Tuesday, July 27, 2010

My Sandy Dilema...The Solution

I'm on vaca now, and I don't know how to download pictures onto my sister's computer. If I did I would show you a picture of Grace's butt. Well, not her butt, but the solution we came up with to cover her site while wallowing in the sand and surf.

The solution turned out to be a combo of things. First, on the advice of our CDE we decided to semi go off the pump for the week. Grace is back on Lantus - a long acting insulin that will cover her basal needs for 24 hours at a time. This allows us to take her off the pump for the day, but her basal needs are covered. Then we hook her back up to the pump whenever we need to bolus for food or to correct a high. Each night around 8:30 she gets 5 units of Lantus. I was nervous, thinking we were just kind of getting her back to somewhat normal numbers and didn't want to mess with that. But it's proven to work really well! We spent the entire day at the beach yesterday (I'm talking noon to 8pm) and she was constantly either in the ocean, in the pool, or playing in the sand. It was great not having to worry about the pump, because it was tucked away safely in the cooler.

The second part of the solution is called IV3000 Frame Delivery. It's a thin, transparent, waterproof film we put over Grace's infusion site which keeps salt water and sand off her site. When we need to bolus her we simply remove the film, bolus, and put a new one on. The film is sticky enough that we haven't had any problems with it peeling off on it's own, but it's actually pretty easy to remove when we need to.

Grace's numbers have... wait for it... been pretty... dare I say it... GOOD! Not spectacular - she's been crashing pretty bad mid mornings but that may be due to early early morning sessions on the trampoline. She falls about 75 points in one hour, but the time it happens each day is a mystery. Yesterday she was 120 at 11am, then 49 at noon. It happened the day before, too, but later in the day. Then the low is usually followed by a rebound high in the 200s. (I'm starting to crave a CGM) But other than that she's managing pretty well.

All in all, the first leg of our trip has been a spectacular success. I love seeing my sister and her family, and my kids actually love it more than me (if that's possible). Grace's numbers, if not behaving, are at least not killing me. Cross your fingers that this continues.

5 comments:

  1. So glad you found a solution for the beach that works for Grace and all of you, sorry about the mid-morning crash, those stink! You have great weather this week - have fun!!!

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  2. Enjoy your vacay! I've often considered the Lantus/pump combo for stuff like this....a fellow blogger, Shamae (Welcome to Our Crazy Happy Life), has been doing Lantus daily and using the pump for boluses...they're really happy with it :)

    Keep up the great work and have LOTS of fun!!!

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  3. Great idea! Sounds like a great vacay too!! Enjoy!

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  4. Sounds like you found a solution and it's working wonderfully - WTG mom!

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  5. Wow, I wish I was jumping on the trampoline, too. Miss you guys. Love to all.

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