So far I'm not head over heels for my new pump, and I really thought I would be. Kinda pains me to say that.

I'm a creature of habit and often have trouble with change, so I know some of these things will simply take some getting used to.

The two main issues I have are that there are a lot of extra steps when it comes to bolusing, compared to the Medtronic pump. Also, the reservoir is much, much smaller than my Medtronic pump.

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When I made final arrangements to get my Animas Ping my sales rep noted that I should contact my doctor's office about training. I said, "Can't I train myself?" I mean, I'm already a pumper so it's mostly an issue of learning the different features. She is likely supposed to say this, but told me that I should go ahead and take the training. She also mentioned that there is something I can sign declining the training.

I decided to go ahead with the training since it couldn't hurt anything. So naturally when I called my doctor's office they said they don't do pump training and gave me the number for the Animas rep for our area. I was flustered, but shortly got an email from Animas about who would be conducting my training. 

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I’ve known for at least a year that I would switch from my Medtronic pump to Animas as soon as my Medtronic warranty was up in January 2012. You may remember that Animas was my first choice when pump shopping four years ago, but I ultimately chose Medtronic partly because of the CGM feature (which I wound up not using because my insurance company at the time wouldn’t pay for the sensors).

I’ve been nearly counting down the days until January so I could make that call to Animas to get me started. But I wound up getting my new pump this month!

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As you know I’ll be switching from Medtronic to Animas when my warranty is up at the end of the year. Nothing really against Medtronic. I love my purple pump. It’s just that I originally planned to go with Animas and the Medtronic rep talked me out of it. I thought the CGMS function with Medtronic was where I wanted to be, but that reall didn’t work out. One of the reasons I’m switching to Animas is because of their relationship with Dexcom, which I liked much better.

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The Worm

Have you ever seen a pump-wearing kid with diabetes do "the worm" dance on a hard wood floor? Sounds a little like this: flop-clunk, flop-clunk, flop-clunk.

It's a sad scene.

If for nothing else, can we please find a cure for this stinkin' disease? So our children can perform a decent worm without breaking their pelvic bone? Please!

JST SRF

I saw two vanity plates the other day. The first one was ‘JST SRF.' So simple. So optimistic. So worry-free. I'm immediately reminded of my 23-year-old Justin Bieber-looking co-worker who can't get through a single sentence without saying either "no worries" or "it's all good."

Just found out your child has diabetes?

Hey, it's all good. No worries. Just surf!

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I didn't recognize the name or the number on the caller ID this morning and I'm usually hesitant to answer in those situations, but it was a local number so I picked it up. Interesting call to answer, it turned out. It was the patient representative for Dexcom, whom I haven't spoken to in likely nearly a year.

She was calling to see how things were going with Dex.

"Well, I can't afford the sensors anymore, so I'm not using it," I told her.

"Have you checked with your insurance to see if they cover it or is it a co-pay issue?" Jackie asked.

"It's a co-pay issue," I said.

"Oh that's too bad. Because I know you really got a lot of use out of it when you were wearing it."

"Yeah, I did."

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