I PUMPED!

Today’s guest blogger, Lesley Hoffman, is a member of ACT1’s support groups and has been coping with Diabetes for 15 years.  She is the Principal of an afternoon Hebrew School, loves being around fellow Diabetics and hates almost all sugar-free foods. Read her previous post “To Pump or Not to Pump” here.

It has happened a few times since I switched from taking Insulin shots to being back on an Insulin pump. I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and something feels off. I make sure the front door is locked and it is. I check my cell phone and I  don’t have a hundred missed calls from my mom (which may or may not indicate an emergency; sometimes she does this just to say hi.) And then i realize my reason for the panic – I forgot to take my Lantus insulin. I check my blood expecting a level over 400 or a screen that just says “Hi” because the level is too high to register. Instead, it says 120 or 150 and I remember suddenly that i went back on the pump. No more Lantus needed, I only need short acting Insulin.

I guess this has been part of the larger transition back to the pump. There are things i can get used to – normal blood sugars in the morning which I haven’t had in two years, flexibility to set a temporary basal rate when I work out so I don’t go low and hopefully a lower A1C (that is yet to be determined.) But there are certain things that still infuriate and upset me. I DREAD “changing my site” – a phrase i started using in high school that doesn’t make so much sense but that i still use. I hate having to find a place for the pump when i get dressed. And i hate the red and raw spots on my stomach, hip and butt that never seem to go away, that are painful and that create scar tissue. I also hate having to explain that my pump doesn’t make my Diabetes “better,” or less annoying, it just makes it different.

In the past two years while on shots instead of the pump, visits to my endocrinologist have been hell. I get nervous the night before, I get anxious on the subway and I leave the office swearing I’m going to be better and get my levels under control. My A1C has been higher than I like for it to be and I immediately brainstorm ways to change. As I’m going through this thought process, I’m usually in the waiting room at my doctor’s office observing other Diabetic families and how they interact. What always catches me and oddly inspires me is when I see a diabetic using a walker or a cane. To me it means their levels are out of control, they have lost feeling in their legs or feet and they are suffering the sometimes inevitable side effects of diabetes. This may not be true but that is the story that is in my head. It is always then that I swear that won’t be me. I swear I’ll change and be better.

I guess this last visit was enough to push me to switch back to the pump. Even given the negatives, I am very happy with the switch. My blood sugars are already better and I physically feel better. Is it a perfect solution? Definitely not – a perfect solution would be a cure to diabetes and leading a life as a “normal” young woman in her late 20′s dealing with regular issues and everyday problems like most people I know do. But that’s not going to be me, at least not for many years.