John Lennon Said it Best

And it also goes on, regardless of the void that you're now living with.

Three days after Dad passed away I was sitting in pump training. I probably could have cancelled it and put it off for later, but Dad would not have been happy with me for not taking care of myself. I was also out of sensors for the other pump and the new one had been sitting in my linen closet for months, after all.

The new pump I'm on is again a Medtronic. For the most part it's business as usual- I had no problem putting it on and getting it going. It uses the same insulin reservoir, the same insertion settings, and for the most part is very familiar.

Except that it's totally a different thing.

Old pump

New Pump...pay no attention to that high blood sugar.

This new pump has different "modes."  Straight up just on and monitoring your blood glucose (BG) is called manual mode. Letting the pump actually act kind of like a real pancreas is Auto Mode.

Wait, what?

This is some high tech Batman stuff I'm talkin' about here. For one thing, in "manual mode" it has safeguards that will stop the pump from giving you insulin when it notices your blood sugar dropping. As long as the continuous blood glucose sensor is working, this is a game changer.  My other pump would alert me to lows but just keep on trucking along until I either dealt with it or ended up in a coma. And the sensor itself is pretty damn accurate, which is a miracle for Medtronic.

It has to be accurate, because of the whole reason to get this pump. Auto Mode. Auto mode is basically the pump automatically deciding how much insulin I need based on previously gathered sensor data, current sensor glucose readings, and (this is the scariest part) what I input into the device.

Give myself insulin before I eat?

Count my carbs?

What madness is this?

Actually, if I can keep myself in the habit of doing those things, we may see some significant improvement in my next a1c. I had a pretty scary low the other night because I mis-counted the carbs, and today I'm riding high for the same reason, but otherwise since I started using the auto mode on Tuesday I've been pretty steady between 70-160.

I will say this, though, (since you know it's rare I have no complaints)- the new pump is a needy little wretch. I've been checking my blood sugar more than average. More than I think I have since I started on CGM in the first place. (And yes, I know this is a really stupid thing to be complaining about because it's status quo for all diabetics that we get the finger stick several times a day.)

There are other things about it that kind of annoy me. It takes several more clicks to do things now, like silence it or give a bolus. Whereas before a blind person could use the pump now there is a lock on it that requires sight to bypass, so that sucks. And then there's this-

Apparently the adhesives for the old pump gave people a lot of problems, like allergies, so Medtronic changed them. Now there are two redesigned adhesive tapes they insist we use, and the result, at least on my skin, is the above. Itchy, red, painful...it's pretty awful. And of course, once I get it off I'm putting a new one on, and it's a big radius on those things. I've been constantly overlapping that tape on top of already irritated skin. 

Fortunately, the other tape came in packets of ten, even though there were only five sensors in the box. I have tons of them left over, so in spite of the request to use their "new and improved" tape, I'll keep on keepin' on with the old ones until they stop making them so that my stomach looks like I've got horrible rashes all over it. 

Complaints aside, I have high hopes for this thing. If it really can help me regulate my blood sugars better then that's only a good thing. I'm not getting any younger and even though the retina specialist I saw this morning said the pictures of my retinas were "excellent" and that I should keep up the good work, getting things closer to normal is the goal. And maybe this time with this pump things will be just that much easier over all. It's not like I can really control this disease, but guiding it might be an obtainable goal.