How do you like to wear your insulin pump?

I’ve always wondered how people preferred to wear their pump…clipped outside or inside? To hide the pump? To protect the screen? To see the time more conveniently? :)

I would love to know what you think! Please leave a comment with your preference! :)  

Insulin Pens or Insulin Pumps?

When I was 10, my mom and I were used to shots, we knew the perfect amount of insulin for everything, from a small piece of pizza and cake at a birthday party to simply cereal for breakfast. Yep, we had it all down to a science. Then came the big Fed-Ex Box. It had been sitting in my room for months. I was scared. I’m not into “change.” 

It was my first insulin pump. The thought of having something attached to me to replace all of the shots was overwhelming. No more [10-15 (why did I write that before? I must have been so tired, I wrote how many time I test)]  4-6 shots a day…just a site change every 2-3 days. That sounds nice. But how does it work? Programming this thing was a mystery. Basal Rates? WHAT?  What are basal rates? What is a BOLUS? Spell check still wants to say “blouse.”  I could tell this was going to take a lot of getting used to. 

We had been through “Pump Training” already and had programmed my new pump. At the time, we were doing a Video Diary series about what it’s like to live with Diabetes for ABC’s Good Morning America. During the first try of using the insulin pump, my blood sugar had dropped down to 19, and although I was dangerously low, I think the site went in ok. It either wasn’t a good memory or I was too low to remember, but I do recall it hurt too much to keep the site in and I had to go back to shots for a while.

A few months later, we tried the pump again. I didn’t give up. I knew this would help give me some freedom. I don’t know about you, but I remember exactly when I put my insulin infusion site in and successfully started using the pump. I was ten years old. It was January 1st, 2000 at 3:00 in the afternoon. My mom and I used the scary big blue inserter that to this day, creeps me out. Then, we took a picture (of course) and I joined my sister and friends at the Restaurant called, “Rubio’s” where my friends always ordered cheeros. (I’ve never had one so I’m not even sure if that is how you spell it, and I don’t know why I remember that.)

We all were SO happy that the pump finally worked!!!!!

Fast forward to now. 2011. I don’t think I have EVER taken my pump off and given my sites a break. So in eleven years, all of my favorite places to put my infusion sets are practically bruised forever. (I’m still trying to get the bruising to go away….Arnica Gel? Yes, pleeease!)

I don’t know if anyone else has this problem, please let me know if you do, but I can’t put my sites into my stomach. They hurt so much and are incredibly uncomfortable. So I don’t exactly have the whole switch site from the stomach, to the back, other side, back to the other side of my stomach, and start over. No way. Just my backside and sometimes the leg, but that is not my favorite spot either.

Any way, I need to stay focused here. What was I saying…?
Oh right! So in May, I went to my endocrinologist appointment, they synced my insulin pump and tested my HbA1c and went over my blood work. ((yaaaaayyy!))

No.

I hate getting my A1c tested. (I wonder how many times I’ve said that?)

Fortunately, it had come down 0.7 points and my other blood work came back with really good results! Wooohooo! 

Any way, my sister, Jackie, and I asked my doctor about the insulin pen. Again. 
She thinks the pen is the coolest thing around by the way. haha. Why? They are still shots! 

I agreed to “take a break from the pump” and go on the Insulin Pen for a few days to let my sites heal. Well, they needed more than a few days. More like a month, and even though the bruises still aren’t healed, they look a lot better…Suggestions anyone?  

During this vacation from my pump, a new Minimed Paradigm Revel (mine is clear!) was approved and arrived in the mail! Going through the pump instructional book and programming the new pump with all of my settings was quite a process. The little beeping noises were getting annoying! Haha, but it’s all good. The new pump is really nice and it’s good to have an updated pump with a lot of new features! It’s cool how you can put in an event, such as exercise! I like that. :) 

Any way, with the pens, at least from my experience, (I’m not a doctor and what I’m saying here is what helped me and whatever phrase is in quotes is from my Diabetic Educator, and in no way am I trying to tell you, the reader, what to do. With the insulin pens, I basically needed to learn how to use them, which sounds really weird, but I didn’t know you could split the doses, or there was a better time to take levemir, or that “since I’m lean, I don’t need to pinch my skin like I’m used to” to give myself a shot with the tiny tiny needles, or that when I get a bruise from a shot, it was because I needed to insert it in an area with enough fat, (for example, NOT the top of my thigh but the upper side). And for me, re-learning how to calculate my insulin to carb ratios and the blood sugar Correction Bolus Ratio, and eventually downloaded the “Insulin Calc” app for my iPhone. Best app ever! 

After a month of Levemir (Basal) and Humolog Pens, I couldn’t take another shot. They hurt SO much. Shots are a pain. Literally. 

I put the pump back in on Saturday and immediately got the tubing stuck on a door handle. Oops :-/

I know I sound like I don’t really know which is my favorite and it’s not the point in this post, but I just wanted to share with you my list of pros and cons for each! I realized during this pump vacation that I had forgotten how nice it was to wear a dress without my pump. To workout without my pump attached. To sleep on my stomach, comfortably. To take a shower without a pump site stuck in. But I really missed bolusing half units, turning down my basal rate, not NEEDING to EAT because there was always insulin on board, letting the Bolus Wizard figure everything out for me, remember exactly when I bolused and what I bolused (for some reason every time I would dial the pen and give myself the shot, I forgot how much I gave) and not having to pull up my shirt in public to give myself a shot every time I ate something or had to correct. (I know I could go to the restroom and give myself a shot, I did that too!) And the pain of the 4 to 6 shots each day, I don’t miss that. At all.

I still LOVE my pump [very very much] and I miss it when I’m on the insulin pen. If you asked me if I would ever stop using the pump, I would say it was one of the greatest things ever made and I can’t imagine living life without my insulin pump. But I will now welcome those little mini-pump-vacations each month when I give my poor sites a break for a few days. :) 

Well thanks for reading! Let me know what you think about pumps vs. pens! :)

We’re Thankful For…

mj2twins:

We are thankful for each other, the talent we’ve been blessed with and the opportunity to work together, especially recording our first album and film our first music video, it’s been a great years! It’s so wonderful to have such a special relationship as parents, children, as an aunt, as sisters, and all of us as twins!

We are thankful for our family and their love and support through the good times and the bad, they’ve always been there for us. They are the ground that keeps us stable, the love that helps us grow, and the strength to endure all challenges!!

We’re thankful for our music family, our producer, Dennis Money of SweetSong Nashville, who has worked so hard to give us the best sound we can get. Thank you for believing in us from the beginning. We’re thankful to Ronnie who found us and brought us to Dennis, and who is always there for us. We’re thankful for Herb, who didn’t need to take on another act, but did, and we’re grateful to have the team of Graham Artist Management behind us. We are thankful for our publicist, Jules Wortman, who not only works to promote our act, but who works hard to help all of her acts! You rock Jules!

We’re thankful to our bandleader, Tim Johnson, a multi-talented musician who we’re trying to teach him to think in A flat instead of G sharp, but it looks like a losing battle. He’s too highly trained! ☺ haha. Either way, we’re grateful that Tim is with us.

We’re thankful for all of our friends in the music industry, especially…the very talented Rio Grand, Lee Greenwood, Wayne Newton, Dolly Parton, Heidi Newfield, Bill Anderson, Cowboy Troy, Steve Wariner, Larry Gatlin, Rudy Gatlin, Andy Griggs, Heartland, Burns and Poe, Moe Bandy, Buddy Jewell, T G Sheppard, and Mark Collie… Kaitlin Walker, Clint Holmes, Ken Henderson, and Dominic Allen.

We’re thankful to Dennis for having found a song that perfectly expresses love. You Can’t Say Love Enough is a fabulous song and we’re grateful that it is available on iTunes, and the Music Video is now playing on GAC and on YouTube. 

We’re thankful that we live in a country that is free, knowing that freedom is never free. And we’re especially thankful to all the men and women who so selflessly risk all to protect the freedom we all cherish.

We are extremely thankful for our health, and are so grateful for the medical research and technology that will someday cure diabetes, and in the mean time, makes living with this chronic disease a little more bearable.

Finally, we are so thankful for our faith and to have God in our lives, for with the Lord at our side, nothing can stand in our way!

Happy Happy Happy Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
We wish you and your families a wonderful day and Holiday Season! ☺

It really is a wonderful life! :)

Dear Blood Sugars

Dear Blood Sugars,

You and me?

I thought we had a good pattern going on.

And then two mornings in a row,

you go ahead and mess up my morning.

I know I won’t always know what you’ll do…

but some warning would be nice.

Knowing and feeling my numbers are totally different.

Why can’t I feel lows anymore?

This morning I didn’t know I was 52 until I was 52. 

I lost all strength. 

I couldn’t even open up my juice bottle that was half open.

(thank you Jackie!)

I felt so sleepy, but had a busy busy day ahead.

Why these feelings? Why these lows? 

Can’t I just have the blood sugars of my 3 year old self before I was diagnosed with diabetes?

Maybe not, probably not for a while. 

But until then, please give me some signs of lows. and highs, if you don’t mind. :\ 

Love, me.

curemoll © 2010

CUREmoll’s D-Blog Day: 6 Things I Want You Know About Diabetes

Happy D-Blog Day everyone! I wanted to blog today and let you know the 6 things I want you to know about diabetes. And, yes, that is Lenny The Lion from Medtronic Minimed from the JDRF Walk To Cure Diabetes on Saturday. :) 

1. No, I did not  catch diabetes in the air when I was 4 years old.  Diabetes is not a cold, we don’t “catch diabetes.” Type 1 Diabetes is not something you catch and it’s not contagious.

2. You can’t take a vacation from diabetes. It’s there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We can’t take a vacation from it, but I sure do dream about the cure an awful lot. :) That day will be the BEST day in a lot of lives, not only in my life, but in the lives of a lot people, their families, and friends. :)

3.  Yes, as a diabetic, I CAN eat cake, and sugar, and bread, and pasta, and desserts. It is okay every once in a while (at least for me) because I know I don’t have a lot of desserts, but when I do, it’s not that often, and it’s a small amount, just enough to taste. I allow for what I eat with insulin, and LOVE my insulin pump. :) 

4. Insulin is not a cure.  Just because we all take insulin doesn’t mean we suddenly are cured of diabetes. I don’t know how the cure will be found, but if it’s ever in a shot, that’s when I’ll say I’m cured from my diabetes, and actually be happy about getting a shot. Insulin is a life line, it is not a cure; it’s what keeps us alive.

5. Diabetics are AWESOME people and there are a lot of resources out there now. When I was diagnosed 17 years ago, there was no one. I was the only one in my school who had diabetes. I was the only one in my area that had diabetes. That all changed when my sister, who is not a diabetic, and I and my mom and aunt, traveled to Washington, D.C. when we were 10, and met 100 other young people with diabetes at the first JDRF Children’s Congress where Jackie and I were the first delegates from Nevada, and that is when I met other people who were dealing with the same things I was and felt the same way. Today, there is a whole diabetes community online now and are blogging, vlogging, and talking to each other, and meeting up, like Keri, Allison, George, Chris from Diabetic Rockstar, Manny from TuDiabetes, Alexis, Elizabeth Edelman, Scott, Amy, Gina, and many, many more! 

6. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. It’s okay. I love when people ask me questions or ask if I am okay. I am very very grateful to people caring about me. There are no stupid questions, and people should know that if you’re worried about something a diabetic is eating, its better to ask them if what they’re eating will cause them trouble than it is to make a blatant statement like, “you shouldn’t be eating that.” The truth is, diabetics can eat many things, within reason, but they need to account for it with insulin.  

7. BONUS! Just for the record, my name is not “Did you test?” or “What’s your number?” :) Growing up I had to bite my tongue because there were times those questions bothered me, but I also know that I am blessed and it’s much better to have people who care enough to ask about your health than it is to go through life knowing no one has your back.  

Real Jam?

We were making dinner tonight and somehow we decided on Jelly Omelets. Oh, childhood memories! I remember one morning before school, we were all in a hurry, and mom made us a jelly omelet. But, instead of using cinnamon, she used Pappy’s Seasoning (to sprice up chicken dishes). haha.  Ooops!

Any way, tonight before dinner, my blood sugar was 91. 

Mom said, “I’m putting real jam on your omelet, Mollie.” This made me very happy. :-)  Normally I use my sugar free jelly, but tonight, a teaspoon of REAL jam was quite a treat!  :) Yummm! :) 

The Big Blue Test

As you may or may not know…it’s National Diabetes Awareness Month!

November 14th is World Diabetes Day…and there are some amazing efforts to bring more awareness for diabetes and what the cure for diabetes would mean to all of us. This is where we all come in!

TuDiabetes and the Diabetes Hands Foundation is raising much more than diabetes awareness…they are raising money and for every view of this powerful and inspiring video, Roche Diabetes is giving a child in need a week’s worth of insulin! How amazing is that? Watching this for less than 2 minutes can make all the difference. :) 

Please watch, and please send it on to your friends, or reblog this post or link to the video! The goal is 100,000 views!  Right now, it’s up over 41,000 views!  You have no idea how much it would mean to all of us to do the Big Blue Test this year!  I know I will! :)

Late Night Nutrition Label Reading

Last week I went to my Endocrinologist Appointment…and I filled out the routine paper work and everything, and they took my blood for my A1C Test which is my favorite part of the appointment. (no, it reeeeeallly is not)   

My a1C was 7.8    ….down from 8.2 three months ago.   

At least it’s coming down, right? I am working very hard now to “trust my pump” by putting in all of my blood sugars after each time I test using my FreeStyle Lite tester and Accucheck Multi-Clix poker that I love, but it’s not my sister Jackie or my mom’s favorite when they test me. Any way, I am trusting my pump as much as I can remember and carb counting everything I eat and putting the carbs in as much as I can and I am definitely seeing a difference!

My doctor also changed my basal rates in my pump and the ratios for insulin to carbs. That is something I am afraid of changing and when he changed it last week, I feel like I have been getting very broken sleep from testing my blood sugars during the night.  I know I could wear the sensor, but it hurts and has not been accurate for me, I wonder if that is soemthing that happens to a lot of people, but when I use the sensor, it is a horrible expereince and I end up very frustrated because my tester tells me what my number is, I feel totally different, and my sensor tells a whole other story.  So I’ve been testing at least 3 times a night and then real early in the morning when we feed our dogs. :)

So a couple of nights ago, I was low. again. Being low at night is annoying, because most of the time, I’m not hungry and need to have a snack with juice. I had juice and my Mom and I were looking for a snack that I could have, but since I wasn’t hungry, I didn’t want a lot to eat.

We looked at english muffins and raison bread, but that was a lot. Granola Bars were really sweet or some were too crunchy.  

Then we stood in our pantry looking at the boxes of crackers, and man, all I said was, “man, that’s a lot of crackers for 21 carbs!”  

Mom and I ended up making a little snack of 3 Trisquit crackers, and we split a small piece of cheese.  That was the perfect late night snack, and it brought my blood sugar up just enough and I was safe during the night and woke up with my blood sugar at 125! :) 

The Minimed Continuous Glucose Monitor

I have been meaning to update my blog since last Thursday, obviously I’ve been too busy to sit here and type all of this and update, so here goes! (while i have a couple minutes at least) Last thursday, I went back on the Sensor. I was using the inserter wrong so that is what caused the bleeding around the site! The inserter has to be on its “toes” and when the needle goes in and its still stuck to the inserter, its like this little dip motion, not straight out or straight over. My mom took this pictures, and thought I’d put them up here to see the process.

There is the inserter, and my stomach, where i’m trying to press the button

I was scared and hesitant, so heres another angle, while i was thinking that i really needed to press that white button or i’d just be standing there all afternoon. hehe

theres the site! with the needle still in!


and this is me taking the needle out while holding the two sides of the site, and then making sure the tape was down.


So that worked well, and then i gave it 5 minutes for the skin to get used to having something there. I then attached the transmitter, the white thing, which is actually pretty small.

And then i waited the two-hour period where the sensor starts‚ and entered my BG, which was low again, it was like 80! So yeah, that red dot you see is the mark from the last sensor i had in last week. (it’s still healing).

I had a couple problems with the sensor over the weekend, however. About 1 day and 18 hours later, its giving me a “Cal Error” or calibration error after i had entered my BG (you do that every 12 hours) or up to 4 times a day. I was like, this thing is only almost 2 days old, it shouldn’t be bad! phshhhh sure enough, after another Cal Error, it says “Bad Sensor” I thought to myself, “No! Not now!!!!” So i called the Minimed 24 hour helpline, (they are really nice!) and talked to someone for like a half hour trying to fix my sensor and see what was going on, if the sensor was really bad, if i had to replace it, or if i could restart it, and find the old one, and not have to change the whole sensor. I didn’t change the sensor and about 2 hours later, it asked me for my BG. So i put it in, and all was good for about 4 hours‚ after dinner, while we were all watching a movie on the couch, it starts beeping again! “Call Error, Cal Error, Bad Sensor!!!!” i was starting to get really frustrated at this point. I called Minimed, yet again, and they said to take the sensor out, since there was barely any signal, and it was the 2nd time i had to tried this. So to re-use it would pretty much be pointless. I took it out, (yay!) and went to sleep at 1am. and was sooo tired on Sunday! ughhh.

I just changed my insulin pump site and may put the sensor on my hip or lower back this time, and see if that gives the sensor more than a day to work. So we’ll see! My numbers were great on Friday and Saturday though, i’ll tell you that, the graph was almost a straight line, it was so cool to look at!