Shall we hope!?

Diabetes Break-through?

I read about this in the National Post today, and as well on Kerry's Six Until Me site. By Human nature, I am impatient. I read this article, I want to see this in Human Trials right away - but I understand the process of research, and the time needed...

Either way, this is an amazing glimmer of hope - please have a read of the article! A nice Christmas present!

As for the gym visit yesterday it went well! Well sort of, Devin was actually booked to see me at a gym on the other side of town (whoops, a booking error)...so I was at one gym, and he was waiting for me at another gym across town. It all worked out ok, I rebooked for next week with him - and went solo and had a good workout at the gym. It was nice to get back at it. I have been averaging one gym visit every other week for the past month or two....I am going to up that to twice to three times a week (my week is an 8 day cycle),,,,writing it down is the first step...:)

Christmas must be near!

Finally I made the first step towards admitting Christmas is near!! I was out driving yesterday, and drove past my local Lion's club tree sale, and decided it was time to get going on the Christmas season!! The very nice folkes from the Lions Club helped me pick out a tree....as per my criteria.....

1. No higher then I can reach (As I stand with my hand high in the air)
2. Able to fit into my VW with nothing sticking out of the car as I drive....
3. Nothing living in it that I would take home....HA, as funny as that sounds, the man took the tree and gave it a good shake to accounce to any occupants it was time to vacate!

So there I was, with a tree in the car, Christmas music on the radio...all set! I got the cheapest of the cheapest tree stands, a few decorations and headed home!! All went well, as you can tell by the picture. No one injured, a lot of SAP on my hands - but it went up so easily! Sadly, none of the gifts under the tree are for me, they are all for my family :(

So now unrelated, I am heading to the gym today. I took a few months off (Go ahead, tell me I am lazy. I called it a vacation) but today I am back at it. Booked in with Devin, my favorite trainer - so today I am back at it.....we'll see how the sensor stands up, but it is going to be nice to know ahead of time when my glucose will be dropping during a workout, rather then hitting the wall in the middle of my cardio.....then stumbling to the locker....digging out some form of glucose, you know the drill!! I will let you know how it goes - if I make it out alive :)

Stormy Week

Well this week ended in a wild stormy way. SNOW STORMY!! Two stormy nights and here is the talley:

1. Bruised right hip....first step out, fell flat on my a**
2. Broken rear wipre on the VW. Maybe from the weight of the snow...maybe from my cleaning of the 15cm of snow off the car to prevent freezing...whoops!
3. Furnace broken x twice. OUCH.
4. 1 mouse in the house.......who really likes peanut butter, and is talented at eating it off the trap without setting the trap off....until this morning.....
5. Every morning the lovely E-2 error on my meter (I like to keep the room cool while I sleep!!!)
6. Many beautiful pictures!!!!!

Love winter! (???)

Using Carelink and your MAC computer.....don't give up, it worked for me!

Woke early this morning to capture the beauty of the first snowfall of the year, and it was worth it! I am sure it was a nice sight, I was out in my PJ's decked out with the winter gear.....and my camera!

Yesterday I spent about an hour on the phone with Minimed technical support, and they were very helpful! I called about several unexplained calibration errors I was having with the past few sensors. There is a new protocol with Minimed - that they need to look at your carelink data to help diagnose the problem. Now the issue - I use a MAC computer - and Minimed is very open about the fact that they do not support MAC computers with their internet based carelink program and have no plans of changing that in the future.

I had dealt with this issue back in September, by installing WindowsXP on my macbook (with the intel chip) - I am able to boot into WIndows and it runs fine. Minimed told me this would not work, that the USB cable would not have the correct drivers and would not be recognized. WELL MAC USERS don't loose faith. It worked fine and has been working fine for me. The Minimed rep wanted to call my local rep and get her to come to my house so I could use their laptop to upload my data. That was a nice offer, but really - my local rep is overloaded with work as it is, I am sure coming the 2hr drive to my house for a data upload if not going to be high on the list of priorities!

Either way, I explained to the technical support agent that I have had no issues uploading my data to the carelink system through my MAC, running WIndows XP ..... they had to believe me when they saw my current data online! They are not allowed to tell people that this will work for people using MAC that have an intel chip ... in case someone goes out and pays the $100 for the windows XP (with service pack 2) and have it not work for some reason. BUT IT DID FOR ME!

So I spent an hour going through the carelink data - The agent was explaining ISIG values and just exactly how a calibration error is calculated. And how important it is to do about 4 calibrations a day, and no more then that. Interesting.....but it was nice to be able to pick his brain! I have not been using the carelink faithfully, it is a little bit of a pain to have to reboot into the windows - but I am going to try to do it once every 2 weeks to see how thinkgs are going. I like to look at trends and overall values.

So what can you take from this? If you are using a MAC with an intel chip, and this CGMS system - you can use the carelink by running Windows XP through bootcamp. Medtronic is not planning on addressing this issue so do not wait for them, and they can not tell you to go out and try this technique.

Secondly - don't ever hesitate to call the helpline. I have always had 100% success dealing with them - an assest.

Cheers!

Warm your testers....

Well I think today Winter will find us. There is a snowfall warning for New Brunswick and Newfoundland....30 + cm snow. We in Nova Scotia will get mostly rain, with a few cm of snow (which means a real mess). Sadly this is the start. The start of the mad rush for winter tires (not to mention the cold weather pushes people into the stores to SHOP for Christmas!!!).

But really, my heart goes out to all of the testers of this world. Today is the day we have to start thinking about the dear old E-2 errors....telling us our meters are too cold! Someone needs to create meter sweaters...or a meter duvet to keep these suckers warm! I am sure there are lots of tricks and trades used by people out there in meter land - I stick to my sure fire method of sticking it in my pocket for a minute or two. Usually taking the chill off it is all that is needed. Hard core cold days require the meter to be put right against my skin - like sticking an ice cube into your armpit......COLD!

Tis the season....warm your meters, I think winter is fastly approaching!

Cheers!

Totally Unrelated to Diabetes.....

I was woken this morning, early - but a delivery guy at the door. No surprise, I was awaiting the arrival of a new freezer.

I have spent a lot of $$ at Home Depot over the past year, with a total reno of the house I am in. You think I would have learned with past events, but the freezer this morning showed up DAMAGED. The box was in fine condition, so I signed the paper and accepted the package. When I opened it up, the front lower corner is dented in a good 3 - 4 inches - as if it sustained a drop and landed on that corner and then was packaged up.

THAT IS IT. I will not step foot in a HOME DEPOT or support them at all. I have had nothing but bad experiences. Many returns, many faulty items and poor quality. This is my oath to never deal with this company ever again. The lady on the phone was very nice and asked if I wanted an exchange, and I said "NO, I'm going to go to my local appliance store - support my local industry and never deal with your store again"......so that was not a nice start to my day....and reminded me when I let things like this bother me, it makes me BG rise.....soon after I hung up the phone I hear BEEP BEEP BEEP of my high alarm on the pump.....a gentle reminder from my body to just let this go, take a deep breath......and head up to my local home hardware store :)

TD DA! My Pump Skins!

Well Minimed never ceases to amaze me. I ordered the pump skins, and within 24 hours they were at my door! Two small envelopes packed in the typically large Minimed box. I'll admit, I was excited!

I was impressed with the quality of the skins - a good thick material and easy to apply. They do not cover the info on the back of the pump and snug up to the screen nicely. I enjoy the little "pick me up" every time I look at the pump. Well done Minimed, I just wish you did not charge $25 shipping for one of these!! (Glad I had a gift certificate, next time I will just add them to my glucose sensor order!!). Next I want to see Minimed come out with different colored infusion set sticky pads, or designs on them. That would be great for kids......err, and the rest of us too :)

Here are a few pictures. I have the Hawiian skin on now - with the Bubble LT still in the package awaiting its turn! It will be interesting to see how long the skin lasts. I keep the pump in my pants pocket most of the time, and often use the holster that the pump slides in and out of...so far so good!