Thursday, March 02, 2006

T minus 1 and counting

Tomorrow is the big day and I'm soooooo excited. I can't wait to give those small correction doses. Right now, he usually doesn't get corrections until his sugar is >280 because 1/2 unit insulin drops his sugar so much. I hate having his sugar that high and doing nothing about it. I get him to drink water, but that's about all I can do. For example, his sugar at bedtime last night was 255. He got a small 3 g snack. I didn't give him any insulin because of the drop that it causes. At 3 AM, his sugar was now 275. Not sure why his sugar went up. I'm sure that the snack didn't do it. It was only 3 g. My husband put the sugar in the pump. It said to give him .35 units of insulin. I wish!! ( I told Michael I would probably half that dose in the middle of the night and give .15) I just had to lie there awake and pray that his sugar would go down and not up. At 6 AM he was 190 and at 8 AM, 130. His sugar drops about 25 points per hour between 2-8 AM. I've used this formula before to determine whether I need to feed him or not in the middle of the night. Hopefully, soon I can throw that formula out the window.




I am actually counting down the injections now. Baring any corrections, he will only get 3 more shots. This morning when I gave him his Lantus and Novolog I told him this would be the last time in a long time he would have to take 2 shots at the same time. (He won't get his Lantus in the morning since he's going to start his pump.) He just grinned from ear to ear. And so did I. My reason for wanting to start him on the pump had nothing to do with decreasing the amount of needle sticks, but now that he won't be taking injections anymore, I almost want to cry I'm so happy. He's really been complaining about the Lantus hurting lately. Well, he just took his last shot of Lantus. Yeah!!!!!

The saline trial has been going well. His site did come out on it's own once. It was due to be changed on Sunday, but I was going to change it after church. No such luck, it pulled out Sunday morning. I'm not really sure what caused it. He had just come out of the bathroom so maybe it got pulled then. I put the set in at the training, so I told Michael he needed to do it next. He did. He did pretty good except it was a little crooked. We got the set in and somehow still made it to church on time. It had to be changed again yesterday. I got my mom to do it then. I'm not sure how it pulled out so easily on Sunday, because I had a time getting it off yesterday. I had to use the Unisolve to get it off. Mom did pretty well too. She didn't even get it crooked. I will be the one putting the sets in. But, I wanted both of them to do it, in case I'm not around one day and it gets pulled out.

I am going to try to post every day the first week he's on the pump. But, I'm not making any promises. I have taken next week off work, so I can be home with him. I've heard the first week or so can be rough while you're trying to tweak his doses. I'm ready for it though. I'm still a little nervous, but mostly I'm excited.

3 comments:

Jamie said...

Good luck Penny - how exciting! I look forward to reading how his first week goes on it :)

Sandra Miller said...

Penny,

I too am very, very excited for you!

On the issue of Riley's site coming off-- we had this problem early on with Joseph's sites. Sometimes they'd be stuck fast; at other times they'd come off for no apparent reason.

The way we solved this issue is this:

First we put IV prep on his skin, then we applied IV 3000 tape. Put more IV prep on the IV 3000, then insert right through the tape.

Works like a charm. I used to cut a hole in the tape and try to insert through it, until our endo said we could just insert through the tape.

Seems that the infusion set sticks better to the IV 3000 than it does to skin.

Joseph hasn't lost a site since we started doing this.

Good luck, and...

No More Shots!! Yay!!!

Penny Ratzlaff said...

My excitement is mounting. I don't think I'll sleep much tonight, which is a shame since I know I won't get much sleep the next week or two. I just took Riley out of the bath and as I was reconnecting his pump, I said "You know, you're only getting one more shot." He said "Yea, after I eat in the morning and then no more shots!!" Then he flashed that beautifull smile that makes my heart skip a beat.