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My Pump is truly amazing. I cannot sing its praise enough. Why I hear you say, well:-
My husband was taken into hospital on the 7 Jan and admitted to the High Dependency Unit on the 8th with Swine Flu and Pneumonia. He is now taking small steps in recovering and we hope in several weeks time will be able to come off the ventilator.
My pump has made the ups and downs of seeing my husband and consultants much easier. It is a brilliant piece of equipment and I think all diabetics need one. Its Temp Basal rate is an absolute God send when my stress levels have risen. Indeed even my Diab Consultant has said that my control has been excellent considering what has gone on. It also helped having Annette’s excel spreadsheets (Brill) Thanks Annette.
It would be interesting to know how other pump users rate their pump?
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Oh wow!Sorry to hear that, Katherine, hope his recovery is continuing and that you aren’t forgetting to look after yourself as well! Glad the excel helps!
Have to say, I wouldn’t be without my pump for all its problems/neediness-it has finally, after many years of ever increasing problems, allowed me to get hold of and deal with my hormonal-induced insulin resistance alterations as they happen. I’d guess it’s fair to say everyone has their own particular pump-solved/aided problem. -
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Hi Katherine, sorry to hear about your husband, and hoping that he is making progress with his recovery.
How are you doing? As I know how easy it is to put the big D on hold at times.
Best wishes, Mike
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All the very best to you both Katherine and fingers crossed for a very speedy recovery.
Its good to know that amidst it all it sounds like the pump lets you at least push the broken pancreas to the back of your brain for a while so you can concentrate on the really important stuff. Like Annette, mine has been a amazing for dealing with hormonal fluctuations which was virtually impossible on MDI and also when I’ve been taking ;
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@lizz – You dont need maths to use it – I’ve already done all the maths-y bit, you can just fill it in. It’s what I wrote when I discovered there wasnt a suitable pump biased logging set up – all the available ones are more intended for MDI, so being a bit of a geek, I wrote my own, which is available for anyone to download and use – have a look at http://www.shootuporputup.co.uk/groups/shoot-up/forum/topic/the-ultimate-logging-solution/ – Tim posted my excel sheet there.
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@Annette, I had a look, it was opened by something called numbers on my computer and it said it didn’t support split screens and axis values were recalculated or something – goodness knows what that means. Are the numbers on the blank one your basal rates? And do you remove those and put your own in? Still don’t understand how it would help I’m afraid. I am seriously dyslexic with numbers.
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@lizz – I don’t know what Numbers is, but if you don’t have Microsoft Office Excel, you can download Open Office whose Calc program appears to work perfectly (I’ve just tried it!), it certainly loads the sheet and displays it in identical fashion to Excel. You can find the download here: http://download.openoffice.org/ It’s totally free, and works just as well as Microsoft Office.
I’ve not tried to use the sheet, maybe we could persuade @Annette to try it and make sure it works properly in Open Office Calc. How’re you fixed @Annette?
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@lizz – you’re on a mac? Numbers is the mac default spreadsheet programme – I guess then you dont have the Office suite (microsoft) on your computer. OpenOffice does work on a mac, so might be worth going to the site @teloz says to get it. And yes, it works fine on OpenOffice (I just tried it out on a Linux version and it works the same as on my Windows version, so I’d guess it also works on macs.)
On the first sheet of the workbook (fixed inputs), there is a set of my basal rates, which you can replace with your own numbers (I dont know if Numbers uses worksheets, so this may only apply if you get Open Office).
How it helps is that you fill in your results under the sheet ‘Results’ and it produces a pictorial view (through automatically produced graphs) of where you are going high/low – on an average (sheet ‘Averages’) or on a day to day basis (on the ‘Results’ sheet) – so if you find it easier to see patterns on graphs rather than raw numbers (as I do), it gives an overview that way rather than having to pick out patterns in numbers. -
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You’ll need to look here http://download.openoffice.org/other.html for a Mac version @lizz, there’s an English (GB) version for the Mac OS (Intel), but if you have a Power PC you may have to settle for English (US) unless you go for an untested version.
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@Annette – thanks for sharing your very brilliant spreadsheet! It’s proving extremely useful as since going on the pump (which to return to the thread topic is truly amazing @mustard … and I hope your other hubby is much better too)
I have realised that I too have a ‘monthly pattern’ that requires some basal rate changes (not achievable on MDI)
but here’s where I get cheeky… I’d like to add in an additional line/feature but being frankly cr@p at excel I don’t know how!…I’m still twiddling about with my basal rates and ratios to some extent too. I’m doing a fair amount of correction bolus’ so would like to distinguish on the sheet between a food bolus and a correction bolus. I’ve got as far as adding in a line to enter the figures but how can I make this appear in the little bars on the graph… so where the little bolus bar is purple, it shows that a proportion of that bolus was a correction, maybe in a different colour so that I (and my DSN/doc) can see what proportion of my TDD is being made up of corrections…
am I making sense? and is this even possible?
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Done and done – it’s on the brand, spanking new template page here: http://www.shootuporputup.co.uk/resources/logging-templates/
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Wow @Annette you’re truly amazing!! Thanks.
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Hi Katherine, I hope your husband is on the mend. After reading this it has made me even more determined to push for the pump – my hospital won’t even offer information on the pump so have requested a referral to a different hospital.
Those spreadsheets are amazing! Makes mine look really basic
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@claire – ahha, you could forward your basic one to me if you wanted – people need basic too!
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Quick up date on hubbie. Tracheotomy now out, drain on left side out right side mass still infected but no growth. However, unable to visit as family down with sickness bug!!!!
Thank you everyone for the lovely comments and support it really does help.
I managed to get my pump because I fought for the right to have it. I have never been perfect but the fact that I try and slog my guts out to help myself won the doctors over. If more ok diabetics could get the pump the better for the health service. You as a person are less likely to suffer with long term diabetic problems because you are on the ball and can react quickly and confidently. Pumps to all!
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@mustard – As it’s nearly a week since you last posted on here, I was just wondering how your hubby was doing Katherine, I do hope he’s making good progress, I think we’ve all been willing him to get better. xx
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Hello All
Paul now home! Out of critical care Tuesday and home Thursday! It will be an up hill struggle as having lost 1 1/2 stone he now needs to regain his muscle strength. Thank you all for the support though it really has helped and it shows what a fab website this is.Whilst hub in hospital he was placed on insulin to help him fight the infection (gold standard of care when on a ventilator) but due to him using his calories from his muscle to fight the infection they like to keep a tight control of bs levels. So when ill try and aim for under 10 !! Yes that’s what I thought! The more normal your b/s level the quicker you are at fighting any infection. You live and learn!
Thanks again everyone x
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What @Tim said!
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