I have a somewhat different perspective from what everyone else has posted, and I've been thinking about it for awhile before committing myself. So you can always assign me to the old weirdo class and get on with it! :-)
The issue that everyone addresses is the fact that you HAVE to pay attention when you have diabetes. It's cut and dried, and if you slip up, you pay the consequences. It seems to me that you probably haven't had so much of a problem because you are probably still in your honeymoon, when control is a LOT easier. So denial is not really hurting you so much right now. And I suspect that being "lazy" actually has something to do with denial -- it's a royal pain to have to pay so much attention to stuff you never had to think about in the past. And mind you, after 20 years, I'm STILL the QUEEN of De Nial and I almost died on account of it. The emotional part of diabetes is NOT to be underestimated!
But once Type 1 hits full-on, you have to be equally as responsible whether you use a pen or a pump. Neither one is an ideal solution, because management depends on YOU, not your tools. The issue is, whatever your emotional state, you HAVE to pay attention, and you CAN'T be lazy, or you will get quite sick very fast. And I don't think dying of diabetes should be part of your life plan! :-(
I was diagnosed with diabetes in the old vial and syringe days, and THAT was a hassle! Plus it was R and NPH, and I was still working at the time, and there was no way to time shots and meals well enough to prevent horrendous highs and lows. And the meter required a huge hanging drop of blood, which you had to time for 60 seconds, and then wipe off, insert in the meter, and time for another 60 seconds. Inconvenient, messy and embarrassing to say the least!
When pens came along, it was a relief, BUT I still had to remember to bring my stuff WITH me, and many were the times when I forgot. And sometimes I JUST DIDN'T WANNA!! It wasn't that I didn't know what I should be doing, but it was really hard to FORCE myself sometimes (still is).
When I got the pump, it was a relief. First advantage: it's attached to me all the time, so there is no such thing as forgetting to bring along my insulin, no matter how spontaneous I want to be. It's true that it takes a bit of time to remove old set, fill new reservoir, insert new set, prime and make sure it's all taped down. But that's just the same time I would have spent fiddling with vials and syringes, or pens. 6 of one, half dozen of the other. Getting the pump out of my pocket, and discreetly pushing buttons to bolus is SO much easier on my poor demented brain! Plus the boluses can be very small increments that are impossible on syringes or pens. It just somehow doesn't bother me nearly so much to whip out the pump than it did to scramble in my purse for the pen that I had probably forgotten to put there anyway.
Second advantage: you're not tied into giving basal shots at specific hours, and you can vary basals as needed. I remember being at a movie, and the time for my basal shot came and went, and I hadn't brought it along with me -- NOW what do I do? The pump eliminated a LOT of the pre-planning that used to drive me crazy. And being able to vary basals has eliminated my formerly rather pronounced dawn phenomenon.
Most everyone else has talked about the learning curve, and being in your honeymoon means things ARE going to change. Most people with Type 1 experience a lot of change anyway -- it never stops. I don't see much difference between dealing with change while on a pump from dealing with it on shots, except that I think the pump is much more flexible and responsive to your own individual needs. The proviso, however, is that you get good guidance, preferably from an endo or a CDE with lots of pump experience, or if necessary, from books, like Pumping Insulin by John Walsh or Think Like a Pancreas by Gary Scheiner.
About tubing -- I have 7 cats (used to have MORE!!), and the only issue I have ever had is letting my tubing hang out while I was asleep, and as you may know, cats LOVE long tubular things (maybe they think they're rat tails?) So I've had my tubing bitten through at night a couple of times. So now, I'm really careful to coil up and tuck my tubing into my waistband, and to clip my pump to the front of my PJs when I sleep. I'm a side sleeper, so it works for me, but other people handle the situation differently. During the daytime, my tubing is ALWAYS tucked in, and I have NEVER caught it on anything. And I'm going on 13 years with the pump. And I handle my cats a LOT! :-)
So the net result of what I'm saying is why not try the pump, as long as you have adequate guidance. You're going to be fussing with basals and boluses anyway, and you're going to have to learn how to count carbs and figure out insulin:carb ratios anyway, and insulin sensitivity factors, too, and it's really NOT different from the pen to the pump, except that the pump is more flexible. The pump WILL alarm you when your reservoir is going low, and it's hard to ignore that thing screaming at you, whereas the pen will not tell you it's low, and then you're out to eat, and guess what -- not enough insulin! You can also look up whether or when you gave your last bolus on the pump, so you don't bolus twice, or not bolus at all -- a VERY good feature for people like me, who could never remember 2 seconds after a shot whether I'd taken it or not.
I mean, if an airhead like ME can get a very distinct improvement, not so much in A1c, but in "compliance" by using a pump, why can't you?
