Monday 20 December 2010

The novelty has worn off.

Well, it's been a little over eight months since I started pumping on the eight of April this year. Alot has happened since then. However, I'm here to talk about the pumping side of that.
Like I said I've been pumping eight months. After that time the novelty of it has really worn off and the thrills are really gone now. I'm no longer excited about bolusing or changing sets and the like anymore. It's all become a mundane reality, as much a part of my every day life as my injections were when I was on them.
Pumping is most certainly much harder work than injections was. The amount of effort required is somewhat greater than what I needed on MDI. On the flipside the rewards are much greater than they could have been on MDI. I know pre pump I had decent control on MDI. Now on a pump it's not all the easy good control that it once was. I was very lucky when I started pumping that my basals seldom deviated from one unit an hour over the day. I only had three different basal rates then. That worked for a while until things got complicated. Now I've got seven different basal rates which have had alot of hard work go into them. Then there's bolusing. It's a more complex affair than simply giving an injection ever was. There are so many options that can be taken and it does take alot of work to work out what suits what best. Now I'm doing my utmost not to whine as this has been of great benefit to me.
It has been alot of hard work for me these past few months. Especially now as I've got my basals sorted out but they seem to need to change every few weeks which is a right pain in the arse. There's always alot to take into account with pumping and there are a fair few things that can go wrong with it. I've had a dose of cannula fails and taken a fair while to work out what was going wrong. On the reverse I have now found the cannula that works for me. I've tailored the basals that seem to now work for me.
I did know when I embarked upon the pumping trail was that it would be much harder work than MDI had ever been. That was, to begin with, tempered by the novelties of pumping. Now it's all begining to seem like alot of hard work. I do try to remind myself that pumping is the right way for me to go and that it offers me alot more than MDI ever could have. The pumping has paid off. I've been able to maintain an HbA1c which has been consistantly in the seven percent area since I started pumping. The highest since starting pumping was 7.6% or 60 mmol/mol in new money. The lowest was 7.1%. I suppose I did let myself go a little after a few months of pumping and now I'm in the process of bringing myself back into line after a momentary lapse or a phase of laissez faire.
What am I trying to say then? Well, ultimately I've got to the stage where pumping is no longer fun and is more hard work than anything else. It's just another means of getting insulin into it. However the results are worth it. I am becoming more apathetic to pumping and diabetes in general though.

2 comments:

  1. you're right, the novelty does wear off. Mine is gone after 5 months. And I'm starting to hate it a little.

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  2. Welcome to diabetes burnout. I've been in it for about 2 months now and I'm not leaving anytime soon.

    I'm not yet over the novelty of not having to inject for everything though. Fuck that.

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