I am moving my blog. I don't use it that often. You can find me here henceforth.
Samantha's story about living life with diabetes is finally up on YouTube! Here's the link! Anyone willing to part with a couple of bucks can also make a donation to Team Sammy K, raising funds for this year's JDRF walk to Cure Diabetes!
Thanks all!
Maximus!
My pal Cassidy had her baby today!!! I am so excited for her and happy that she doesn't have to be pregnant anymore. Plus, now that I know the sex of the baby, I can knit him lots of cool stuff!
I finally got my invite to Ravelry! I haven't had the time to put all of my projects into my notebook, but I already love it and can't wait to start using it more!!! If anyone wants in, put your name on the list!!!
What was your favorite TV season finale this year?
Submitted by Kristine.
Ummm ... hello? Lost, of course. Were there any others?
Yay! We are live with insulin! Everything went really well at pump start today! Samantha has a kidney infection, so that complicates matters a bit as infection makes her more insulin resistant. But, we are doing good! Here are some pics.
This is Samantha's infusion set. She has 10 viable sites on each side of her tummy and 6 viable sites on each side of her upper tush. Having so many site options to rotate will greatly reduce scar tissue build up and site problems! The infusion set in this picture is a different type of set she will normally use. This one is called the Comfort Short and requires a manual insertion (using an introducer needle -- no cool little insertion device with this guy). We decided to give it a try so that we would know how to insert a different set if she does not do well on her prescribed sets. This set goes in at an angle and works great for kids without many fatty areas. You need fat for sub q insulin delivery! Luckily my kid has some padding so chances are the other sets will do just fine.
This second photo is the pump itself. We all started calling it Greenie before it ever showed up and the name just stuck. Although Samantha did inform us in the car on the way home that Greenie is in fact a girl pump. This home screen shows the name and current basal rate. Basal rate is the rate at which the small little doses of insulin are delivered over the period of one hour. This screen shows that she gets .7 units of insulin per hour this time of night. Since that .7 unit is split up into tiny doses delivered every 3 minutes, the actual doses delivered are insanely small.
Picture number three and four are her supply box and the typical supplies needed for one set change. The box is kept on the kitchen counter for quick access for treatment of lows and set changes. We decorated it together.
- We had our saline pump start this Monday. Samantha did GREAT despite being sicker than a dog! I inserted her first infusion set with no numbing cream and her response was, "Cooool!!!" and "That didn't even hurt, Mom!" I was so proud! So she is hooked up to saline for a couple of days to get used to the pump and its various functions. We still have to give injections during this time to keep her blood sugars in check.
- Patrick changed out Samantha's infusion set last night and she said he did a better job than I did! This is great because prior to the pump, she hasn't really been that open to Patrick's participation with her Diabetes stuff. I think she is now realizing that it can be beneficial to have a Step-dad who is willing to be involved!
- Tomorrow is our insulin start!!! We go live tomorrow! This is the real deal, when we push the buttons on the pump, they will actually regulate her blood sugars! I am so excited, but also very nervous!! I will post an update in the next couple of days.
- Found an awesome deal from an awesome lady on Precision Xtra Blood Ketone strips. Our insurance doesn't cover them so we pay $49.00 for a box of ten. We can easily go through ten strips in two days of illness. I am buying 10 boxes (that's 100 strips total) for $10 per box! That's $1 per strip instead of almost $5 per strip! Woo hoo!
- I ordered Samantha these cool patches to go on top of her infusion sets! I figure if you have to constantly wear something stuck to your body, you might as well have fun with it! Hopefully I will have them before her birthday in mid-May!
That's it for now. Samantha has been really sick the past three days (fevers of 102, blood sugars in the 400-500s), so I need to go check her blood sugar again and set my alarm for a re-check in a couple of hours. Maybe I'll knit for a bit. I haven't done any of that in the past 3 days.
Here is the felted pump pack I made for Samantha's new insulin pump. This was super easy to make -- just a simple bag knit in the round on 16" circulars. It only took about 3 1/2 hours to knit up everything. I used an i-cord bind off for the edge. The belt was knit lengthwise to prevent stretching. I am contemplating adding a knitted flower to the front to make it more girly. Hopefully she will use it when she is wearing clothes that don't have a good pocket for her pump. If so I'll probably make her another one, in pink, with lots of fuzzy novelty yarn tossed in. I think I will shorten the length by about 4 stitches and increase the height by about 4 rows for a more compact and accommodating fit.
I guess I should mention what the insulin pump actually does for a person with diabetes for those not in the know. My pal, Jen, asked me about it on the phone tonight and I realized that in all of my postings I never mentioned what pumping is all about.
What is insulin anyway?
In order to accurately describe pumping, it is necessary to understand the basics of how insulin works in the body of a person without type 1 diabetes. For all of us without diabetes, our pancreas regulates our blood sugars by releasing two different hormones, glucagon and insulin. When going about your daily tasks, the pancreas lets out small doses of insulin constantly. It keeps the blood sugar range from going too high by increasing the insulin to turn food into energy. It keeps the blood sugar from dropping too much by releasing glucagon (this stimulates the release of glycogen from the liver), ultimately raising the blood sugar. The pancreas is a well oiled machine that keeps our blood sugar in really tight control. Even before we take a bite of food at a meal, our pancreas has already started delivering higher levels of insulin to balance with the food we take in.
Insulin is necessary to take every bit of food we consume and turn it into energy. But people who have type 1 diabetes no longer make enough insulin to turn food into energy. Without insulin the blood sugar rises to high levels and the body compensates by making you drink lots of water to dilute the level of sugar. When this happens no sugar enters the cells of the body and therefore it cannot be used as fuel. In response the body thinks it is starving because it has no sugar available for use in the cells. So it starts burning fat stores for fuel. The body literally starts eating itself. All of this makes a person with developing diabetes very sick. Without treatment this person would die in a very short amount of time (weeks, not months).
My daughter has been on insulin injections since she was diagnosed at the age of four. She doesn't just have one or two shots per day, she has more like four, and when she's sick you can easily double that number. I don't say this to complain or to make you feel sad, I tell you this so you'll understand what we currently are doing to keep her blood sugar in good control. For type 1 you cannot take a pill to treat diabetes. You can't just watch your diet and eveything will be oaky. You must take insulin or you will die ... soon.
The pump makes things so much easier. First of all, instead of getting poked with a needle four times per day, you only get a needle poke every other day. The insulin is delivered through tubing that connects to the body, called an infusion set. The other end of the infusion set connects to the pump, which is a small electronic device (the size of a pager or cell phone) that contains a reservoir with insulin. The computer inside the pump helps deliver small little bits of insulin throughout the day, very similarly to the way the pancreas does. So with the new pump, my daughter will get a super small dose (we are talking tenths of units here, folks) every three minutes. This function aims at keeping her blood sugars steady throughout the day. Because this is a machine and not an actual human organ, it doesn't work anywhere near as well as the pancreas, but it is much better than shots. In addition to the little bits of insulin delivered during the day (called basal dose), the pump also delivers a bolus dose.
A bolus dose is a dose of insulin that is delivered when the blood sugar is too high or at a meal (or snack) time based upon the amount of carbohydrates eaten. So right now if Samantha wants a couple of pieces of candy for a snack, she either has to take a pass and miss out on the Easter candy (because the insulin needed to cover that amount of food would be too small to administer via syringe) or she would have to eat a little more than a couple of pieces so that she could receive a bolus dose by shot. But once she starts on the pump she can have those two pieces of candy, enter them in the pump and the pump will deliver the right amount of insulin to cover those consumed carbs. When dinner time comes around we count up every gram of carbohydrate eaten and we input it into the pump. Based upon a bunch of calculations and definitions (I won't bore you with them) previously set up in the pump's computer, the pump recommends a meal bolus dose. We can accept the recommended dose or we can modify it. Similarly, when the blood sugar rises out of target range the pump recommends a correction bolus dose to bring it back into the preset range. Once the dose is accepted it is "pumped" out of the reservoir through the tubing and into the body.
The benefits of pumping over injections are many. First of all, there is a reduced risk of low blood sugars (which happen regularly with injections). Second, it keeps the blood sugars from fluctuating so much and if everything is set up correctly, it can lead to much better blood sugar control. Good blood sugar control reduces the risk for complications (blindness, heart disease, amputation, kidney failure, etc.). Anything that does that and allows my daughter more freedom with food and fewer needles, makes me a very happy mom!
