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I am not a doctor...Please do not mistake anything you read here (on Autoimmune Island) for medical advice.
Decisions regarding you or your child's health care should be made only with the assistance of your doctor and/or your health care specialists.





Friday, February 26, 2010

Belly?.....not yet, but.....

We (Queen Alopcia, The Sugar Princess, and I) spent the night at Papa and Beeka's house (my in-laws) last night.  The kids were excited about it...they always get excited about spending the night somewhere.  Ofcourse The Sugar Princess was super excited because she doesn't get to spend the night any where unless I spend the night too.  I was fine with spending the night with them...it felt like a little get-a-away.  My husband stayed at our house to take care of our pets and to take care of the wood stove through the night.  The reason for the overnight stay was because this morning my husband and I had to leave for Pittsburgh Children's Hospital at 5:30am for our first pre-pump class.  We are  hoping to have The Sugar Princess transition form insulin injections with syringes to an insulin pump.  It takes about three hours to get to Pittsburgh from our house and we had to be there by 9:00am so we decided that I would stay with the kids at his parent's house to avoid getting the kids up so early...especially on a school night.  We hit a little bit of traffic on the way down and arrived with ten minutes to spare.  There were about 12 families there including us.  They went over what a basel and bolus were, carb-counting, and then they went over all the available pumps that are out on the market.  We have it narrowed down to two...the omnipod and the "Ping".  My husband is leaning towards the pod and I'm leaning towards the ping.....something that we are going to have to discuss the pros and cons about...it is a four year committment so we want to make sure we make the right decision.

The class was three hours long, but it seemed to go by in a flash!  And if finding the right pump wasn't enough, we also have to decide on infusion sets.  Straight or Angle.....I'm not sure, but they did say that most people that start on the pump start with the Straight infusion set....Hey pumpers out there....what do you use? Why?

Our next endo appointment is in April so we want to make a decision very soon.  One thing that they stressed was rotating sites.  Right now, The Sugar Princess favors her arms and her "tush", but the problems is that she will not budge and her arms and upper tush region is looking "worn" and puffy.  These areas definitely need a much needed break.  We want her insulin to absorb properly so rotating sites is really important.  She was crying so hard....river of tears.  She wouldn't even let us look at her tummy!  She was truely scared...I haven't seen that look of fear since our first day in the hospital when she was first diagnosed.  It took eveything I had to hold in my tears too!  We told her that for now we will not do the belly until she gets a little more used to the idea.  We told her that we were going to show her pictures of her "friends"....the friends that she has never met face to face, but friends just the same that she has seen pictures of online and saying "They have diabetes just like me!" --Shamae....she could watch the videos of Sydney over and over and over again...especially when she and Morgan are singing....Too cute!

She then calmed down, but we told her that she had to pick a "new" spot....we would leave it up to her.  She decided to pick her upper/outer thigh and she did it!  It wasn't the belly, but it was a success - - a new spot!!  We were all ecstatic and she was so proud of herself....we were proud of her.  She gave me the biggest hug ever!  My heart melted.

Thank you to those who have already sent us pictures and/or sent The Sugar Princess words of encouragement...I was then crying a river!!

2 comments:

  1. Exciting, exciting, exciting!!!!!

    Addy started pumping with the Cleo infusion set, but they didn't seem to stick well and her numbers seemed to creep up around the 36 hour mark.

    We switched to the Animas Inset (even though she didn't wear the Animas pump at the time) and have loved them ever since. I like having an automatic inserter. We haven't tried the angled Inset-30, but we're really happy with the plain old Inset and don't see any reason to rock the boat ;)

    Addy HATES sites on her tummy. We use EMLA (a prescription numbing cream) for them -- she prefers them on her bum.

    Good luck with this new adventure and be sure to keep us posted on how you guys are doing :)

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  2. We use the straight in sets. The needle is SO much smaller! And it is generally more comfortable to wear.

    I'm excited for you all to start your new life as a pumping family. It made all the difference to us!

    (And believe me, 4 years goes by in a flash!)

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