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Jumping into the world of pumping is no simple task. And I don’t mean that it is hard to get an insulin pump. The hard part is picking through the available pump companies, deciding which one suits your lifestyle, and finding a way to pay for it. If you live in Duckburg and own a bank vault full of coins, you can pay the thousands of dollars for up-front costs and hundreds monthly for a pump. But for the rest of us, health insurance is the only avenue to an insulin pump.

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and it's not about me.

I'm not even sure it's about medical insurance -- but it's sure about the D.

I've recently learned that a recent infection has cost a close real-life friend (and fellow PWD) another one of his toes, and a sizeable chunk of uncovered medical expenses. Until this weekend, a number of his close friends (including me) had known he'd been hospitalized, and that there was talk about a skin graft after everything healed -- but we didn't know the extent of the damage (both physical and fiscal).

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I feel like I'm in an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

OK first let me say that I really don't like feeling like this. If I could ban SpongeBob from my house I would. When I'm surfing the channels for the kids (man is it hard to please a 9 year old, 6 year old and 3 year old at the same time!) I have to force myself to not scream "Over my dead body!" when they all scream/chant "SpongeBob! SpongeBob! SpongeBob!"

I get that we all need a little mindless entertainment at times (which is why I often choose solitaire over a game of hearts with the computer because solitaire takes fewer brain cells) but my God I just want to poke SpongeBob in the eye. And Patrick.

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I am shocked at how quickly it happened. The first Friday in August, I met with a new endo. A week later my pump arrived. No hassles. No paperwork. No out-of-pocket costs. Bing, bang, boom...it was on my door step.

Last week, I met with the diabetes educator who trained me with saline. And as of 12:14 this afternoon, I'm pumping with insulin. I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm giddy. I'm overwhelmed.

I picked the Minimed Paradigm 722, because I'm familiar with it (my friend Lizzy has one) and because I want the CGM to go with it. Currently, my insurance company is not covering CGM, but my diabetes educator is confident that I can get it approved once I am actually pregnant. I'm tempted to buy one out of pocket and try to get it approved later, but I'm not sure I can swing it if it's not approved. I was considering buying a used one, but frankly, I have no idea where to find one.

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When the phone rang Thursday afternoon and the caller ID said "SonoraQuest" I really thought they would be looking for The Mr. Sure, I'd had labwork done not that long ago, but I had honestly forgotten.

Anyway, so the nurse gave this hideously long-winded explanation of why she was calling. Yeah, she had to get all that information out, but I almost nodded off! OK not really, but I did find myself screaming in my head "Get to the point woman!"

Looking back I guess I should have known there would be an issue. When I walked into the lab and handed the phlebotomist (who eerily reminded me of my step mother and made me wonder when she was going to yell at me) my paperwork she casually said that the order they had for me was different than the one in their system but that she was going to use the paperwork I came with.

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Tuesday night The Mr. called as I was driving home. We chatted about the normal stuff: how was your day?, what do you want to do for dinner?, are the kids strangling each other because that is an awful lot of screaming?
 

We hung up but he immediately called back.
 

“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said. “You got subpeonaed today.”
 

“Um, what?”
 

“There was a guy waiting at the house when I got home,” he said.
 

I wondered how long the guy had been there. It had been raining all day (in the last four days, Phoenix has received half of its annual rainfall amount. Seriously.) and I thought about how boring it must be for process servers.
 

“Did you pay that red light ticket you got in November,” he asked.
 

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There are two very important people in my life who are considering weight loss surgery. I won't lie: I've thought about it, too.

I'm not really that excited, though, about the type of lifestyle you have to lead after bariatric surgery. Seems to me there's a lot of liquid involved and the recovery is long and slow. How would that affect my family? My family life? What about my job?

I've thought about a lap band, too. That seemed to be much less invasive and more my style. From what I understand, a lap band makes your stomach smaller and doesn't change the way your food is digested.

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So the other day when I wrote about digging up Dex for another round of constant blood-sugar watching, I really thought it would be as easy as calling the medical supply company and giving them my credit card number.

But oh no. It couldn't be that simple.

"Problem" No. 1: The medical supply company told me the sensors were on back order, but that they should ship within a week. I really didn't have a problem with that since I wasn't desperate for the sensors and had planned to use Dex on a more casual basis.

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My endo appointment went quite well today. I showed up early to complete my new patient paperwork, waited a few minutes, and ran through the usual blood pressure, weight, and so on. The nurse was nice.

Their meter showed 168, about an hour and a half after a meal. The nurse didn't seem to judge, although in my eyes 168 looks pretty darn perfect so what's there to judge? They downloaded my meter's information and printed out some charts (I couldn't even believe it!). And soon enough, the doctor was coming in to sit down with me.

She let me do most of the talking, looked at my numbers, and seemed on board with what I was saying. She understood the stress I'm under and how that's affecting my numbers. She also took interest in my already diagnosed PCOS, which definitely affects my blood sugars.

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The back to school rush is in full force at our house. Between paperwork, tuition payments, classroom visits, teacher meetings, bus riding anxiety (mostly on my part), and school supply shopping, there has been little time to wallow in my recent diabetes funk. Although I feel strongly that each and every one of us is entitled to some “woe is me” days, because let’s face it, it is indeed the reality of this disease (I can’t stand people who insinuate that these kinds of days aren’t necessary, I personally feel it is healthy to ride high on the positive days and try to learn from those bummer days that hit all of us from time to time). Sorry about that….ok, where was I….right….

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