Thursday, March 09, 2006

Day 6

I can't believe it's almost been a week since Riley started pumping. I feel like we've accomplished absolutely nothing.

Let me just share his overnight sugars. 281, 325, 293, 292, and his pre-breakfast sugar: 302. I looked at the set, no blood this time. But, it didn't look like it was far enough in. Instead of just yanking it out, I gave him breakfast and his bolus and waited an hour. After an hour, he was 374. Then, I decided for my sanity that I had to change the set, yet again. When I pulled it out, I found that it was not completley in. I think I didn't put it in deep enough last night. I was trying not to put it in too deep and kink it again. I just can't win. Riley tolerated it quite well. I gave him a small correction and an hour later he was 172. Best number I've seen in days.

About 10 minutes after I'd finished changing his site, I got a call from L at Animas. She is Riley's educator. I had never actually talked to her, but she had left a message on my answering machine before. She said she received an email that I was having trouble with Riley's sets and wanted to follow up on it. We talked for about 15 minutes. I told her the endo. was supposed to call and order some different sets, but I didn't know what she had ordered. She said she'd check and see. She also set up an appointment to meet with me to go over the sets and insertion sites. She's supposed to call back later with a time and place, but we are supposed to meet on Wednesday.

She kind of sounded to be leaning towards an inset, but a shorter one than the sample they sent. She said most kids say they don't hurt as much as the comfort set. She also mentioned possibly trying a metal needle to cut down on kinking. She is on a pump herself and has tried the different sets. She says that the metal needle was actually quite comfortable. I've corresponded with a mother in the past whose 3 year old uses metal needles and she loves them.

I must say, so far I am very impressed with Animas and their customer service. Every time I've called, whoever I've talked to was very professional and helpful. It seems that a lot of them are on a pump themselves, so they actually get what is really involved with dealing with a pump.

I hope this set last at least until the new sets arrive. We'll keep trying. I know that once we get this whole set thing straightened out things will get a little better. We can't really move forward with adjusting basals if his sets keep messing up.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Penny,
I've only just caught up with your posts. I'm glad its going so well for you. My daughter has been pumping for 2 months now and there is no way we could go back to injections. We use the Accu Chek Rapid D and I find them wonderful. The fact that the set can't be kinked is one of the reasons we use them. I hope you find them as easy and consistent as we do. I do all the set changes while shes sleeping (she loves that I do that) so for us there are "NO" needles at the moment. Good luck for the future!

Anonymous said...

Deja Vu about the high blood sugars. Just for kicks, ask Animas for a loaner pump and check to see if he responds better to insulin on the loaner. That's only one of the ways we trouble-shooted. It WAS the pump. They didn't admit it but sent us a new pump. Her numbers came down on the loaner and even more so on the new pump. The first thing to rise is their night-time blood sugars because they have the short-acting insulin and most kids need more insulin at certain hours of the night (for us its midnight to 3am). It is hard to do the basals if the sets aren't in correctly. Hope endo team can help you with that soon. And the Animas Reps are wonderful. I agree with you there.