We first heard about the pump when I first started to get really ill and then I was ill often as you know, My mum had heard about it and she did a lot of research. It seemed like just the thing I should go on now that I was so out of control and was becoming insulin resistant. So we approached the hospital about it, at the time they where only funding a few people, where as now a days they try to get new diabetics on as soon as possible and anyone else that meets the criteria.
For anyone that doesn't know the insulin pump is like an artificial pancreas, you have a constant feed of insulin and then you just type in the carbs when you've eaten and it calculates what insulin to give for that. Each person is different and so the pump can work a lot better with individual needs, say like the dawn phenomenon where an injected background insulin just can't work properly, you can set up a certain plan for different levels of insulin and different times.
So the hospital said no because my control was way to bad, which yes it was but the whole point of the pump is to help get the control and then keep it,as long as the pump works for you, like I said everyone is different and not everything that's a miracle for one person will be the same for another. They said if I get better control then I could get the pump, there is a lot of work that you have to do when you have the pump, mainly blood testing, but I guess they wanted me to prove to them that I was willing to put the work in. So I did, I worked my little butt off and crawled back to being in control, once that was achieved I went back to the hospital, they again turned me down, said I was too in control and didn't qualify for the pump any more. That greatly pissed me and my mum off, we had both worked hard at me getting to where they said I had to be, even though when I had first gone to them I had all the criteria for the pump. They had dangled it like a carrot and promised something they weren't willing to give, so I didn't care anymore. My thoughts at the time where, if the hospital aren't willing to help me when they said they would, why should I bother then. Silly I know.
What we didn't understand was that independent people that worked with diabetics all the time and the pump said I was the prime person to get a pump, they even talked to the hospital on my behalf. They just didn't seem to want to listen.
This encounter put me off the whole team at the hospital, I didn't feel like I could trust them and that they certainly didn't care about my health. I even stopped going to my appointments. It's not like they didn't say anything new when I went in for my check ups, always the same, you need to have better control speech.
I really put me off the insulin pump too. Not so much the thing it's self but it seemed to good to be true and everyone seemed to be getting them now, which really rubbed it in. I was very bitter about the whole thing, still kind of am, if you can't tell.
But that was the old team I had, It all changed for me when I went into the care of the young adult clinic. Fantastic team there.
I will tell you, yes looking after your diabetes comes down to you and what you do or don't do but it helps all the more when you have the support you need, whether it is family, friends or the clinicians behind your care.
That's when the idea started to come again, from my nurse not from us.
