It took me a good six months to trust the technology after switching from injections to insulin pump. And at first there were a great deal of bumbling involuntary midnight cannula changes, kinky moments and at times I was sure my equipment was trying to kill me . But slowly and surely as my HbA1cs came down, my hours of valuable sleep went up and my quality of life started to soar, it wasn't long before I would have made for the mountains beyond Rio if the NHS had tried to take my pump back. It was mine: managed by me, and part of me.
Fast forward five years and with the introduction of Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) into my life and a growing baby in my belly, and the idea of coming off my technology, even briefly, gives me the shivers. Granted, I dream of the day when I'm no longer tethered and catching my go-go gadget pancreas on door handles or unsuspecting strangers I stand a little too close to, but my choice to remain on a tubed pump indefinitely is based on five good years of a happier, healthier me. And my choice to use an Animas Vibe which can integrate the Dexcom CGM I use, as well as being waterproof, is a decision I've never looked back on.
But I still like to moan. I am British, after all. Diabetes, particularly during pregnancy, is extremely tiring. There is no time to burn out because the kicking, wriggling bundle of joy in my belly means there is no taking my eye off my diabetes - well before and beyond the nine months that little hitch-hiker is mooching its free ride.
"I'm almost looking forward to the burnout after baby is born", I joked, bobbing around the swimming pool with my best friend of 22 years. "I might even take a pump break. I'm so tired of having to change the reservoir so often now that insulin resistance is in full swing." I said, not so jokingly.
Be careful what you wish for.
Three hours later and with a slightly watery reservoir change having taken place halfway though our spa day, my pump was making some pretty freaky noises. The kind of noises a distress call from Wall-E might sound like if someone tampered with his electrics. Noises which I instinctively knew would make for a long and worrisome night.
While on hold I took a photo snapshot of my basals profiles (which thanks to insulin resistance are barely recognisable and certainly not memorable since the last trimester of pregnancy kicked in), just in case my pump died all together. This was my best move that night, given that five minutes later while running some checks on the pump, the buttons gave up all together meaning the basal menu was firmly out of bounds. After a few checks and the inevitable diagnosis that my pump was kaput, and the Animas team had fired off an email to the UK office that I would need a replacement ASAP. Awesome.
But that was really the easy part. Now I just needed - while 7 months pregnant and with diminshing leels of insulin in my system - to figure out how the hell to make the transition back to injections. I had, of course, ordered in some spares of my pre-pump insulins Lantus and Lispro when I fell pregnant, knowing that this day may come, but remembering what the hell kind of pattern I was in, when to take the background insulin and how long it might take or that insulin to kick in, felt overwhelming. My last (unsuccessful) pump break had been 4 years earlier and had seen me back on my pump within 8 short hours, so my track record for this kind of manouevre was not good. Ordinarily I would have just fumbled my way through, but with each swift kick to the inside of my abdomen, I was reminded why this would not be the ideal time to experience my first adult diabetes-related hospitalisation. It was not a time for 'winging it' or making mistakes.
I quickly took to social media as fast as my fingers could type, because having called my clinic a good two hours after they had closed their doors I'd found no-one there to speak to for advice, unsurprisingly. It was then that I started to panic. And it was then that the cocoon of the Diabetes Online Community came to life.
The next three days were a roller-coaster of results from the initial highs to the eventual too-much-insulin-sticking-around lows, but my pump was back on, and the baby playing bongos on my kidneys was telling me it was worth it.
Without the DOC I would have muddled through somehow. But that was how I spent my childhood and teen years, before Social Media became a part of the arsenal I use to manage diabetes; I muddled through. Since the DOC emerged, and at times like this, it helped me feel safe, secure, empowered and in my time of need, cocooned. And for that it is worth its weight in gold.
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