Now Bond, this is your new pancreas, I want you to treat it better than the last one I gave you...

Hello! Long time no speak dear minute readership! Well, I am now live on my pump and have been for just short of three weeks. It's quite wonderful. The first few days were nigh on perfect in terms of blood sugars. Now that any traces of that horrible thing Levemir are out of my system a few changes have been made. I've upped my basal overnight as I've been waking up on blood glucoses of ten millimoles per litre or more. Hopefully a basal rate of one point one units per hour from nine at night to seven in the morning will sort it out. Tomorrow will be the judge of that and the jurors will be the next few days. I hope my nurse doesn't mind that I've upped things without consulting him. Fingers crossed it works though. I can't say how good this thing is at helping me deal with the amounts of stress that I've been under. It's quite something to not have to give injections on a daily basis. I now just get issues with the cannulas and reservoirs to entertain me in the place of injections! I now have funding and that has been cleared with the lovely folk at Medtronic. Tuesday will see me ordering a load of stuff to stock up on for the next few months.
I really can't describe well enough what this means for me. It's given me something to focus on so my life now has a little more purpose than it used to given what's happened over the holidays. It's also given me the tools to use in getting that wonderful thing known as the HbA1C (glycosylated haemoglobin) down below eight percent for the first time in years. I'm sort of dreading the first post pump start HbA1C that I will be getting around next month.

Don't say I didn't warn you that this blog would be a somewhat erratic journal of my diabetes! So far I think this has come true! Here's to the next HbA1C and the next post... Whenever those may be!

All stop for news!

Comrades... Pass the vodka! Welcome to Mother Russia!

Damn it, again, I'm thinking that I'm in another country all together. Well there is certainly news here. First things first, I've got my pump. My shiny new Veo. Well, after today it's not looking as shiny and box fresh as it was. That would be due to a bout of gardening that ended with me leaning on a brick wall to scrape mud from the old booties. I'd quite forgotten that I had my pump around on my back and quite unprotected. I've now got some lovely scrapes and gouges in it. A rather nice one on the middle of the screen. Bugger. One upside is that it was going to happen sooner or later. It now matches it's owner a little better I do believe as it's not so box fresh and looks a bit used and not so clinical now. I like this new look.

As of last Friday I've had a cannula in me. This is the type of one I will be using when I go live in a week. People have asked all the sort of predictable questions such as "can you feel it inside you?" and so forth. The answer is no. I can't feel it and I've certainly forgotten that it was there at times. This morning's run in with the garden wall would certainly demonstrate that I do believe. Quad erat demonstrandum, to those of a non classical bent such as myself that means "which demonstrates the point in hand". Quite a nice expression there I do believe.

I've had to serisouly fight the temptation to go live without the care of my wonderful team so far. I just can't wait to get this all on the go and banish the daily use of the five millimetre surgical steel 31 guage need for a long time. I'm already in love with this thing and quite frankly I really do believe that it's the way forward for me. Hopefully I've got the right kind of mindset and character required to do this. Here's hoping. I do know that things like this don't suit everyone. I would advocate the use of a pump but for some people it just isn't the way to go about managing the old evil Diabetes. Like I've said, for me it's the best thing I think.

Time for a few pictures....