Frustrated? You betcha!

I am the proud owner of a very spendy paperweight.  Oh it was not MEANT to be a paperweight.  It was MEANT to be an insulin pump.  And it costs as much as a car.  A fairly nice car.

It is a pretty blue thing made by a medical device company called "Medtronics".  You may have read about them---they have been in the papers!  ON TV!  And in the courtroom!   They are it seems not always the most shall we say reputable company in their dealings.  They lied about several of their devices' safety records.  They have a poor track record on some things.  But they are for better or worse about the only real "Game in town" for insulin pumps.

I have had so many of these I have lost count.  I think the total is around 8.  And all of these have been delivered to me in the last TWO YEARS.   Why do I seem to continously NEED new pumps to replace the old non  functioning ones?  I don't think I am hard on them---after all there are Olympic athletes who use these same pumps and as far as I know they don't seem to have to replace them as often.  I have never dropped one in the toilet or lost one or had a dog eat one.  I don't shower with one on or go in a pool or a sauna.  Haven't dropped one out of a plane altho I have been tempted. 

I seem to have a problem with the equipment delivering the very product I NEED to stay alive---insulin.  Most people never give insulin a second thought.  Oh you might say "My glucose level is low" when you feel sluggish and need a meal or a donut.  Diabetics on the other had need the insulin hormone to produce energy in our cells and brains.  Or horrible things like death can happen.  Kinda makes for a bad day---that death thing. 

The insulin pumps out there all operate more or less on the same idea---fill a reservoir with insulin,  connect a small needle under your skin,  and use either the pump itself or a hand held remote to tell it how much insulin to give you and when.  The problem occurs when the device REFUSES to actually deliver that insulin.  

Here is the drill---Before you can get a pump you have to be educated in how to use it and wear it with sterile water so you know what to do.  After you get it home it is kinda like taking the baby home from the hospital ---you know they covered this material in childbirth or parenting classes but somehow things look different at 4 AM as the kid screams than they did on the floor of a waiting room at the OB's office.  So you muddle on thru.  Find the insertion set ups.  Hope you remembered to take the Novolog  insulin out of the fridge so it is not too cold and full of bubbles. Fill up the reservoir with insulin and attempt to get those damned bubbles OUT.  Attach the long---sometimes almost as long as I am tall!-piece of tubing to the reservoir and hope that you got the bubbles out of that too.  Now attach the actual insulin catheter to you.  This can be as simple as peeling off a piece of tape and pressing a small steel needle into your skin like a thumb tack or you might have to use a rather Medieval torture looking device that SHOOTS a long long needle/catheter set into you at an angle---I tried this and the thing bounced off my skin at a high rate of speed and flew across the room.  The next day I demonstrated this device and managed to rip a HOLE in the side of a cardboard shipping box with the bloody thing.  Sounds comfy huh. 

You would think that this would be the end of it.  But for some the adhesive patch that secures the thing to your skin--that fragile and nerve filled organ---is too SMALL.  And too WEAK.  So you have to get hold of surgical film and secure that OVER the whole set up.  Sounds attractive huh?  Um----Well THEN comes the fun part.  Every time you need or want to eat you have to first STAB YOURSELF.  Yeppers you have to check those blood glucose numbers and see how good or not so good they are.  THEN you have to figure out HOW MANY CARBS you are going to eat.  After that you input those numbers into the pump and voila magic happens and it gives you the correct dose to keep your glucose (BG) within the correct range.  Between 80 and 100 is the goal here.  So off you go and have your cheeseburger or salad and you are humming along thinking that the pump is releasing the life giving glucose altering chemicals you need to survive.   If it's not than you end up with numbers like 206---not life threatening but not at ALL good. 

And then it happens.  You hear the dreaded NO DELIVERY ALARM sound.  What triggers this?  Somewhere in the miles of tubing and the reservoir and the internal catheter site SOMETHING has gone horibly wrong.  If you are "lucky" this will happen in daytime when you have no other plans and you can fuck around with the thing for hours trying to get it to actually finally shut the fuck up and WORK.  Much more likely is that it will decide to quit at 3 AM just as you have gotten untangled from the tubing for the tenth time that night and actually fallen ASLEEP.  And if you like me use Hearo's earplugs and miss the first alarm it refuses to be polite and be QUIET until you get up.  NOOOOO it gets louder and louder and changes it's tune and then it starts to VIBRATE and not in a good way.  If you don't rip the whole thing off and fling it out the window you can ask it pretty please with a cherry on top to RESUME.  Which it seems like it might just do---until just as you have nodded off again it does it.  Again.  And again.  So you have to start the whole damn thing over again.  IF you go thru this for some days and you call the Help Line (hahahahaha) they will almost with out fail tell you---It is YOU. 

It is YOUR fault because you used---fatty tissue.  OR muscle tissue.  Or scar tissue.  Now this might be a failing on my part but how many OTHER types of close to the surface tissues ARE THERE?  Should I insert it directly into BONE?  Or into boob tissue???  Seriously there are women who DO THAT.  Scares the shit outta me.  Can you IMAGINE shooting a 2" long steel needle INTO YOUR BOOB?????  Or your BUTT????

Now after having allll of these pumps I called and asked to meet with a Rep from Medtronics.  For which I had to travel ONE AND A HALF HOURS ONE WAY.  To discover that indeed it WAS NOT ME.  The pump was indeed NOT delivering insulin thru the TUBING when it was NOT attached to ME.  And insulin had been somehow forced out of the reservoir into the mechanism somehow---again,  NOT ME.

I was then told that this Rep was going to email   HER "People" at Medtronics and request that they send me another new pump.  Again.  That was---yesterday.  Still no email to tell me she in fact actually DID this.  Soooo---not exactly THRILLED with this "Customer service".    And having to fall back on the 'ol "Multiple Daily Injections" is not exactly what I had in mind either.  Now have a 4" wide bruise from ONE needle and syringe injection of a tiny amount of insulin---and I now have to do this 5-6 times a DAY.  And a whopping big dose of the longer acting "fake pancreas" insulin at night.  IN a science fiction looking "pen".  Which you have to force to stay in one spot on your skin so the bruising potential is---amazing.  While you make the spiral delivery injector go down the syringe with your other hand---complicated!  

Some will ask---why oh why don't you use the TUBELESS OMNIPOD PUMP!!!!  It looks like a little egg!  It sooooo CUTE!!!!!   You could NAME it!!!!    It shows under your clothing!  It holds almost no insulin!  If it catches on anything you have to toss the whole thing in the trash!  But the IDEA of the tubeLESS pump is sooooo seductive.    The tubing on "my" pump gets caught on--everything.  Seatbelts.  Purse straps.  Any thing that comes remotely near your pocket where the pump is hiding out pretending to be a cell phone.  Zippers.  Handlebars.  Rings.  Door knobs.  Towel racks.  Is this really what you WANT to be untangeling when you have wandered off to bed with anyone?  One nurse told me to take it off and "Throw it under the bed" at those times.  Um---imagine how much damage I could to to it if I DID that!!!!!    I can't keep it running under NORMAL conditions!  And the latest sample the co sent me has a 43 INCH LONG TUBE.  Almost as long as I am TALL.  Now I KNOW I am short but!!!!!  If the tubing grabs something on the ride down when you take your pants off the whole injector set is liable to RIP itself off of your body.  Great fun.  Pain free too.  Not.

And don't even get me started on the merits of debating Type 1 diabetes and Type 2 diabetics us lazy slobs who did this ALL TO OURSELVES.  Now I sincerely feel that the Type 1's have it in some ways much  harder than most Type 2's.  Most of them have lived with this since childhood.  Many have spent long  days in hospitals or ER's to treat BG problems or infections etc.  But the ARROGANCE of the medical profession to claim that ONE DISEASE is more WORTHY than another---neither one of which is really well understood ---this is beyond bizarre to me.  Do patients who show up with lung cancer from smoking get worse  care than one who shows up having worked in a mine?  Or lived next to the Jersey Thruway????    Either help me or get out of my way.  I had an MD--a TYPE 1 on a pump!!!!---who refused to treat his Type 2 patients with any sort of actual care for their treatment and life prolonging treatments and preventives.  It was OK for HIM to go see specialists like cardio guys and eye guys and endocrinologists but for the REST of us slobs?????  No way Jose!  Why would you NEED to when you had him---and he insisted a problem I had was something completely other than what I REALLY had and I lost a leg to his arrogance.  Well that is a topic for another day. 

I am a regular on a diabetes discussion peer-to-peer forum that recently posted the question---

"If your diabetes was suddenly CURED what would you DO?"

Many people would be making a mad dash to Krispy Kreme.  OR Orange Julius.  Many would be rejoicing that their fingers will no longer look and feel like hamburger due to the constant BG checking. Me?   My celebration?  To throw the fucking pump under the wheels of a tank.  And drive over it.  And again.  And again. 










.

A dead... what?!

There was a dead thing on the floor.  It certainly LOOKED dead anyway---that odd limp and head skewed to the side sorta look.  And--oddly soggy.  And-hairy.  In that small rodent the cat dragged in sorta way.  Except we don't actually have a cat.  

So we looked at it some more.  And it still looked like a dead thing that no one wants to touch or even investigate too closely and you wish it would just GO AWAY.    Quickly and with out a trace.   But yet it stubbornly insisted in remaining--half in and half out of my bedroom door.  No dog would admit to the crime.  Surely one of them would have either eaten the damn thing or had the grace to look very guilty.  Not even the little white mutt with the Great Spot on her side---usually the guilty one in the pack.  She did look very thrilled to be NOT the guilty party ---this time.

She has been guilty of eating almost anything you can think of--whole hot wings on the bone.  Not chewed---just swallowed hot sauce and all.  When she was not much bigger than a good size wing herself.  Tissues.  Plastic.  The amount of plastic this dog has tried to eat----Moths.  Grass.  Phoebe!!!!!!  Stop eating that grass!!!!  Is the sound of summer around here.

But not this time.  Garbage dog was innocent---what could this MEAN? 

Finally one of us was brave enough to go and poke at it.  With a long handled grabber thingy.  Upon which time it was discovered that it was--------A.  Sock.

Yeppers one of my fave tie died socks from Famous Footwear.  The ones from the kiddie section.   The ones that the store manager tried to discourage me from buying because---I am an adult.  And that apparently means I should either A.  Not buy kid sized things for anyone or B. Not have a foot so small that only kid sized socks actually FIT it.  I had to remind the guy that I had come into his store to buy SHOES----and that the reason he got involved in the sale was I have such a hard time finding shoes to fit my Half A Foot foot.  And the plastic covered titanium foot on the other side.  He also tried to discourage me from buying socks that were NOT paired.  I had to remind him---this was getting tedious!-that the whole reason I only NEED one sock per day is---I only HAVE one foot to actually cover with said---sock.    

The one that some one who will not admit it ate and apparently didn't find appetizing and threw up---in my doorway.  And we all WALKED OVER it  to get into my room.  Don't know which part of this I find ickier.


Well we decided to have a little burial ceremony for the sock in the kitchen in a large cemetery full of other dog chewed items.  Like bags that formerly held cheese but were deemed too good to pass up when thrown in the vertical cemetery container the FIRST time by some stupid human who couldn't seem to understand just how attractive a used cheese bag could BE to a dog.  And then said dog discarded the used and now slobbered on and mangled cheese bag under the kitchen table to the delight of the baby.  Yum---doggie slobber on the baby's new very first "real" shoes---wee Nikes.  


And we covered up any lingering doggy slobber whiffiness with the amazing---shameless product plug spoiler alert here---Pumpkin Harvest FEBREEZE.  Cause we are just that kinda people.  (But it really does smell like a baking pumpkin pie----mmmmmm  pie)


Guess we are off tomorrow for another adventure in "Find The Shoe" for Mrs. Half a Foot over here.  That should be----fun!