i'm still here

I thought, huh, I haven't posted a blog in a couple weeks....

Um....it's been a month!! So....sorry bout that.

There hasn't been much new in our lives here. I've been getting used to my Dexcom mostly, so I thought I'd post a mini-review.

Likes:

• The receiver is small! It fits/hides more places.
• Range--I can usually leave the receiver on my coffee table and do things around the house that I need to do without losing the signal.
• The transmitter is not small, necessarily, but it is smaller than my pods. So for me, I like.
• The alarms are plenty loud enough. I keep it on the "Normal" setting, but I usually hear it vibrate, especially in the middle of the night.
• The sensors can go more places than my pod. Yes!
• No batteries! I charge it every couple of days and its good to go.
• Their customer service is pretty good.
• There's a LOT of information that you didn't have before.

Dislikes:

• There's a little TOO much information. It can be overwhelming at first. I'm very glad my doctor didn't want me to start on a pump and a cgm around the same time.
• It has a similar look to an iPod. I'm not an iFan.
• The little tiny ledge of plastic that holds the slider that covers the charging port has broken off already. It's not a deal breaker for me as long as I don't have trouble charging it when I need to.
• I had an issue last week with the transmitter not wanting to send the signal more than a few inches. After I talked to tech support (on a Saturday), they promised to overnight a new transmitter to me on Monday. Well, they didn't overnight it, so I had to put up with no range until Thursday, literally wearing my sensor/transmitter AND the receiver. Kind of annoying and the reason I didn't rate their customer service as excellent above.

Other than that, things look good!

I had my first doctor appointment today since starting with the Dexcom and she cautioned me to wait two hours after treating a high blood sugar reading before treating again. Two hours is too long for me. No? This is 2013! We can't create insulin that works any faster than that?? Oy.

We also talked about my thyroid and are going to be trying a couple new (to me) meds to see if they make any difference in how I feel. My numbers are all perfect, but I just don't feel any different. Who cares what numbers look like if you still feel UGH on a day to day basis, you know? It is NOT something I should have to "just deal with." I have a different brand to try for a couple weeks, and then I'll be trying an all-natural med. Hopefully this will help with some weight loss too.

Finally, I had some blood drawn for them to do lab work. As usual, my veins are shy and were hiding. Unusually, the lab tech decided not to try my other arm, no...She went for the top of my hand. OW.

war wound

diaversary & cure v. cause

This month is my diaversary. Fourteen years.

Whoop-dee-freakin'-do.

Can you tell I'm excited? I really am.

Not.

Lately here it seems like diabetes wants to take me on a different trek every. single. day. Same breakfast? Different numbers. Same activity level? Bah, let's throw some lows in there to trip her out.

I may be experiencing the burn-out that I hear so many people talk about. Because I'm tired and sick of this and stressed but trying not to be stressed because that makes my numbers worse but that just stresses me out more and just don't feel like handling it anymore, so can you please just go away now stupid-abetes?

I will say that just about the only good thing in having this stupid-abetes is the great community of people online who, between all hundreds of thousands of them out there, have gone through just about every situation imaginable. So thank you to all of you. You probably don't know me, but I know you and I appreciate you.

Now, onto this "cure" that's been in the news lately. A great big PHOOEY on you all.

PHOOEY for getting peoples hopes up.

PHOOEY for telling them "another 5-10 years."

PHOOEY for telling them to just give more money for research. (As if we don't give enough? If you corporate big-wigs believe in this so much, YOU take a paycut and YOU give moremoremore money to research. We're tapped out from buying YOUR drugs and trying to keep our heads above water for just another day.)

PHOOEY for telling them about all the hurdles you still have to overcome--like, HUGE ones! Meaning, you haven't gotten it figured out at all.

PHOOEY on all of you. I refuse to get my hopes up. I don't believe in a "cure." I believe in a CAUSE.

What is causing this increase in children and adolescents and adults and even senior adults being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes?

Let's think about that. Because I promise you, it's not just random.

THEN let's think about changing the cause and PREVENTING babies and children and people from getting this stupid-abetes in the first place.

urgh

I try not to rant-post so that could be why you haven't heard a lot from me lately. As much as I like to whine, I have to remind myself that no one likes to hear it and to keep it in my head.

You know how when one small thing goes wrong, it seems to just be the last straw and suddenly a bunch of other little wrong things seem so HUGE and it just all adds up and you're tired and cranky and don't want to deal with any of it but you want to vent because you want someone--ANYONE--to understand and help but no one really can help because it's completely out of anyone's control?

So there's that.

AND THEN people just HAVE to keep asking you the dumbest stuff when the answers are quite obvious and you've already told them several times and when they don't get the answer they want, they call someone else and try to go around you and they get the answer they want but there is absolutely no path from here to there and they can't understand that even though you've told them THREE times and the stupidity keeps piling up and piling up and you're really REALLY tempted to just tell them to go away but you know the second you do you'll be the one in trouble for it.

So there's that too.



 

first week

So it's technically been a full week since I got my Dexcom---yaaaaaaay!

I got my first alert to "Change sensor soon" today at lunchtime. Or whatever it said.

The only thing that I wish was different about the entire set up was that I wish there was an option in the "Events" list for a pump site change. While I'm guessing I can make a note of that once I download the information, I'm also guessing that I'll forget what day I changed out my pod. It's just easier to be able to click the button and add it in right away like I do for blood sugar readings, carbs eaten, and insulin.

And it would also mitigate the guilt that I know I'll feel when I'm sitting in my doc's office and she's reviewing the information and looking for patterns and, lo and behold, there's a steady 12 hours of high blood sugar right before a pod change.

I'm not sure how to fix that yet.

I feel like I've already been taking more insulin than normal, just in an attempt to nudge those higher numbers back down. But I don't WANT to take more insulin!! But I don't want my blood sugar to be high. And especially days like today when it feels like nothing is working even AFTER I've changed my pod out.

We are regularly awakened at unholy a.m. by the BZZZZT BZZZZT of this little gizmo on my nightstand. "HIGH" it tells me, pointing at that 200 number. That's nice, I think, and fall back asleep.

I'm giving myself a couple weeks of adjustment here. Can you tell? (Come on! We don't have kids! We should be able to sleep through the night!)

(Except we have fur babies, so that doesn't even really happen.)

Ignorance sometimes really is bliss. (Can't you just look at some people and tell that's their life motto?)

Even though I'm glad to have the data, today I generally feel like throwing this thing at something. Except I wouldn't. Ok, maybe something soft. But I'm really not mad at it, so it wouldn't be fair. So no throwing things today.

Onward.

approval

I can't remember if I said this before, but high praise and kudos to my cousin Lauren who reads my blog {hiiiiiii!!) and asked if she could put me in touch with her friend Brittany because she thought I could use some advice regarding my struggle with my insurance to approve me for a Dexcom system.

Super high praise, thanks, and I'll-totally-be-your-2,500-mile-away-BFF-in-Georgia to Brittany for suggesting I get a case manager and have them help me with the appeals process.

I finally talked to a case manager a couple weeks ago. She was SO nice. I don't know why I didn't call sooner.

Oh, yeah, because I pretty much hate talking on the phone. I do it all. day. long. It's so awkward.

Or maybe that's me. But whatever.

The POINT is, I did it and I'm glad I did. After talking to my case manager, I contacted my doctor's office and asked them to send the info she requested--it wasn't even much, just something saying that I had diabetes, that I was responsible about it, and that I was over 25 years old (what that has to do with it, I dunno).

Last Friday, my case manager called me and said she was really hoping there would have been a decision made that day, but she hadn't seen anything uploaded into her system yet and that she would call me on Monday when she heard. Throughout the whole process she was very positive about this working out for me. The only hang-up (??) was my "good" A1c of 6.6 --anything under 7.0 is apparently considered good. But she was pretty sure she could talk them around that point since it had crept up from 6.2.

Monday I was on pins and needles all day. ALL. DAY!!!!

I went ahead and emailed my contact at Dexcom to kind of get the ball rolling on that end. 

She finally called around 4 and gave me the good news. I AM APPROVED!!!

I again emailed my contact at Dexcom, told him the good news, gave him her name and number and he said, "What color do you want and where do you want it shipped?" Of course I'm getting the pink one.

A couple more back-and-forths with some paperwork and, of course, payment and I should be all set.

YAY!!!