This particular blog will intimately and ultimately refer to my personal use of various and popularly known insulin pumps.
The phrase “Pump Up The Jam,” has become a personal cliché that I have used for many years dealing with diabetes. Before insulin pumps came into flamboyant popularity, a particular song entitled “Pump Up The Jam by Technotronic, 1989, was adopted through a need for self-expression. Technotronic helped me to achieve this.
Pumping on to a present-day conundrum, I have quit the pump. You see, my original purchase was glorified and its machinations remained faithful for eleven years. At one time, an endocrinologist begged me to try a competitor. I did. He earned a trip to Hawaii and that particular pump ceased its service(s) and sent me to the hospital with ketosis. Not good. Another story.
With that drama aside, I was able to return to my original and beloved insulin pump and its organization. Thinking that I was comfortably back to my original brand after insurance tedium, this company sold out to another well-known diabetes tool supplier. The next three years brought off-and-on havoc. For instance, necessary insets and tubings were changed, battery types were changed, my blood sugars became a daily roller-coaster, my HbA1C levels rose, my give-a-care waned, and this particular company blamed me for “having too much scar tissue” and that is why the pump did not work. Well, after over fifty years of needling and pricking myself in one way or another, of course I have too much scar tissue!
Onto my THIRD insulin pump manufacturer, this relationship lasted four weeks, tops.
Weeks passed as I volleyed between plastic and stainless steel cannulae (aka: infusion sets), constantly and consistently rotating my body target sites. The pump’s “error” messages and vibrations were unending, ceaseless day and night, and became embarrassing. The required AA batteries lasted less than ten days, the clip to hold the pump on my waistband broke, and that was it! The last straw! I decided to care for myself and my disease with insulin injections.
Chaos brings change and change brings chaos.
Presently, I am in my fifth week of ‘shooting up the jam’ as opposed to ‘pumping up the jam’ with multiple (six) injections per day. This many injections per day is due to the fact that I use Apidra and Levemir insulins that cannot be mixed together.
Acceptance breeds tolerance.
At this writing, I have not notified my endocrinologist, nor my internist, nor my general medical practitioner. I know what to do, how to do it, where to do it and why to do it. After all, I have been diabetic longer than they have been alive and longer than they have been medical practitioners! They will all find out soon enough – when I need refills.
Do widzenia.
A. K. Buckroth (aka: Andrea K. Roth), www.mydiabeticsoul.com.