The Journey of the Red Rider

Last Friday afternoon I had one of those life changing days, but at the time it didn't seem that life changing. Friday afternoon I had my first session with my insulin pump coach at which time we installed my first insulin pump.

From now on I will refer to my insulin pump as "Wilson" (that idea came from the Tom Hanks movie "Castaway" where he befriends a volleyball).

The week before Diabetes Training Camp I had decided I was going to get a pump. I still had to wait for the insurance papers to come through but while I was at camp I made a point to talk to as many people I could about living with the pump. In my mind these were the people who lived on the front lines of this battle. These were the people who knew all those little details of life that Medtronic could not tell me about.

Before camp was over I had made my decision to get the pump and about that same time I got an email from Medtronic that the insurance papers came through. I was going to be a "pumper".

As we all know life gets in the way of things sometimes so I had to wait for three weeks before I got my pump in the mail. I had a busy week at work and then had to go to Florida for two weeks on business. The day I got back I got a call from my pump coach to set up the first training day which was last Friday.

Because I had been using a Medtronic CGM I had already been familiar with the device operation so there was no real fear that the device would overwhelm me. I was looking forward to the challenge of the next step in the journey. And boy what a step it was.

The last thing we did was to install the pump and get it functional. So with that accomplished the new Wilson and I went back to work.

One of the problems I had run into was that Medtronic sent me the 1.8 ml reservoirs and not the 3.0 ml reservoirs. I decided to make do with the 1.8 ml and push on with the journey. Over the weekend I got to play with the information provided to me by the pump and learned a lot about how to live with the pump. There is still a lot to learn mostly because living with diabetes is a life long work in progress.

This morning I took out the first infusion set and put in the second one. The first on was the silhouette but this morning I tried th quick-set. Installation went great and Wilson is working fine at the moment. Tomorrow afternoon I meet my pump coach for the second session where we will look and the data downloaded to CareLink from the pump itself. This data will us determine if we need to make any adjustments to the basal rate or adjust other numbers and settings. I'm looking forward to learning more tomorrow about this new friend that will help me live on this island called diabetes. The only difference here is that I am not alone in this feeling I know, and am thankful for, the many others out there that I can call on anytime I have questions about those fine points.

In the next post I'll update you on the pump progress as well as start getting back to the exercising and getting back on the bike. My goal is to get ready for the 2012 cyclocross season and compete in the DCCX this October in Washington DC. So until next post let's all continue our journey and take the next step.

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Hi folks,