Skip to main content

Subconcious Diabetes

I have had my new pump (the Animas Ping) for about 9 months now. When people ask how I like it compared to the MiniMed I am a little conflicted. There are some features that I truly enjoy, and others that I truly despise. This was similar to my feelings for the features onboard MiniMed as well.

However, this pump has some interesting side effects... 

It turns out, similarly to other middle-of-the-night activities (read: bathroom, ignoring snoring husband, finding a comfy position in the midst of a bed-hog wiener dog, etc), my body has moved “respond to insulin pump alarms” from a conscious activity to a subconscious activity. This is exactly what happened last night (which was not the first time, hence this event is now taking up space on 'le blog). Apparently at 11:55pm on September 8th I received and responded to a “Low Cartridge Alarm”. I say “apparently” because I have absolutely no recollection of this, but my pump's alarm history remembers!

Ok, so now I am asleep, I have “acknowledged” that I only have 20 units of insulin, and unlike the MiniMed pump I will not get a reoccurring “Low Cartridge Alarm”. ** I guess I should caveat here that I’m not the best at crosschecking my units remaining display, (whoops)**

Everything seems fine…breakfast bolus, daily basal rates, correction bolus, lunch bolus via remote glucometer...(crazy beeps ensue)…finally the pump commands my attention. What are all these beeps for?!?!?! That’s when I look down and see this screen:



Awesome. 1 whole unit left! Time to take out the battery (otherwise it will beep annoyingly all day!!) and settle in for an afternoon of pen injections. I can't be the only one this has happened to?!?!?!?!
Labels:

Comments

  1. SaraWednesday, September 11, 2013

    Yup - I've been doing that and more dangerously, just turning off my CGM instead of dealing with a borderline low. I need to get more sleep!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousThursday, September 12, 2013

    I see you have moved to bright red nail polish sense moving. Dave

    ReplyDelete
  3. StephenSWednesday, October 02, 2013

    :::Checking battery now:::: Thanks for the online reminder!

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousWednesday, October 02, 2013

    same here. I sleep through all the alarms. I wonder if I got enough sleep (at least 5 hrs would be nice) if they'd wake me up or not :) probably not....

    ReplyDelete
  5. Christina GhosnWednesday, October 02, 2013

    I have said it before and will say it again - Animas needs a second if not third alarm for low cartridge. Having two kids (one being a teenager) on Animas with only 1 low cartridge alarm is frustrating. My daughter has acknowledged the alarm at school, at home, at the mall, and in the middle of night without ever mentioning it to me or remembering to replace the cartridge. On more than one occasion I have received a call from school letting me know she is completely out of insulin or worse she has run out in the middle of the night (also acknowledging the alarms saying no delivery) only to wake up with high BS and ketones. UGH. My son is a bit more vigilant but has also neglected his hungry pump. Multiple alarms would be helpful. Something like - low cartridge alarm, very low cartridge alarm and your mom is gonna be really ticked off alarm. Glad you had syringes with you and you were able to stay safe.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AndreaMonday, October 28, 2013

    Ahh, different features of different pumps... No pump today has every feature I want so I've been sticking to something I at least know and am used to.Not to mention the fact that Iove my pump - I'm one of few remaining Cozmo pumpers! One of my hesitations in switching to Animas is that I cannot set my low cartridge alarm at 5u like on the Cozmo. I don't want it to beep at me at 20u left - that's 2 thirds of a day of insulin left! Give me the information when it's actually usefull to me (something I can set on my own somewhere beween 20 and 1 unit and decide if I want one, two or multiple alarms!).
    I want my diabetes devices to be flexible enough to fit to my diabetes, not some pre-set standard features! Your issue is not user error or lack of crosschecking, but lack of flexibility in setting alarms.
    Ok, rant over. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Who has two thumbs and loves comments? Nerdy April!!! Type one out and hit publish!

Popular posts from this blog

The road to curing Type 1 Diabetes

From the moment of diagnosis, the road is rough, the learning curve is steep and the stakes are literally life or death. The map is less-than-helpful - paths originating from virtually every corner, coalescing at a center point (aka "diagnosis") and bursting back outwards - some paths cross and wrap around each other but others are isolated. And even with all of these roads, most of the territory is uncharted - how did we all get here and how will we all exit? Where are the obstacles we haven't found yet? Which passage holds the key to unlocking the solution?

On any given day I feel pretty isolated with this disease - I'm the only T1D in my group at work, the only one in mission control, the only one in my family. I go through the logistics of calling insurance companies, ordering supplies, changing sites and troubleshooting malfunctions mostly on my own. Even those pesky carbs really only get counted in my brain, no group think for a meal bolus here. But there is b…
2 comments
More Nerdy This Way! »

On 20 years with Type 1 Diabetes

I think it's finally time to hit 'publish' on this post, considering it's been sitting here for, oh you know, like 2 weeks now ;-) Sometimes I "April" about things too much (this is Chris's term), and with my dad here for Christmas I realized that it's definitely a trait passed down, haha, love you dad!


To be honest, I never thought the day would come when I would say, "I've had Type 1 Diabetes for 20 years."

20 years ago a cure was 'just on the horizon' and as an 11 year old kid I took that phrase to heart - I had to. My continued existence was based solely on whatever the endocrinologist said - pancreas, insulin, autoimmune, blood sugar, islet cells, shots. I didn't know what I didn't know at that point. I had never heard of an insulin pump or glucose meter. Ketones and hyperglycemia were just big, meaningless words. Carb ratios and counting might as well have been formulas for travelling at light speed. I wasn't ov…
5 comments
More Nerdy This Way! »

Type 1 Diabetes - IT life.

Nine years ago (9 years ago?!), I was still waiting for the black-box-doctors at the FAA to clear my Class III medical certificate - a requirement for my then-job flying on experimental Army helicopters. To 'pump' up my diabetes-dejected ego (ha), Dave let me tag along with him for his MH-47G proficiency simulator runs. That tiny taste into helicopter flight dynamics gave me so much appreciation for him - hovering is literally the.hardest.thing, I was tense the entire time and constantly felt like I was one small cyclic movement away from losing control. Even though I knew in the back of my mind we were in a (moving) simulator, my senses got lost in the weight of the flight controls, the movement on the screens, and the hard thumps when I hovered right into the ground.

At the end of the runs I asked him how he has the stamina to pilot this monster of a helicopter for literally 15 hours straight (these special ops versions can mid-air refuel). He sort of laughed, but his answer…
2 comments
More Nerdy This Way! »
01 09 10