The education lady laughs at me when I tell her I'm only going to wear the CGM once a month.
"A lot of people say that, but then they love it," she says.
I can see why. Yesterday I tested my blood sugar twice. Just twice. Do you know how long it's been since I tested my blood sugar just twice? I don't.
I love the trend chart, the arrows, and the fact that I can more or less have a grip on my blood sugar at any time.
I also love that I might finally get a grip on my carb counting.
"You don't use the bolus wizard?" the education lady asks in confusion as we program my pump.
"No."
"Why not?"
I lower my voice to a stage whisper, glancing at the other two nurses in the room who are watching and learning along with me--one of whom trained me on carb counting 4 years ago--"because I don't know my carb ratio."
They all laugh. I leave with an appointment card in hand for a refresher course.
I really do like the CGM. I like how it tells me when I am going up or coming down, and how I can stave off a low because of those nifty little double arrows. But I am also finding it disorienting. Part of this is humorous--it's disorienting because I am always checking it and it's hard not to bump into things when fiddling with the pump. But the fact that it's 10-15 minutes behind my actual blood sugar is proving frustrating. I felt my afternoon plummet--heat waves, shakes, and all--long before the double arrows clued me in. And those arrows and the "68" flashing on my screen 20 minutes after I had treated had be second guessing--do I need more juice? Am I still falling?
This, I guess, is just something to get used to. And I am looking forward to it. Merry Christmas to me!
3 comments:
Sounds like a really wonderful gift - learning curve frustrations and all.
Might be a great time to review the Chronicles of Wil over at LifeAfterDx. He went through a lot of stuff there, and I bet you'd have a new appreciation for it now that you're on a CGM system. I'm sure much of it applies even though the system may not be exactly the same.
In the meantime, try not to crash too hard into stuff as you're walking around with your head pasted to the display screen!
:-)
Nice update. I am always interested to hear what people think about that CGMS. The carb ratio will be such a help once you get that back on track. I find it really helpful even though I can do the math in my head, oh my gosh no brainer if you have all the info in your pump and you just have to press a few buttons!!!
I am anxious to here how this continues to go for you!
I am so glad you are enjoying the CGMS! I've been using mine for almost 7 months and it gets better every day ;)
If you haven't already, please stop by www.insulinpumpforums.com. There are several of us there who are using the Paradigm RT TGMS system and we'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Happy Holidays!
Tiffany
www.candiddiabetes.com
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