Rory now pumping away!

As of December 11th 2008, Rory made the switch from insulin injections to an insulin pump, the Medtronic Minimed Paradigm. We started with a couple trial runs: one with Rory just wearing the pump and then practicing with saline. He seemed fine with it so we decided to go for it. I have heard such great things about the pump and everyone I have talked to says it makes all the difference. I was ready for immediately well controlled blood sugars, but that wasn’t really the case. I soon realized it is going to take some time to find the right basal rates and ratios for him. It is definitely proving to be a lot of work, but I am holding on to the hope that it will all be worth it.

He is really very good about having this new device, he is becoming quite “attached” to it. Whenever I have to give him a bolus for his meals he always says “what you doing with my pump mom?” :slight_smile: We use the Silhouette sites, which the needle is much longer than what he was used to with his injections so that part is not any fun for him. We did have the Dr. order some lidocaine cream that we put on for an hour before we put in a new site and that seems to be helping quite a bit. We just thread the tubing up under his t-shirt and into a pocket on the back of the tshirt (my mom sewed a bunch of “pump pockets” for him) That way it is out of his reach and the tubing is tucked away and won’t get snagged on anything. It works out well.

He just experienced his first “sick day” last week. The poor little guy caught a stomach bug and was vomiting. He had never been sick like that before so it was our first time trying to manage everything. We were away from home visiting friends and spent the night at my parents house (my parents were in Myrtle Beach) He woke up the next morning and could not keep anything down. I had already given him his breakfast bolus but he couldn’t keep any of his breakfast down so his blood sugar started dropping. He threw up 4-5 times throughout the morning and was as white as a ghost and was getting very lethargic. I called the Dr. and then we ended up having to take him to the ER at the closest hospital and he got some IV fluids. We have had to cut back on his basal insulin to help keep his blood sugars stable since he didn’t feel like eating, which than creates problems of ketones. So we are sort of starting over again and he is just getting his appetite back.

I am looking forward to a new year with better control for Rory. There are still so many struggles day to day but I am hoping the pump will give him the optimal control he needs and its use will become just part of our routine and he can go about being the typically little crazy toddler he is.