In the Buff - The Naked Pancreas Project

 Reyna over at Beta Buddies started this naked meme... and since Sweetpea is often a "clothing optional" kind of gal, I knew I had to chime in!  It totally cracks me up!  She will be playing around the house and the next thing you know she's in her play heels and her pump pouch - and that's it!  Sometimes she will add a sparkly necklace... or a crown... accessories make the outfit, you know.  

Anyway... here is everything you wanted to know about us!

But I warn you.... we're kinda boring.  No special bolus tricks.  No thousands of ratios or rates.  We're kinda vanilla.  With a sprinkle or two.

Too make this naked expose more exciting, I'll add some "fun" pics at the end!  Now don't go scrolling down right away.  Patience is a virtue, you know!

1. What kind on insulin management mode do you use? 

Sweet Pea has a pink Animas Ping insulin pump and a Dexcom CGM.

2. How often do you inject/change pump sites? 

We change sites every 3 or 4 days.  Usually a 3 day and then a 4 day.

3. What type (s) of insulin do you use? 

Sweetpea runs on Novalog!

4. What are your basal settings ?  

3 am - .125

9pm - .225

I know - crazy!  We had around 5 or 6 going for awhile.  Then things got crazy and our Endo suggested that we do this to see more clearly where we need to fix things.  And... it worked.  It worked so well that we haven't changed anything.  We might need to pull back around 3 am for a few hours and then go up around 7am because she's been close to low a lot in the early am hours this week.  We'll see...

5. What are your correction factors ?

1:150 during the day

1:500 at night

Yes, 500.  We had it on 300 for the longest time but she would ALWAYS go low jif we corrected.  She would drop and not stop dropping.  So we started doing half of what it suggested and that seemed to work.  Then we just decided to officially up it.  Crazy, huh?

6. What are your meal ratios ?

Breakfast = 1:22

Lunch = 1:30

Dinner = 1:40

There are times associated with these but I don't know them exactly off the top of my head!

7. What do you do for activity and/or PE?

Nothing.  She does not consistently fall during activity.  I thought we might have some issues this year because she is running more outside and during PE - but no.  We usually just monitor her while she's playing.  Dexie helps a lot with this.  If she's crashing, we'll try to stop the fall with a well timed Hershey Kiss.  But she doesn't always fall during activity.  So... we don't have rule.  We have to treat each situation differently.

8. How do you manage Pizza, Macaroni and Cheese, or any other "difficult to manage" foods? 

 Hmmm.....  We don't?  Maybe because she's so small (She's 4 but she weighs 34 pounds) she doesnt eat enough to make it really affect her.  Pizza doesnt usually give us problems - but then she eats maybe 2-3 square sized pieces.  She DOES like Papa John's and it HAS caused awful bg's.  So.... we just don't get that kind.  We choose the less doughy options!  Mac and Cheese - doesnt seem to give us a problem.  Again - she rarely eats much.  But no issues.  Now marshmallows - those are awful and we just stay away from them.  But that's a heck of a lot easier to do since they are a treat food and not something people eat as a meal.

9. How do you prefer to manage your logs/data? 

We record everything in our little blue book that we got in the hospital.  They keep us stocked up with those.  It's small - check book sized.  We write her bg, carbs, total units, time, etc.  I also scratch little notes into the margins.  It works for us.  It's not pretty - but it does the job!  We also download data from her pump and from Dexie.  

I'm adding one of my own..... 

10.  What's your A1c?

April 2009 - Diagnosis:  12.5

May 2009 - 10.2

August 2009 - 8.5

November 2009 - 7.9

March 2010 - 8.0

June 2010 - 7.6

September 2010 - 7.5

I'm proud of these numbers.  We work our bums off to get here.  And she's right where she should be for her age - between 7 and 8.  Would I like to be in the lower 7's?  Yes.  But only safely.  Not too many lows.

And now for the "naked" pictures...

 

 A few months old...

The girl has always loved her shoes!