The Sweet Life « Artificially Sweetened

Diabetes Haiku

March 17, 2009 at 11:51 am | In The Sweet Life | 7 Comments

Sensor eighty-two
Meter, five twenty-seven
Which should I believe?

(Sadly, the meter is correct)

ETA: WTF? Even after entering the meter reading and eating lunch, the sensor is still alarming and telling me I am 80. And of COURSE, I forgot to grab that extra bottle of strips before I left the house today and am now all out…

Fact Check, Please?

February 21, 2009 at 3:25 pm | In Raves & Rants, The Sweet Life | 7 Comments

I should know better than to expect scientifically accurate journalism from any mainstream news outlet. But somehow it always pisses me off more when the NY Times blows it. I don’t know why I expect better from them – paper of record? – but I do. Whenever they publish a breathless article about the cure being right around the corner at least fifteen family members forward it to me, much to my irritation.

I cringed when their front page article on IVF and the octuplets referred to “implanting” embryos 11 times (!) even after quoting the ASRM guidelines that refer to transferring embryos. For those of you scratching your heads, in IVF, embryos are transferred to the woman’s uterus, where they subsequently do or do not implant. Implantation is the first move towards pregnancy – if they don’t implant, they aren’t doing anything. If reproductive endocrinologists could actually implant embryos, the world of IVF would be very very different.

But I really wanted to cancel my subscription after reading this gem of an article about young people without health insurance.

When Robert Voris last had health insurance, in 2007, he stockpiled insulin pumps, which are inserted under the skin to constantly monitor blood-sugar levels and administer the drug accordingly. He said the tubing for the pump costs $900 a month, so lately he has instead been injecting insulin with a syringe. But Mr. Voris, 27, a journalism student at the City University of New York who works at a restaurant in Park Slope, Brooklyn, is constantly worried about diabetes-induced seizures like the one that sent him to the hospital last summer. (Because it happened at work, his boss covered the ambulance and other bills.)

He “stockpiled insulin pumps”? Which “are inserted under the skin to constantly monitor blood-sugar levels and administer the drug accordingly?”

I WISH.

I understand that diabetes wasn’t the focus of the article, but could you please, please, do some rudimentary fact-checking before you publish shite? Grrrrrr.

Could Get MuchBetter Soon? (CGMS)

February 14, 2009 at 8:08 pm | In The Sweet Life | 5 Comments

So, I’ve had the CGMS system with my Minimed 722 for about two months now, and while I really like being able to “check-in” without stopping to test – especially useful when you are frequently find yourself starting to test and being interrupted by someone (ahem, P’ito) who has discovered that the Cheerios box in the pantry can be emptied all over the floor… and then you come back – did I test? is that strip new or old? if I tested, what was my blood sugar? – there are some things about that drive me absolutely batshit. I hope Minimed reads blogs – and if you’re using the paradigm platform, please feel free to chime in with hacks, whines, etc.

Alarms: First off – need a volume setting. I am a deep sleeper, and I have never been woken up by an alarm. Ideally, this would be programmable by time of day, so that your pump did not go off like an air-raid siren in the middle of a meeting – but did wail to wake the dead in the middle of the night.

This would be unnecessary if the alarms actually woke me, but once the condition that caused an alarm has gone away, the alarm should too. I don’t need to know that I was high three hours ago, when my blood sugar is now 102.

I can’t remember when I put the damn thing in. So it just told me sensor end, and I’m wondering… did I already “start” this sensor for a second time? Or will this be “start” #2? Why not just get them approved for 6 days (or even more logical, a week) and put an end to this sham of re-starting the sensor after three days.

Meter communication. I LOVED having my meter tell my pump what my blood sugar was. It meant that I could test, go about my business, and two ten twenty minutes later look down at my pump to see what my blood sugar was. If you have to, have an “update sensor?” question for blood sugars sent from the meter, but please please, make this function work with the CGMS.

Button functionality. Once you hit the esc button to see your graph, you cannot turn on the back light on the pump. I cannot tell you how many times I have cursed as I esc esc esc esc to get back to the main screen.

Senserter. It is miserable enough using this thing – does it need to require enough force to push the button that I break out in a sweat every time I do it?

Anyone else?

My cheap ass state & other musings

January 28, 2009 at 12:40 am | In I really couldn't come up with a category for this, The Sweet Life | 6 Comments

I know we’re in a budget crisis, but this is beyond chintzy.

I got my 1099g in the mail from NYS. On the outside of the self-mailer was a survey with the following text.

Check your preferences, detach and return this card to us.

Which of these new methods do you prefer for obtaining 1099-g information in the future?

Tax Department’s Web site: www.nystax.gov or

Automated phone system

[ArtSweet: How about, none of the above, mail it to me?]

Have you accessed the Tax Department’s Web site for assistance in managing your taxes

Yes

No

Being a civic-minded individual I filled out the survey, and then turned it over to see the following

Postage
Required
Post Office will
not deliver
without proper
postage

Are you kidding me?

Um, no. I am not spending 42 cents of my hard earned money on behalf of the Tax Department and its Web site.

In other news. How to cure Sensertaphobia(TM) in a few easy steps.

Lose your Senserter. Hunt all over your house without success.
Do a hand insertion. Hot damn, those are big fat owie needles.
Realize that the Senserter is pretty useful, despite the fact that you break into a sweat from the amount of pressure needed to trigger it.
Decide you are calling Minimed in the AM to beg for a new Senserter.
Debate whether the cats or the child are responsible for its absence, since you would never misplace anything of such medical importance.

Snapshots from a day

January 26, 2009 at 10:59 pm | In Blogging about Blogging, M'ijo, The Sweet Life | 6 Comments

Leaving for work: bag, keys, lunch, check. Eat the kid’s animal crackers in car, yum yum. Will bolus when I get to a red light, lights are all green. Get to work, okay now must bolus. Pump? Pump?

Oh crap. Wonderful Pili brings me pump at work. Blood sugar has been on a roller coaster ever since. SIGH.

At daycare: Kiddo runs to me, throws arms around legs, I am the happiest mama in the world.

Yep, he’s my kid: P’ito are you poopy? No Mama just fart.

Dinner: Tofu khan, peas, and ravioli. Peas and tofu apparently taste better dipped in water. I think I eat more ravi than he does, but I’m not really eating them and so I don’t really bolus and see above.

Bathtime cannot happen without his bus. I tell him to go downstairs, get his bus, come right back up. Amazingly he does.

Bedtime: Read Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus twice. He doesn’t really seem to get it – he always says yes when the pigeon asks to drive the bus, but he still really likes it. Not sure why. Shit, library book, needs to be returned.

Would purchase our own copy if Mother-Talk would ever pay me my amazon gift card or at least return my emails (three and counting, FYI). Realize I will probably never get offered another Mother-Talk gig again for writing this, but do I really want one anyway since they don’t seem to be interested in paying me? Hope potential Mother-Talk clients are reading this…

Sing songs. Kiddo does not want to be sung to. Put down in crib. Go downstairs. Finish eating non-dinner of leftover ravioli.

Hear: Mama Mama Mama Mama – ignore until volume increases. Go upstairs. Door knob to kiddo’s room is rattling. Open door to find child pleased as punch with himself for defeating crib. Crap. See pleasant evenings of grown up time slipping away before my eyes. Sit down on the floor and sob. Pick kid up and inform him that it is sleeping time and staying in crib time.

Kiddo is holding A Lot of Otters. Read, Mama? Read twice. Mama, me moonlet. Melt. Put in crib, rub back, say silent prayers. Rustling, banging, singing (Twinkle twinkle little… grandma. A B C D E F P. Up above sky so high. ) for an hour and a half on the monitor, but no more calls. Sneak upstairs once monitor is silent. Asleep. In crib. Thank you g-d.

And now? To write letter to go in holiday groundhog’s day cards.

On deck post: CGMS, the really cool technology that could be so so much cooler with a little bit of market testing. And Medtronic Minimed, the company that is single-handedly destroying the planet with over packaging.

Approved? Don’t I at least get to write an angry letter?

December 8, 2008 at 3:42 pm | In The Sweet Life | 12 Comments

At my last endo appt I allowed as how, sure, it would be nifty to have me one of them there CGMS things, and endo said they’d submit the paperwork, but he wasn’t too hopeful about getting it approved since I didn’t have a history of any diabetes related hospitalizations. And I promptly forgot about it and went back to my current lazy 8.6 AIC mode – having fallen most definitively off the wagon of the born again diabetic awhile back…

Fast forward a month or two:

Message on my cell phone: Hi —–, This is —– from Medtronic Minimed. I’m calling to let you know that your request for coverage of the CGMS system has been approved and we are ready to ship your sensor and transmitter….

Huh?

What?

Who are you and what have you done with my insurance company?

Are you playing nice so that the incoming administration doesn’t eviscerate your slimy asses?

Don’t I even get to write an anguished outraged letter and spend six hours on hold listening to health tips (yes, losing weight CAN reduce my risk of cardiovascular disease. Yes, it’s helpful to try to reduce stress to lower blood pressure… Why yes, exercise is good for me, and maybe I’d be doing it if I weren’t still on hold waiting to talk to someone who actually knows something).

So, I guess I’ve got me one of those fancy-dancy CGMS thangs arriving on Wednesday. Any tips from the peanut gallery?

UPDATE: Lest we think it was tooo easy. The only time Extremely Busy Endo Practice can get me in to train on this before we go on our annual westward excursion? Is the Exact. Same. Time. we are meeting with a SW to discuss adoption possibilities for v. 2.0. Grrr.

Well, THAT was fun

October 20, 2008 at 11:22 am | In Home, Sweet Home?, M'ijo, The Sweet Life | 14 Comments

As those of you who are my devoted followers facebook friends may have read, I had a little mishap with a ladder yesterday. This is particularly sad because

a) it is only quite recently that I have conquered a phobia of ladders, and

b) we had plans for a babysitter and an attempt at one month late anniversary dinner.

(Aside: I believe we may be destined to NEVER go out alone together again. The three times we have tried this either I have been sick or Pili has had a stomach flu.)

Our kitchen has this neat little bay window

Last Winter the kitchen was freezing all winter long with big drafts coming in through the sides of this window. When we got a chance to see the previous owners, we asked them what they had done about that.
They looked at it and said, oh well, you never closed the window all the way. Then they allowed as how that was a little tricky and called for someone to go up on a ladder and push from the outside while the other person locked from the inside. Do you see where this is going?

P’ito is napping. Pili is sitting in the window nook, and I am attempting to shove the #(@*! window into place.

I am still not exactly sure what happened. I felt the ladder slipping, and the next thing I knew, I was on the asphalt driveway, with the wind thoroughly knocked out of me and my back hurting. Poor Pili, who saw me disappear from the window, came running out,. Eventually I was able to report that I could wiggle my toes and I didn’t think she should call 911. At this point, P’ito woke up from his nap and began howling.

Rather delicately, I got up and walked into the house to pour myself a stiff drink take a couple of advil. After a few minutes, the oh thank g-d I’m alive started to wear off and the holy crap this hurts started to take over. It hurt when I breathed – not in a stabbing way, but still, ouch ouch ouch.

I think I ought to go and get checked out, I say. And off we head to the ER, almost two year old in tow.

After two hours of waiting (SPH, for those who know our fair city) I was finally rolled into the back. And then the stupid diabetes fun began. I tested and not surprisingly, was a bit on the high side (312, but who’s counting?) The nurse suggested that I not bolus, since they wouldn’t let me eat until the x-rays were done. Are you sure, say I? Well how brittle is your diabetus? asks she. I. Hate. That. Term.

Then of course, the doctor wants blood work. Can I just get a damn x-ray please?

The x-rays reveal absolutely nothing, so I wait for the doctor to come and give me a prescription for happy pills. But my the bloodwork and had revealed… are you ready for this? That my blood sugar was high. So they want a urine sample. I know that they need to cover their asses, but at this point I had bolused, and my sugar was a nice tame 144.

Grouchily I shuffle off to pee in a cup.

And then I wait. For about another hour and a half. At some point the nurse comes by and I ask her to please call Pili, who has taken the hyper boy home before he breaks a Very Important Medical Instrument or eats a non-latex glove, and let her know that I am not Christopher Reeve. She gets our neighbor to come over and mind the sleeping boy and once she is there, things are Much Better.

I start to wonder. Why is this taking so long? I know I don’t have ketones. But if my urine sample was okay, wouldn’t they have let me go already? Oh, someone is having a heart attack. I feel like an ungrateful wretch. Finally, the doctor comes back, watches me shuffle around in my very elegant gown, and writes me a script.

Today I ache in places I didn’t know could ache. Still – so grateful – for being in one piece, for my wonderful Pili, for modern medicine…

I’m still not sure how we’re going to get the damn windows closed. Maybe just enlist a third person to hold the ladder…

And just for the heck of it, a couple of cute kid moments:

P’ito has been obsessed of late with the book Grandfather Twilight. We read it pretty much every. single. night. At dusk, he wants to go around to every window in the house and observe Papa Twilight bringing the evening on. So the other night, he’s looking out the patio door around 6ish. He points to the cat, who is snoozing peacefully, and says “Kitty Cat! Papa Twilight!” (which sounds more like “tie light”). When the cat does not respond, he repeats – Kitty Cat! Papa Twilight! Getting more and more urgent in tone – come on you lazy cat, don’t you want to see the wonderful Papa Twilight? What’s wrong with you? The cat continues to ignore him, so he throws a truck at him. Well, it was really cute up to that point.

We have been teaching P’ito to say Obama. So as I am listening to NPR on the way to work in the morning, I hear this little voice suddenly pipe up from the backseat – “Obama!” “Go’bama!” That’s my boy.

This is not supposed to happen

August 2, 2008 at 12:46 pm | In Linky Love, The Sweet Life | 4 Comments

UPDATE: SHE DOESN’T! ALL IS WELL! HOORAY!

My wonderful bloggity friend Shelli should hear in a couple of hours whether her daughter has type I.

Her daughter, who is two and a half.

This is not supposed to happen.

And of course, I am biting my tongue and crossing my fingers that, all evidence to the contrary, it is not happening.

But since if you bring an umbrella, it will not rain, I want to go ahead and collect some resources for her.

Parents of toddlers with diabetes blogs? Recommendations for pediatric endos in NYC? Useful not overly gloom & doom websites?

I am really hoping that if I publish this, it will turn out to be utterly unnecessary.

Attention New Yorkers!

July 24, 2008 at 11:20 am | In Political Animal, The Sweet Life | 2 Comments

Gina of Diabetes Talkfest is trying to get the word out about a great opportunity for NY diabeaters and our friends! She writes:

If you are a New Yorker and have been denied coverage by insurance or would like coverage for the Continous Glucose Monitoring systems I have great news.

A friend of mine spoke personally to NY State Assemblyman Robert Sweeney tonight. Here is what transpired.

Assemblyman Sweeney said that when he wrote the diabetes laws (anyone active in anything to do with diabetes in NY State know we commonly call them the Sweeney Diabetes Laws), he positioned it as such that the NY State Health Commissioner AT HIS DISCRETION can add to the existing law, any diabetes product, medicine or technology that he deems necessary to be mandated for coverage by insurance companies in NY State. He does not even need an act of legislation, he can merely add to it.

Assemblyman Sweeney has sent a letter to the Commissioner about adding CGMs.

I was informed by my contact that we all need to send letters VIA SNAIL MAIL (NOT email, or fax) directly to the NY State Health Commissioner if you want your voice to be heard. If we respond in huge numbers he will hear us. RAISE YOUR VOICE.

Let Commissioner Richard Daines know that we are in support of his correspondence with Assemblyman Robert Sweeney that the Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems should be included on the list for mandatory insurance coverage in New York State.

Here is the mailing address:

Commissioner Richard F. Daines
NY State Health Commissioner
State of New York
Corning Tower
Empire State Plaza
Albany NY 12237

Also, I would like it if you could mail me a copy of your letter as well, via snail mail, (you can contact me and I will send you my mailing address privately) or if you can make an electronic copy of your letter with your address whited out and send it to my email address gcapone1@optonline.net

I will post all the letters written on the Diabetes Talkfest. Our voice will be heard!

Thanks Gina, for organizing this. I will be writing for sure.

Let’s Play… Spot the Irony!

June 21, 2008 at 10:25 pm | In Linky Love, M'ijo, The Sweet Life | 3 Comments

From my local parenting magazine. Heh.

And because I’ve been told that I have been delinquent in the photo department.

Many thanks to Val for a) saving my life with that extra bottle of novolog and b) taking us to her town pool! And for all you curious DOCers out there, her castle is truly reeediculously awesome.