The pump

I always love it when my husband gets on my blog and says, “Where’s something new? I want to read something new.” =) He’s a sweet man and the topic of today’s blog, lol.

So Kyle got the pump. Happy birthday to him, as it was his birthday present. He actually was thrilled. It’s sat in a box for the past two weeks, though, until we headed to the doctor yesterday to learn how to use the thing.

Surprising how such a little device could come in such a big box that we had to lug all around yesterday (Ha! I say “we,” but we all know he carried it, lol). The nurse was really sweet and helpful and answered all of our questions. Kyle was a bit nervous the first time he inserted the pump, but he was quite surprised at how painless it was (for him, at least – if it had been me, I would have passed out on the floor. I’m a bit of a pansy when it comes to needles!).

I was nervous that the pump would be invasive and troublesome, but, aside from one issue (which I’ll discuss momentarily), it’s really not. In fact, once he injects himself, he pulls the needle out. There’s a small white covering over the tiny tubing that was inserted inside him, and, after three days, he changes out the insulin and covering and reinserts. So, instead of taking five shots a day, he takes one every three days. Yeah, that’s what we call a win.

He does have the pager-looking device hooked up to the wires, which lead to the white covering on his stomach, but it can easily be hidden in his pocket or under his shirt (or, if he wants, he can wear it like a beeper). He had it on yesterday, and I didn’t even notice.

However, we did have an issue last night that will have to be resolved before he actually gets insulin put in on the 30^th. The nurse gave him saline so he can get used to working with the pump, but that crazy thing kept shooting off random alerts about every 30 minutes, buzzing loudly to get our attention. So, in frustration, Kyle jerked the pump off about 9 p.m. because there’s no way we could have slept with it buzzing all night. He’s going to call his nurse and figure out what’s going on.  

At any rate, even though Day 1 of the pump wasn’t a success, it is good to have an idea of what’s going on and be able to fix any little problem before the insulin goes in. The 30^th is going to be a big day for us!! In fact, there are a lot of big days in August coming up, and I’m looking forward to all of them!