Blog

  • Good news!

    Weighed in with the dietician and I had only gained one pound in the month of December.

    Considering that I gained an average of 5 pounds from August to October, I’m doing well. 

    My first month of medically supervised weight loss happened the month of Thanksgiving — and I gained no weight, so we both think I am doing well.

    Exercise is going great too.  I did 20 minutes both Saturday and Sunday, trained both dogs back to back on Monday, first time I’d done that in a long time and I started making handling mistakes in the last runs so I stopped and watched.

    I was only able to do 8 minutes last night but so far have 15 minutes in and am hoping for 20.  Yeah, I’m having to do it in 4 sets, but I’m doing it.

  • Animas Insulin Pump Food Database

    I’m excited and I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. Those of us who have Animas pumps — IR1000 on, will fully acknowledge that using EzManager to input favorites sucks. Especially if you have a lot of entries.

    I get my food from a service in Dallas called Diet Gourmet.  Low fat, low salt, good flavored food and a no brainer.  They usually come with nutrional information on it but they just changed the menu.  Plus I don’t get ALL the values in the log, which is kind of a bad thing right now since I’m on a medically supervised diet.  

    Well, I got my replacement pump today, downloaded everything off the old and uploaded and thought, gee it would be nice to have my Diet Gourmet food in the database.

    I tried individual entries made me nuts.  As always. I kept typing things in wrong.  Well, I finally got the bright idea of looking at a backup file.  GUESS WHAT!  Nice and simple XML file.

    So I reformatted the Diet Gourmet excel sheets to match the order of the XML file, did a ton of cut and pasting, and I currently have not ONE week, but TWO weeks of Diet Gourmet meals in my pump.

    Did find a nice little bug.  Oh, well.  They have done a good job of programming around it.

    And have you guessed that this little episode did "sell" the Ping for me.  Oh, I am sure my area rep had my account flagged, but they did answer the phone fast and did get me taken care of.

    It’s funny but I went over a year (have to look at the archives to know for sure) and had the same pump.  Was really concerned about having to get it replaced, etc.  Now, since a few recalls and a lot of little glitches, I’m cool with it.  Have it delivered at school.  Keep the old one to make sure I’ve got the settings and it’s what I want.  Drop the old one of at the DHL Headquarters down the road, and I’m good to go.

  • Intervention Show on Diabetes

    That was a tough show to watch.  I haven’t watched Intervention before, but since Scott and some of the other diabetic twitters were talking about it, I decided to DVR it.

    I also find it interesting that the family feels that the invention was successful.  I do agree that the kiddo looks healthier than he did before. 

    Like diabetes, I don’t think that there is a cure for diabetes mismanagement.  I think we all do the best we can on a given day.

    There is a lot to say and feel about it — I recognized that most of the kiddos problems were caused by the complications of diabetes, mostly the depression which is not acknowledged enough.  I also believe that the family erred by not transitioning the boy well into doing his own self care.  However, we don’t know the whole story.

    I have been sliding down the slippery slope of diabetes mismanagement for quite some time.  It’s a gradual slope and today I almost didn’t test my blood sugar before lunch because it was too much trouble to find my meter (I did find it).  I also ran out of insulin in the middle of lunch so I didn’t dose appropriately.  I’ve got to get better at that and I have to keep in mind that if I don’t take of care of myself, I can’t deal with anything else.

    Part of my problem is my plate is truly too full.  I’m Campus Technologist in addition to teaching a full load.  Today our phones went down, and part of my job is to put tickets (work orders) in the system so they will get fixed.  Thankfully I let someone else do the teaching today, while I spent a lot of my day with the tickets and with planning the new lab install.  I’ve also decided we have to start tomorrow or we won’t make it. 

  • Finally a good day

    Don’t knpw how much this had to do with it buy I woke up with a normal blood sugar.

    didn’t sweat out the water thing but did make sure I drank a lot. yeah it was mostly diet coke but fluid none the less.

    I didn’t have weird xravings just got through the day eating what I think a normal person does.

    Hopefully I wil have more of those.

  • Replacement pump and “resolutions”

    I got my third alarm at rewind.  Just called Animas and they are shipping a new pump on Tuesday — may arrive at the same time Alfred Thompson does — UPS usually comes by 2nd or 3rd period, put probably won't "install" until I get home as I have to transfer settings.

    Yes, have a plan in mind if it does go bad — the customer service rep said to keep one in mind.  Will probably have to get more syringes but I do have some, and would probably have endo phone in a pen insulin order — I figure on doing multiple injections if it goes completely out – waking up once or twice in the night to correct.  <sigh>  Haven't ever had to do that but I hate long acting insulin.

    Had a bad food time yesterday evening.  I still think it is related to drinking water which I still am not good at.  I also need to just eat what I am craving as fighting it seems to make it worse.

    Still walking on the treadmill.  I'm up to 15 minutes in two sessions or 20 minutes in three.  I'm trying to get it to 20 minutes in two but I'm feeling a lot of pain partway into the walk. 

    And tomorrow starts the week from hell — the new lab install….

  • More pump shopping and improvements

    Cozmo called me back already.  It seems they are in network now.  So right now, Animas and Cozmore are tied.  Money isn't an issue, coverage is the same.

    One thing in Animas's favor is that I know their tech support, I am comfortable with the Inset infusion set and I like the idea of the Ping, however, I'm not hearing good things on Ping (love to hear from Ping users). Their technology is newer and screen is easier to read.

    Cozmore's user interface is better, and so is their computer interface.  Their customer support reputation is good.

    If Medtronics CGMS were covered and if it worked well, I would go with it.  I have requested a trial of it, so we'll see if that happens.  I really doubt the CGMS will be covered, but then Cozmore surprised me that they were in network.

    Still leaning towards Animas with a big maybe on the Cozmore.

    Diet Gourmet is back.  Have had two of their meals but don't have carb counts yet.  Have an email out to the home office about that.  Will probably be guessing a lot for the next 5 weeks.

    Still walking daily, and slowly improving time, but had to do it in three sets yesterday.

  • Pump Shopping

    Met with the final pump sales rep today — the Cozmo. I also heard back from Medtronics — going with the pump alone is going to cost around $200, so I need to find out that information from Animas and Cosmo.

    I also want to wear the Medtronics CGMS system before I finally decide on it.  There are features on the Animas I like better (the Ping — and I have some questions on that), and there are features on the Cosmo I like better, but I am afraid out of pocket costs are going to be higher.

    I do think that the Medtronics is the "worst" pump for me — they don't slice the insulin as fine as Animas and Cozmo do.  Animas does some slicing finer, and Cozmo does other finer. 

    I like the size and feel of the Animas the best — I have been wearing it for 4 years, so I would.  I also think concealing it will be even easier IF the Ping system works.

    Any one reading this have any feedback on the Ping?

  • Continuing Improvements

    Though my weight is still going up.  Tomorrow is the first day of Diet Gourmet, I ordered an extra lunch and plan to pick up in the morning.

    Also going to meet with the Cosmo rep tomorrow so that will be another one of my goals finished. 

    I'm slowly walking more each day — goal is to get to 20 minutes straight and I am far from them, but it does get better by a minute or so each day — up to 12 minutes yesterday.

    Water still isn't going well,but calorie distribution is better.  Next week will definately be interesting.

  • New Years Resolution – Day 5

    Today is a good day, the scale showed the exact same amount as it did yesterday and I have a scale that weighs in tenths.

    Yesterday actually was a good day, though I probably didn't help the starvation mode much as I only ate one meal before 5:00 pm but it was a pretty good sized one.  It was disappointing however, I want to Saltgrass, the side order was horrible and the wait staff rushed me.  Sorry, but I wanted a nice leisurely lunch.  I suppose if I want to do that, it's back to the Brazilian restaurant.  It's actually cheaper, service is much better and so is the food.

    I went shopping yesterday.  I've only gone shopping a few times during break — mostly for Zune accessories (hard to fine), and clothing.  That meant I did a lot of walking.  I got the supplies I need for the new computer lab at Walmart, hit Best Buy and Fry's and bought nothing.  Tried Lane Bryant and found nothing.  I did finally get me an after Christmas present — I get paid for the teacher tech thing so I bought myself a tech toy.

    The good news is that the inescapable urge to eat in the evenings is subsiding.  It's not completely gone but working on it.

    Still need to work on drinking water — I am so bad at that it isn't funny. 

    And I might have fixed the CPAP problem.  I don't think it is the size of the mask so much as how it is fitted and I am tweaking it.  It stayed on most of the night last night.  I also need to work on getting back to a regular schedule since I've got 5 days before I go back to work.

    Happy New Year's everyone!

  • New Years Resolution – Day 3

    No, I am not going to update every day.  That would not be fun for any of us.

    So yesterday I managed to do okay on water but could hav done better.  Got on the treadmill for several short sessions.  Eating wasn't bad, but could have been better in the evening.

    Today has not been good on water.  I keep NOT drinking when I am thirsty.  Weird.  But did get on the treadmill for two slightly longer sessions then yesterday.  Food has been good so far.

    Diet Gourmet will be back on Friday, counting days!