came back instead of going to our final destination. I’m glad I did as I came back I started feeling better. In all of this, the gum infection the dentist and I were trying to avoid flared up full blast.

Somehow in all this, I managed to make an appointment with my sleep doctor. The intent was to get a replacement mask, but I ended up getting a travel humidifier so maybe I can sleep when out of town.

While I saw him, he noticed my temperature was up, and decided I probably was on the edge of a sinus infection. I think it was the gum infection but he could be right.

However, between not sleeping, being stressed out, and on the edge of sick, I started eating more and more and it got harder and harder to exercise and work out. I finally decided to give myself a break when iShape gave me 50 minute workouts a day for a week.

The good news, is that the uncontrolled eating finally stopped. And I got back on the treadmill today. It all seems a lot better.

I’ve taken a break on everything and focusing only on the sleep problem. I am doing an agility trial with both dogs this weekend, so I won’t get a chance to sleep out.

Fortunately I’m not having trouble going to sleep, or going back to sleep when I get up, but I’ve got a silly beagle who has gotten upset two nights in a row because there is something in her yard. I think I’ll leave my husband an email and have him put both dogs in my room with the door shut before he goes to bed. That might help.

Sleeping worked the best so far, but as my husband put it “Marcie decided to be a beagle last night”.

For some reason, Marcie was disturbed by something in our backyard and desperately wanted out. She made sure everyone knew it.

So I had to lock her in my bedroom, which meant I had to make sure that Maggie was also locked in my bedroom. Lately, Maggie has been taking to sleeping in my computer room and wouldn’t come when called.

So I had to retrieve her from behind my computer desk, as she would eventually pitch her own fit if locked out of my room.

Getting up is STILL hard, I hate daylight savings time.

Love the new humidifier though. It seems to be at the perfect temperature right now, and I have yet to have a rainout problem.

I’m exhausted, but the second study is done. I managed to stay in bed all night, and had a fairly typical sleep night for me. In other words, I woke up tired.

I hope this shows the problem, and maybe a solution.