No Time For That

“Betes, you are a royal pain in the …. I got no time for that!” These were my thoughts when my CDE emailed me back this afternoon after I sent her my BG log this morning. When I go into the doctor’s office she downloads my pump and sees graphs and trends. I have the capability to do this as well, but I have never taken the time to do so and I have never been asked to so I haven’t. Now she is asking me to download my pump info to the Carelink online program and send her my log in information so that she can take a look at my trends. Eeeerrrr….. I know this is something that probably really needs to be done, I mean, she wouldn’t be asking if it didn’t, but that’s probably a night that will be spent trying to figure what the heck to do and I’m not sure when that is going to be. Not tonight and I don’t know if I will be able to get to it tomorrow night.  Right now, I just want a night to sit on my butt on the couch and do nothing. Not staring at a computer trying to figure that crap out.

Medtronic has just had their “Artificial Pancreas” approved by the FDA and I’m seeing a lot of people in the DOC with the same feelings as mine. That’s crap! It’s just another marketing ploy to try and get the uneducated T1 consumer to buy their product when all it really is, is a pump with an automatic shut off feature when worn with the CGM that will shut off when a low is coming on. Ok, that’s nice, but I’m not going to get too excited about that. I don’t even have a CGM.

 Now the Bionic Pancreas, that’s a whole other thing that I would give anything to have if I can’t have a cure.  I’m not sure how realistically affordable it would be but, I can dream. How does this tie in with having no time for “D”? Well, if I had a Bionic Pancreas it does EVERYTHING! All that I would be responsible for would be changing out the glucagon and insulin reservoirs. Not only would it save me from all the calculating and memory that “D” takes over in my head but the time would be priceless!!! It’s really weird to me sometimes when I hear how non-diabetics think of diabetes, even those in the medical field. I was telling someone the other day all about the Bionic Pancreas, and when I was done this person just looked at me and said, “Well, then it’s like you don’t even have diabetes anymore, so wouldn’t you be forgetting how to take care of yourself? What about if your insurance couldn’t pay for it anymore and you had to go back to a regular pump or injects? Isn’t that kind of irresponsible? Shouldn’t you continue everything you do now until there is a cure?”. WOW!!! I was speechless, I wanted to flip out, but I didn’t. I decided it wasn’t worth it and just let it go and moved on because it was the type of conversation with the type of person that really was not interested in my answer or what I would have to say. There would be no way that I could educate this person on the topic because it’s basically like they didn’t hear a word of what I had just said anyway. Really thou, I don’t get that train of thought. How could it be irresponsible to want a device to do the work that my dead pancreas should be doing? Especially when it would be able to do a much better job than I can ever do? When it would be better for my health, quality of life and increase my life expectancy? Irresponsible??? Is it irresponsible to want to be able to work out without worrying about going low or high? Is it irresponsible to want to be able to just go to sleep at night without the worry that I’m going to go too low and not wake up? Or not having anymore nights of getting up and checking because I don’t feel good and correcting however I need and then spending the next hours during the night worried because I may have over or under corrected so then I have to set the alarm on my phone so I wake up and check.  Is it irresponsible to want to eat, work out or whatever else may come up  without having to do math countless times a day as well as SWAGS and calculations? Nope, I don’t think so. It would be a God send! A time saver, a sanity saver, a HUGE stress relief. I know 5 years of this is nothing compared to a lot of people, but I don’t have high hopes of a cure, but the all the articles, Youtube videos and everything that I’ve seen so far on the Bionic Pancreas seems hopeful and promising. Bionic Pancreas, bring it on! I got time for that!

***Disclaimer, these are just my thoughts and opinions. I have no medical training or knowledge. Just a type 1 trying to live my life to the fullest on a daily basis.****