Monday, October 08, 2007

The Error Circle That Would Not Go Away!

So last night I worked a night shift. Tiring......I got home in the morning and crawled right into bed......but first, a sensor calibration so I would be woken during my precious sleep!!

6:05 my pump alarmed that I needed to do a calibration soon.

7:05 I was not fast enough, I received a "calibrate now" alarm. The open circle showed on the pump face.

7:06 calibration entered, no problemo. Fell asleep, slept well until 13:00 when I woke.

13:00 totally missed thanksgiving dinner (canada) with my family. Slept right through. Whoops!! Got up hit the road. 

14:00 figured I should at least look at my pump, see where I am at for BGL. All fine, but there is an open alarm circle. Strange, I had no recent alarms. Flipped through all the pump screens, no alarms showing active. Lots of units of insulin left. Hmmm....strange.

Changed the battery (I was at 1 line). Checked the alarm history, last alarm 7:05 with the calibration alarm. No temp basal, no pattern basal, no square or duel wave bolus on the go....NOTHING. Blood sugar 5.6, isig value is fine, sensor is fine. WHAT THE HECK? The open alarm circle is still there!!

I called the minimed hotline. I went through everything with the rep, neither of us could find why this was happening!! I was asking if there was some way to reset the pump.....reboot, but no. Not an option.

So, the US rep transferred me to the Canadian site and they processed an order for a replacement pump. I was told I could have a pump to me in 2 hours. WHAT! 2 hours...I need time to say goodbye to this one, 2 hours is not long enough! HA. I was shocked in the service, considering today is Thanksgiving in Canada. Someone's turkey dinner was being interrupted for my open alarm that would not go away. My pump was working fine.....I did not think this was URGENT!!

I told the rep the replacement could wait until tomorrow, let people have their family time!! He laughed....I laughed..

...then I had a brilliant idea. I entered a calibration that was WAYYYYY off. My isig was 5.7 and I entered a BGL reading of 14.0. There sensor, take that!! Lets see you alarm again ..... sure enough, within 10 minutes CAL ERROR. HA, I knew I could get an alarm out of ya!!

I cleared the CAL ERROR and as I thought may happen....the open mystery alarm circle disappeared.

Strange. 

I entered the REAL BGL, and the sensor is happily back online, and the mystery circle is gone.

I told Minimed, and they still want to replace me pump. "Sure, that is ok.....but please do not replace until tomorrow....let people have their turkey and naps". They laughed, and said ok.

Tomorrow 9am a new pump......this is my last night with my faithful buddy who has been with my since aug/06. I had her serial number memorized, her pump skin in place.......we get along great. I have had many different Minimed pumps since I started 6.5 years ago, and each pump change is hard emotionally. She (the pump) is confused, the open alarm circle is gone - why must she go away? Oh it will be a sad night, but it is more then the initial 2 hours we thought we had left together. Why do I feel this emotion towards a piece of plastic with a motor? My sidekick for the past year......wow.......if this is how I feel towards a pump, I would hate to see my emotion if I were to have a kid and something happened......

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

*sniffle*


I have tears in my eyes.

Cara said...

It's amazing how attached (no pun intended) we can get to this little piece of plastic, isn't it??
As for it being Thanksgiving in Canada...I once had a college professor from Canada that tried to make us all feel guilty that she wasn't going to be with her family over Thanksgiving break. Until I spoke up and mentioned that Canada had a different Thanksgiving, everyone acutally felt sorry for her. She just laughed. :) I hope that you have gotten your new pump and are enjoying it!
Minimed's customer service ROCKS!