La Bomba (The Pump)

So, Jamie, here is your long-awaited update. Nathan and I went to Piedmont Hospital on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. to get trained on the insulin pump. I noticed that in the Spanish manual, the insulin pump is called "la bomba de insulina." Tee hee! I just might start calling my pump la bomba (a.k.a. the bomb).

Anyway, the training was a little over two hours, and at the end, my trainer, Kelly, helped me hook it up! I was VERY nervous, but there were no problems, and I have been feeling much better than expected since then. After the hospital, I had a quick but good cry in the hallway (kind of a "I really DO have diabetes" cry) and then Nathan and I went to Chick-Fil-A to split a milkshake. The man knows me... After my first sip, I whispered, "I've missed you" to my delicious chocolatey goodness. Nathan, who was distracted by something at the moment, said, "I've missed you too." My reply: "I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the milkshake."

Since the infusion site has to be changed every three days, I had to do it myself this morning. Gulp! First, I had to pull out all of the equipment and the manuals, as seen above. Unfortunately, I don't have all of the medical terminology down, so loose descriptions will have to do for now.

Okay... first I had to get the glass vial of insulin out of the fridge and put it in the plastic vial that goes in the pump. The blue and clear and black thingy below is the plastic vial, which I think is called a reservoir. It took a while to figure out how to do that without getting air bubbles in either the glass vial or the reservoir, especially with my fingers shaking, but I got it after about 20 minutes. This "filling the reservoir" step is actually 13 steps, the first 6 being visible in the picture.


Next, I took out the tubing that connects the pump to me. The reservoir is on the left, and the tubing is on the right. It's actually called an infusion set. The blue plastic thing has a needle in it, but the needle doesn't stay inside of me. It just jabs a teeny bit of tubing under my skin (called a cannula) and then comes out.

Then I had to rip out my old infusion site on my left side. I was told it would feel like ripping off a Band-Aid. Um... kinda. It's a little more intimidating. Now, when I look at the old site, there's just a tiny red dot, and a little redness where the adhesive was. It kind of looks like a faint Target logo. Sorry for so much skin in thie picture. Where's my body double when I need her? ALLISON!!!
Alrighty, almost done. Then, I cleaned the area where my new site is with an alcohol swab. Then I made the mistake of putting it on the dining room table and the alcohol messed up a little paint. Lesson learned. I took out the old reservoir from the pump, rewound the little piston inside that pushes the insulin from the reservoir into the tubing, put the new reservoir in, and primed the pump (name that TU professor, Allison!) until a little bit of insulin came out of the end to avoid pumping air under my skin. Ready to "infuse"!

Okay. This little blue address stamp look-alike is my least favorite piece of diabetes paraphenalia. It's called a "quick infuser" or something like that. Basically, I put the round pad that has the needle, cannula, and bandage on it in the middle of it, peel back the paper to expose the adhesive, cock the stamp thingy back (as pictured below), place it on my side, and POW, it sticks it in. It's kind of loud, which I hate, but it doesn't hurt too much. It's no worse than a medium-hurting insulin injection. I'll take one POW every three days over four owies four times a day... any day.

Here's the address stamp look-alike ready to be POWed. I press the grey button on the side (along with the one on the other side) to release the pressure on it and insert the cannula (the part of the tubing that goes under my skin). Again, Allison, I would have greatly appreciated your hip here.

Here's the stamp look-alike after it's done its job, along with the needle that came out. I just flip over the little piece of blue plastic on the right to cover it and throw it in the trash. The whole infusing step is about 9 steps.

And... done! Everything's hooked up. I just clipped my pump to my work out pants (thanks Mumers!), tucked the tubing underneath the beltline, and went about my business, namely writing this post. Looking at this picture, I am finding myself much more grateful for my feminine curves, which provide a little extra cushion for the cannula. If I looked like Gisele (minus the baby bump), I'd be howling in pain every time I had to punch the POW machine.

Oh, and here's the trash. That's a lot of trash for little 'ol me.