My Life As a T1D

Chapter 10: Finally a pump!

I have some big news for everyone! I finally got a pump, although at the time that I am writing this I have had a pump for 6 months.

After moving to the island and meeting both Kylah and Nicole I got to experience through them what it was like to have an insulin pump. I had always heard of one and I really wanted one but I knew that it was too expensive to afford and hard to get when living in Ecuador. Another reason I never got it was because Dr. Pauley in the US thought that my A1C was good enough and I didn't really need the pump since I was able to handle everything with injections pretty well. She did have a point, I did have pretty good control of my numbers with the Dexcom and injections but I had wanted a pump since I found out about it in the diabetes conference back in 2016. My A1C was six-point something, I don't quite remember. But the reason I wanted a pump was more than just something that I wanted because Kylah and Nicole had it; like a 6-year-old wanting the same barbie or brand of shoes as his/her friend. It was more than just better technology and control and staying up to date. It was for the emotional and mental side of diabetes.

Before grade 5, I was very innocent, and having to go to the nurse for injections was normal for me and I never questioned it, I just understood that it was something to be done. However, as I got older around 7th to 9th grade I started to really realize what "managing your diabetes" meant. It meant having people stare at you and question what is on your arm. It meant not being able to concentrate in class sometimes during a low blood sugar. It meant having to carry a needle with myself the whole time. I started feeling the mental toll, especially when it came to injections. I started avoiding them. When I went to parties and my friends or family offered food that I hadn't bolused for I would turn them down. If I was at a friend's house and they suddenly wanted to have some chips or sweets that I hadn't counted for earlier, I turned it down because I knew I would have to give myself insulin and I didn't want to stick the needle into my body. However, they didn't completely ignore putting on my insulin because my parents would always make sure that I never forgot. So I still put insulin for main meals. But if I saw the arrow of my Dexcom screen trending up after a meal I wouldn't put insulin immediately. I would wait for it to climb to 250 or 260 before doing something about it. I avoided it till one of my parents would text me to make sure I did a correction. If it weren't for my parents I think I might have only given myself insulin 2 or 3 times a day and ignored everything else completely. I knew that it was bad to delay high blood sugar because high blood sugars cause complications later in life. But I didn't want to deal with it. My injections hurt most of the time. Whenever someone saw me giving myself an injection they would ask "Does it hurt?" I would always just smile and say "no or just a little, like pinching your skin with your two fingers for 10 seconds" (that is what I told little kids). In reality what I wanted to tell them is "YES, of course, it hurts. It's a fucking needle and needles hurt, don't they? And it's not easy to voluntarily stick a needle into your arm." Of course, I never said this to anyone. But it's true. Diabetes is hard, it's exhausting, it's painful, it's messy, it sucks, it's all the bad adjectives in the world. An example is that at the time of writing this (September 6, 5:58 pm) I have had high blood sugar for nearly 3 hours. I put so much insulin in and nothing works. It is extremely frustrating but of course, I can't do anything but drink water, put MORE insulin and wait. So the main reason I got the pump was so that I would stop feeling the pressure and stress of injecting a needle into my arm every time I did something wrong. High blood sugar to me means that I did something wrong and I will live the consequence of it sooner or later. Sure, my mom helps manage my T1D too and sometimes she can make a mistake. But I am the one having to live the consequences. Sorry for being so negative but I was really frustrated when I wrote this. 

So I talked to my doctor and she told me about the options of pumps that kids had on the island and that insurance companies covered. If your insurance company doesn't cover the pump you want you can't get it, which really sucks but this wasn't the case for me. There are 3 main brands for pumps: Medtronic, T-slim, and Omnipod. The main options that I had were Medtronic and Omnipod. My doctor on the island, Dr. Hislop (who is also Kylah and Nicole's doctor) has a deal with Medtronic to sell their pump on the island. I'm not sure I've talked about it with her. She is really great and is the biggest advocator for diabetes that I've met here. I wasn't very interested in the Medtronic pump because it has a tube and I wanted the Omnipod which is tubeless but I did consider it. I waited around 2 months before making my decision. Dr. Hislop wanted to give me time to research and make sure I chose the pump that was best for me.