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....

CGM Day Two...

Well, last time I had this contraption on me I could barely sleep and was obliged to lie in a feotal position on one side. This time I slept like a baby bar waking up at two AM, I still can't work out why so I tested my blood and got a 4.8 mmol/L so I just went back to sleep. I got out of bed at half eight and my blood had only risen to 5.5 mmol/L. That meant breakfast time. So it was a case of a sausage buttie which was wonderful. Two hours later that had pushed my blood up to 10.7 mmol/L but that had just dropped to 6.0 mmol/L prior to lunch. All in all, the day is going well. I can't wait to see what the graphs are going to be for this. Shortly I'll be off out to Sainsburys to get hold of a few pizzas as I'll be interested to see the effects of one of those on my bloods. Sloppy Guiseppes here I come! That and I do need to get some food in for the next few weeks...

CGM Happiness...

Well, as of today I am wired up to a CGM (Constant Glucose Monitor) for the next few days. I unplug from it, so to speak, on Tuesday. That's half an hour out of work then. I've already baptised it with bloods around the 10 - 11 mmol/L mark. Fingers crossed my lunch time correction has sorted it all out for me.

Insertion was achieved using a mechanical device and was virtually painless, this is much better than last time around. Last time, I couldn't even walk a hundred metres with it attached due to a huge itchiness emerging from the site. This time around I've been walkign all over the place and I'm about to pop out to post a card to my Mother.

This place is familiar!

Comrades!

Nope, sorry, wrong party conference! I do believe that I have some good news! Despite all the dicking about that I've done with my Levemir doses my HbA1c has only risen by 0.1%. It's now 8.3% and what's even better is my cholesterol has come down to 3.9! Drinking... Mmmm beer. I was out last night and got shit faced rather earlier than everyone else and was thus denied entry in that establishment known to Brighton inhabitants as Coalition... Remind me not to drink on a next to empty stomach again! I do believe I should have had a pizza prior to that one. But hey ho, at least I was up in time to go to my lab class at the satanic hour of nine in the morning!

My new dose of Levemir is currently thirty six units taken at eight in the evening and it bloody well seems to work! For the past few days I've been waking to bloods that are perfectly in range. Now I'm going to ruin that all with a couple of cereal bars....

Highs and hypos another day in the world of diabetes...

So I went out last night. I had a good old half pound burger and chips on the way home. It was probably rather foolish of me but I did dose for that. I mean I was sober even after four pints and a shot of that confounded thing known as Jaegermeister. I suppose my liver doesn't like me enough to keep chucking out glucose when I need it at the same time as metabolising alcohol. I rolled back in to my flat in halls at two in the morning and was in bed by three. I woke up at seven thirty with a blood glucose of eighteen point nine millimoles per litre. Damn it. So what did I choose to do about it? Well, standard procedure really. I gave seven units of Novorapid. Then I went back to sleep until midday. The joys of being a student. I woke up to a blood glucose of nine millimoles per litre. Not too bad I think. Then I decided to go shopping in the afternoon. I got back after a massive shop (spent only thirty three quid!) and decided to have a pint of apple juice and a few chocolate digestives (dark chocolate I'll have you know.) A few hours later I've had the wonderful thing that's a hypo. I suppose I should be grateful for the fact that I actually felt the damn thing. Two point eight millimoles per litre isn't pleasant. I do belive it's down to the glycaemic index values of what I ate after the shop. I reckon that the insulin hit and took out the rise but after that things just dropped right down and down into hypo. Frustrating is it not? I'll bloody well say so. At this current moment I'm procrastinating about work and munching on my tea. Typical bloody student. I must depart as the episode of Wallander that I have up and running on BBC Iplayer beckons...

The promised update...

Well don't say I didn't warn you. This is the update that I promised last night. After correcting a blood glucose of fourteen point five millimoles per litre I thought that would be it and it would gracefully sink into the acceptable range. Sod's law being Sod's law dictated otherwise. About an hour and a half after taking the correction I dropped into a hypo. I know a three point nine millimoles per litres isn't a bad one. I just took a fair few glucose tablets and went back to my bed time reading (for those interested it's on the greats of laboratory medicine, yes, I did print a load of things from a rather good website to read) and then promptly turned in for the night. You'd have thought that would have been the end of it wouldn't you? It turned out otherwise. I awoke at two in the morning lathered in sweat and feeling distinctly hypo. Upon testing with my blood machine which has a glow in the dark screen I found my blood glucose to be at two point six millimoles per litre. Not good. Prompt action ensued and I was munching on glucose tablets and toast like there was no tomorrow. I even got creative; for some reason I sprinkled sugar onto my second piece of toast. Who said diabetes doesn't have it's highlights? Devising rather wacky toast related concoctions at two in the morning makes for great fun if you're hypo! That did have consequences which bit me when I woke up this morning. My blood glucose was thirteen point seven millimoles per litre. Not the best thing to start the day on but I suppose that id does beat being hypo, but not by much let me assure you.

Time to be getting on with two things, a piece of coursework and then the odious practise that is reflective learning which I must do alot of over the next few years and possibly my career. Bugger.