A tough week, but I think we've finally gotten it down

Haven’t posted in a while because things have been crazy with a capital C. That post I made on the 20th preceded by about 10 minutes my husband hacking his foot open with a chainsaw, necessitating a trip to the ER to sew it back together. Severed a tendon and chipped the bone, but the real danger was infection, and fortunately we seem to be OK in that regard, although it means now I have to do a lot of his farm chores on top of all my own stuff.

It was providential in a way because it REQUIRED my stepdaughter to use Eric’s pump for the first time, something she’d been avoiding (and I hadn’t yet had time or occasion to make her walk through it with me). When I realized we were going to be in the ER well past suppertime, I phoned her up, had her feed him, and then took her step by step from memory through the input process. I think when it was done, she was almost disappointed at how easy it was. She’d turned it into this big, scary thing just because there was a machine involved.

All week long, we’ve been dealing with morning or late night lows—sometimes I could see the reason for it, other times not. I’ve been making tiny adjustments to his basal rates and have finally come to the conclusion that he MUST still be producing insulin, because the diabetes team says he should have 9 units a day but I can’t keep him in range with anything more than 7.5—the data from the pump says that he’s getting too much basal every time I exceed that total. But tonight was the second night we’ve made it through without him waking me with a low, hurray!

sometimes medications can interfere (make one more insulin sensitive)–some antibiotics do this to me (some go the opposite direction)…just a thought to watch for

That’s good to know - he hasn’t been taking any medications during all this so I still think it must be endogenous insulin, but I’ll keep that in mind for the next time he gets an ear infection.