Category Archives: insulin pump

Pump, polish, and pockets

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Yesterday I asked a complete stranger to pull something out of the front pocket of my jeans.

As strange as that sounds, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. It started when I pulled into the parking lot on my way to get a manicure. I checked my blood sugar. It was around 110 with an arrow pointing downward. I should have taken that arrow as a warning, but with very little active insulin, I figured it would even out and all would be fine.

It was about half way into the manicure when my pocket started to vibrate. It was my CGM alerting me to a low blood sugar. It vibrated 3 times and stopped. I sat there thinking what to do. The thing with this pump, it does not like to be ignored. It will give you three rounds of vibrating before then making an audible noise, a few short musical notes. The audible notes are a more polite way to say, please acknowledge me, you’re low. But if it continues to be ignored, as in you don’t click the appropriate buttons to clear the warning, it will go into a full blown loud alarm sound. Don’t get me wrong, this is a useful feature, especially in the middle of the night when you may sleep through the vibrating and the notes, but it is a little bit obnoxious and embarrassing when you’re in a small, quiet nail salon.

I was on to the audible notes now, knowing quite well what was coming next. I debated waiting it out, or playing it off like “yea I don’t know what that sound is” but it was clear that my nails were not close to being done and it would be pretty obvious that the loud noise was coming from me.

So at the next sound of my pump, I looked awkwardly at the nail technician and said, “Do you mind getting something out of my pocket? It’s going to start making a lot of noise.” The woman didn’t even hesitate, just leaned over and pulled it right out, which made me wonder if this type of thing happens more often than I thought, retrieving items from customers’ pockets who have wet nails. Either way, my pump was safely out of my pocket and I was able to silence the alarms. My pump said my blood sugar was 78, low enough to alarm, but knowing myself and the fact that I didn’t feel low, I knew I could wait the 10 minutes to treat it. The woman finished my manicure and I put my pump back into my pocket.

I think next manicure, I’ll keep my pump out of my pocket and on my lap…just in case.

 

 

Freedom

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I feel like my back and shoulders always hurt. There are a lot of reasons for this: my posture, the way I sleep, my workouts, sitting at a desk all day…but I’m also convinced it’s because I constantly carry around a heavy purse. I’ve always been envious of the people who can fit everything they need into a tiny bag, a small clutch, or even just their pockets. That’s never been possible for me. I never go anywhere without having a stash of fruit snacks with me in case of a low blood sugar. And then I also carry around my glucose meter. I’ve learned to always be prepared so throw in an extra bottle of test strips, a battery for the pump, a couple syringes and an insulin vial…just in case! And if I’m already carrying all of that, then I definitely have room for my wallet, keys, phone, a lip gloss…you get the idea.

I am tethered to my purse. I constantly ignore comments like “you can leave your purse, you won’t need anything.” But I might! What if I go low?

I am tethered to my pump. The cord physically connecting my body to a medical device at almost all times.

And I’m probably emotionally tethered to my phone, but that’s for another time.

Which makes the few moments of untethered freedom even more satisfying. Like taking a shower. Or going for a run.

I’m not a distance runner, the most I run is 2 or 3 miles at a time, so I made the decision to disconnect from my pump and leave my meter at home for those 30 minutes. While I still carry my fruit snacks, phone, ID and keys, this is probably the least amount of stuff I ever carry while being away from home.

I don’t know if it was the endorphins from running or the lightness of having little to carry, but recently on a run, I had a sudden euphoric moment. “I feel so free!” I thought to myself as I bounded down the sidewalk. There was no pump clipped to my pants threatening to fall off with every step, weighing down my leggings. There was no strap around my shoulders or back connected to a bag holding all my supplies, adding weight and pain to my body. It was liberating.

But then reality set in. My body started to feel shaky and weak, my head started to feel dizzy. My legs continued to propel me forward, but they felt numb and disconnected from my body. I was experiencing a low blood sugar. It was a cruel reminder that I’m truly never free from my diabetes. I can leave my medical devices and all the supplies at home, but I can’t run away from my broken pancreas. The timing of the low right after relishing my “freedom” made me laugh at the irony of that moment, “You got me, body! That was a good one, you son of a bitch.”

670 G- the frustrating user experience

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It’s now been about 9 months with my medtronic 670 G insulin pump. When it’s in automode, for the most part it’s pretty good. I’ve had less lows and less drastic spikes. I’ve also gotten better at pre-bolusing for my meals which has made a big difference.

In my current job, I’ve been thinking a lot about the users of our products. Thinking about the user’s needs and their experience using our product. I feel like I spend so much time thinking about other users that I forget that I too am a user. I am a user of the insulin pump product. Unlike the products I work on where we have to think about how we can engage the user and get them to come back, I have to use my insulin pump and continue using it (or I suppose switch to injections or switch companies). But there had to be people who thought about my experience using the pump, how to design the menus and buttons to make it as simple and intuitive as possible to use. And they needed to weigh the user’s needs and preferences against regulatory systems like the FDA and safety and compliance guidelines. It can be a hard line to walk. There’s a lot they did well, but yes, there is a lot of room for improvement.

There are certain features of this pump that continue to annoy and frustrate me. Maybe someone from medtronic will read this and can make recommendations for future versions.

Silencing alarms. To me, the point of silencing alerts is so that you do not hear or feel an alert. I understand the reasoning for not being able to silence low blood sugar alerts, that’s okay with me, but I would assume every other alert should not be vibrating if it’s on silent. This is not the case. From the user 670 G user manual:

“Alert Silence does not silence Auto Mode Exit, Auto Mode Exit
High SG, Auto Mode Off, and Low SG XX mg/dL (XX represents 50 mg/dL
or below) alerts. These are both based on set glucose thresholds and
cannot be silenced.”

Like I said, for safety reasons I understand why the Low alerts bypass the alert silence, but I don’t understand the auto mode exit. The pump is still working.

Automode exit. This brings up more frustrations with being kicked out of automode. For the most part, the reasons why you get kicked out of automode make sense. Although annoying, I do understand being kicked out when you’re over 300 for an hour or 250 for 3 hours. Being kicked out because you’re at your max basal delivery for 4 hours, I suppose I understand, probably good to check why the number isn’t coming down. But being kicked out for min delivery is an interesting one. I’ve been kicked out for running a blood sugar that was close to 85-90 for hours, I wasn’t requiring any basal insulin and so eventually it kicked me out, but my first thought was, why is having an amazing blood sugar kicking me out of the useful feature of the pump?

The sensor. I should be more specific about this one, really my biggest pet peeve with the sensor is that it only consistently works well for a few of the 7 days, and only lasting 7 days is annoying to begin with. But a more specific annoyance with the sensor is that I could have a sensor that is working really well on the 7th day and then the sensor expires. One would think that if the sensor was working fine before the expiration, that if you just restart the same sensor, it should work fine after. But it’s like the sensor sits there and goes “nah uh, don’t try to trick me, I know better” and will still tell you that it’s expired and needs to be replaced. A couple times I have gotten around this by disconnecting the sensor and charging it for a couple hours, and then reconnecting it as if it’s a new sensor. But even when this happens, it still doesn’t work as well as it did pre-expiration just a few hours earlier. Whether this issue is intentional or not, it makes me wonder if these companies could be designing a sensor that lasts significantly longer, but choose not to because it means we as patients and customers need to buy more sensors. Kind of how most electronics these days are not built to last, they’re built to last for a finite amount of time and then be replaced.

So any pump product designers and engineers and user experience people that stumble across this blog post, just a few things to keep in mind as you design and build your insulin pumps, especially as more and more turn to hybrid or fully closed loop systems. 🙂

Bedtime rituals

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One of the tips that the National Sleep Foundation recommends for a good night sleep is to have a relaxing bedtime ritual. It’s meant to serve as a type of buffer to separate your sleep time from the rest of your busy day and to signal to your body that it’s time to relax and prepare for sleep.

I was thinking about my own bedtime rituals and how they’ve changed over the years. When I was very young, my bedtime ritual consisted of my parents coming to tuck me into bed and probably reading me a bedtime story. When I was a little older, I added a new piece to the ritual, my parents would kiss me goodnight and then kiss my stuffed animal too. These were simpler, pre-diabetes times.

When you think of everything you do before bed, some of it you do because you know it’s good for you and your health, some of it you do because you have to, and some because you want to. Brushing your teeth, flossing, washing your face, these are all ways to take care of your body and your health. Taking medication or checking your blood sugar before bed are important rituals that can’t be forgotten. Reading, listening to music, meditating, cuddling your partner or your pet, these are things that you enjoy doing. Taken together, all of these activities become your bedtime ritual, changing as you grow and age.

I started thinking about this topic right before bed because of my newest additions to my ritual. Every night after I check my blood sugar, I calibrate my sensor on my pump. The calibration lasts 12 hours at best, so I want to make sure that it lasts through the entire night. This is something that I didn’t have to do with my old pump, but I’ve gotten used to doing it. But then, I go into my settings and silence all my alarms for the next 10 hours. I had to add this piece to my ritual because while calibrations should last 12 hours, many nights it would last closer to 6, and I was getting tired of being woken up at 4 am to buzzing telling me to calibrate. And worse, you can only snooze that alarm for an hour before it will go off again. So your only option at that point is to go test your blood sugar and re-calibrate, or continue to snooze and be woken up every hour. (Even with alarms silenced, it will still buzz for low blood sugars, so I feel comfortable implementing this work around every night).

But what category does this activity fall into? It’s not something that’s good for my health since essentially I’m ignoring alarms that are going off for a reason like alerting me of high blood sugars (although it is good for my sleep), it’s not something that I have to do, or something that I enjoy doing. This work around for a flaw in the technology has made its way into my nightly bedtime routine, but every night as I silence the alarms so I can get undisturbed sleep, I think to myself how I shouldn’t have to be doing this extra step. The failure of the sensors lasting the full night has resulted in more time and effort being required from me. It’s a small addition, but small additions add up. And instead of feeling calm and relaxed before bed, the little step adds a bit of annoyance and frustration each night.

There are many features of this Medtronic 670G insulin pump that I find annoying, this being one of them. But I’m learning to focus on what is within my control right now. I can’t always control when my pump is going to require a calibration, but I can control the level of interference with my sleep. Instead of feeling annoyed but this extra step, I try to feel empowered by my ability to make this device fit my needs and lifestyle instead of having its buzzes and beeps negatively affect my quality of life and sleep.

Really, my bedtime routine is kind of a metaphor for life itself. It’s made up of a combination of activities I like to do, some that I don’t necessarily enjoy but I know are good for me, and frustrations or challenges that I do my best to control or overcome. And yes, it would be simpler or more enjoyable if my routine was only things I enjoyed doing, but it’s the mix of the “want to”, “have to”, “try to”, that best prepares me for sleep…and life.

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670G: a poem

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The dust has settled.

Emotions have leveled.

Medtronic 670G,

You are now a part of me.

Over 4 months we’ve been together,

Your storms I’ve learned to weather.

To use your sensor I did try,

But frustrations piled high.

So many alarms I would hear,

The constant buzzing in my ear.

Less than a week and sensors would fail,

Every time, I let out a disappointed wail.

Eventually I learned some tricks,

Sleepless nights they worked to fix.

Auto mode is not perfection,

Blood sugars in both directions.

But at the endo there was good news,

A half point down my A1c did lose.

While sometimes I find myself in a bit of a slump,

In the end I’m so thankful for this insulin pump.

 

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My 670G Tips and Tricks

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It’s been about 2.5 months with my 670G pump. I’ve never had such an intense love/hate relationship with a medical device before. When asked if I’d recommend the pump or how I feel about, my honest answer is that I have very mixed feelings about it. And I think the most important takeaway is to have realistic expectations if you decide to get this pump. It is far far from perfect, but it has incredible potential. However, there are many and frequent frustrations, and for me, the pump was not only affecting my sleep (which obviously has implications for all areas of your life), it was also affecting my mood.

One thing I’ve learned over the past 17 years living with a chronic disease is that you have to make it fit into your lifestyle, not the other way around. That doesn’t mean you don’t make changes to the way you live, but it also means that to get through each and every day, you find ways to fit diabetes into the life you want to live. I have a few diabetes mantras, and one of them is “Diabetes does not define you.” My health and safety is always my first priority, but within the confines of this pump, I’ve found some tricks to get me through each day so that the pump is not negatively affecting my mood and sleep.

I’ll stop right here and say that what I’m about to tell you is not the way that the pump was designed and intended to work, so if you choose to try any of the tricks below, you do so at your own risk. I’m not recommending these for everyone, obviously you know what is realistic or not for your own life and circumstances. But this blog is for sharing my personal experiences so that’s what I’m doing.

My 670G Tips and Tricks

1.Be very careful about when you calibrate. Medtronic seems to have a lot of advice about this, don’t calibrate when you’re rising or dropping, don’t calibrate when there’s active insulin, calibrate about 4 times a day. I’ve also found that since I’m a stomach/side sleeper, I try not to calibrate when I first wake up even if it’s asking for one. I give it 30 minutes to an hour for the sensor to even back out. When I get into the cycle that says “Wait to enter BG” sometimes it helps to wait more than the 15 minutes, up to an hour even before entering the next BG.

2. Learn your sensor’s patterns. The sensor is supposed to last 7 days, however this has rarely been my experience. Here’s what my sensor timeline typically looks like:

  • Day 1: sensor is getting used to my body and usually isn’t very accurate for the first 24 hours.
  • Day 2-4: Sensor typically works pretty well, calibrations last close to 12 hours.
  • Day 5: Things start going downhill, either it will say change sensor or will need much more frequent calibrations.
  • Day 6-7: Hah

3. Adapt your manual and auto mode use to your sensor’s patterns. I’ve found that when the sensor is in auto mode, it requires many more calibrations, and that it is much quicker to not accept a calibration and eventually tell you to change a sensor than if it’s in manual mode. This makes sense. Since it’s giving insulin in auto mode, it wants to make sure it’s as safe and accurate as possible. However, if you want your sensor to get the full 7 days (or as close as you can), you can sometimes stretch the use by staying in manual mode for the last couple days. Here’s how it works:

  • Day 1: I keep it in manual mode for most of the day until the sensor is reading pretty close to my finger readings.
  • Day 2-4: Auto mode
  • Day 5: This is often where I get to the point that it tells me to change sensors. So now instead of cursing and getting mad, I disconnect the sensor from my body and charge it while turning off the sensor on my pump. Then I reconnect the sensor and “trick” the pump, telling it that it’s a new sensor. I then go through the warm-up period. For me, this works about half the time. If the sensor has gotten bent, then this trick won’t work, you’ll still end up changing it.
  • Day 6-7: Manual mode

4. If you feel comfortable, alert silences can be a great thing. I always calibrate my sensor right before bed, hoping it will last the 12 hours. However, if you’re close to day 5 and beyond, the sensor will often ask for a calibration 6 hours later, which for me is around 4 or 5 am. I was waking so frequently that my body started automatically waking up at 5 am every morning, and I would have trouble falling back asleep. So now, I make a judgment call each night. If I feel pretty sure that my blood sugar isn’t fluctuating too much, I sometimes choose to silence all alerts for the night. This way it won’t wake me up if it needs a calibration. I did find that it does still vibrate for low blood sugars. The pros: an undisturbed night of sleep. The cons: if it does need a calibration during the night, you won’t have any readings and if you’re in auto mode, it probably will eventually kick you out. So ultimately this comes down to what you’re personally comfortable with. I don’t silence the alerts every night, more so for the nights I just really want an undisturbed night. And I’ve always been able to feel my lows during the night so I don’t rely as heavily on the pump alerts. Then if I wake up at 4 or 5 in the morning, I’ll often calibrate anyway. But at least then it’s my body waking me up, and not my pump.

Everyone’s needs and experiences are different. My “tricks” might not work for you or fit your lifestyle or may not be how you want to be using the pump. But maybe they do help. Either way, I’m all about sharing and learning from one another.

Sensors and Censors

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F***!!!!

Anger is an interesting emotion. It heightens your senses, it gives you a physical reaction. It’s powerful. It can spur you to take action- for better or worse.

I’ve been feeling a lot of anger lately. But this anger feels different. I’ve been struggling to figure out what I can do with this anger, how I can channel it into something productive. Something that can solve the problem so there are less angry situations, something that will make me feel at ease. But what makes this anger different is that I feel completely trapped in the situation. It’s a situation with limited options to make it better, options that while might temper the anger, will have other negative consequences, potentially even to my health. I weigh these pros and cons and I feel a sense of helplessness.

With my new pump, I’ve been using new sensors. These sensors are what the pump relies on for blood sugar numbers to make decisions to give more or less insulin. They are what the defining feature of this pump is dependent on. These sensors are supposed to last 7 full days. This was already a disappointment as the sensors I was using before often lasted 10-14 days. In reality though, these sensors are lasting around 5 days on average before a new one needs to be inserted. And after day 4, for the rare ones that do last longer, they are becoming less accurate and need more calibrations. They end up waking me in the middle of the night when the calibration only lasts 6 hours instead of 12.

changesensorYesterday, after wearing the sensor for 3 days, I got a message that the sensor was updating and then a message that said, “Change sensor. Sensor not working properly insert new sensor.” In that moment I was furious. I screamed obscenities in my head at my sensor and texted my boyfriend the picture of that screen with 10 emojis of the middle finger and angry faces.

So what’s the big deal changing a few days early?

  1. It’s disruptive. It means the pump isn’t working to its full potential. It means until I change the sensor, I don’t have information about my blood sugar without poking my finger. So now I’m having to poke my finger more, I’m missing the data I rely on, and I’ll have to wait up to 2 hours for it to start again.
  2. It’s a pain, literally. Sometimes the insertion hurts, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t like doing things that hurt more often than necessary.
  3. It’s expensive. The faster you run through them, the sooner you have to order more. And they are not cheap.
  4. It wastes time. Medtronic will replace many of the sensors, especially ones that stop working after only a few days. But this could mean being on the phone for anywhere between 20-45 minutes with the person. Then having to wait while they ship a new sensor out.
  5. It’s supposed to work! Forgive me for thinking that the expensive medical device that I use is supposed to be reliable and consistent and accurate and cause less hassles, not more.

I understand that this particular pump is new, and by being one of the earlier people to get it, that there may still be kinks that they’re working out. But I also still feel like my anger is valid. So when I see that screen that tells me to change my sensor days before I should be, I get angry. But I also feel stuck because I made the decision to switch to this pump. And this is the reality. Can I get a different pump? Maybe? Might be a hard sell to my insurance who only covers new pumps every 3-5 years. Do I really want a different pump? I don’t know. When it’s working, the pump is great and truly is cutting edge.

So I’m stuck with a strong emotion that I don’t know how to productively channel. I’m pretty sure yelling F*** every time it happens doesn’t count. So what am I doing, what can I do about it? I’m speaking up. I’m telling my doctors what I’m experiencing, I’m blogging and telling you about it. I’m telling my Medtronic trainer. I’m telling anyone who asks me about the pump and is considering switching themselves. If improvements are going to be made, the company needs to know what’s not working. If people are going to switch to this pump (which I still encourage for all the benefits it does bring), I think they should be informed about the downsides too and have realistic expectations.

And until improvements are made, I’ll deal with my anger. And be thankful that I work from home when that involuntary “F***!” sneaks out after another sensor fails.

An update on the 670G pump

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It’s been 3 weeks since I started on my new Medtronic 670G insulin pump, 21 days since that life changing day I wrote about. So you’re probably wondering if it’s as great as it seemed to be after those first 2 hours. Honestly, no, it hasn’t been as smooth and hassle free as I had hoped. But after 3 weeks, I can definitely say it’s made an improvement to my life and my blood sugars and I’m so glad I made the switch.

Let’s start at the beginning. About 3 hours after posting how great the pump is, it kicked me out of the auto mode and I got stuck in an endless loop of it asking me for a blood sugar to calibrate, calibrating, asking for another blood sugar, processing, and then saying to wait. This went on for hours. Finally I called the medtronic helpline and spent an hour on the phone with a support person. After the hour, he still couldn’t fix it and I ended up having to take out the sensor which was working fine. It was a frustrating start.

After putting in a new sensor, things seemed to be going better for awhile. I was able to get back in the auto mode feature. My blood sugars have had way less drastic highs and lows, although I still find myself in the 200/250 range and the auto basal doesn’t seem to do much to bring it down. I’ve also had fewer lows especially those that are a result of correcting for the high spikes.

The alarms are a bit annoying, I find that even if I calibrate before bed, it still might need a calibration in the middle of the night, and I get awoken by the buzzing. I find that most often when I do get kicked out of auto mode, it happens during the night. I’ve also gotten stuck in that same loop of repeatedly asking for a blood sugar and not getting back into auto mode for a few hours a few more times. But luckily I haven’t had to take out any other sensors.

I had my 3 month endo appointment yesterday, and even after only having the new pump for 3 weeks, my A1c dropped half a point, so obviously it’s helping. I’m optimistic that the number will be even lower at my next appointment.

Is the pump perfect? No. There are a number of annoying features and issues that happen. But that comes with being an early adopter of a new technology. Am I glad I went through all the waiting and headache to switch? Hell yea! Even with its issues, I can see the positive effect this pump is having. And some of it is still user error. I’m sure my numbers would be even better if I remembered 100% of the time to prebolus my meals and improve other habits.

As someone reminded me, it’s not a magic pill (or pump) that’s going to suddenly make every blood sugar perfect. It’s still a piece of technology that has made advancements, but still requires effort on my end too. With that in mind, I’m eager to see what happens in the next 3 months.

 

 

A life changing day

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Today is a life changing day.

No, seriously.

Today, I woke up early, drove 45 minutes to my second training for my new Medtronic 670 G insulin pump, and they turned on the auto basal feature on my pump. What does that mean? It means that this first pump of its kind now has the ability to see what my blood sugar is and every 5 minutes, all on its own, give micro amounts of insulin to make sure my blood sugar stays as close to 120 as possible. It means that if my blood sugar is going up, it will give more insulin, and if its dropping low, it will give less. ALL ON ITS OWN!!! Yes, I still give insulin when I eat or give corrections when necessary, but it is working to manage my blood sugar in the time in between so that I hopefully don’t need to be giving corrections at all.

I’ve been open about my struggles to keep my blood sugars in range, I experience a lot of roller coaster ups and downs, and while my A1c has fluctuated over the years, I’ve never been able to get it to 6.0, a goal that I work every day to achieve. I’ve experienced frustrations, burnout, sadness as well as pride and celebrations over the years, but this new pump feature has the potential to be life changing for someone like me and many others with T1D.

pump2.jpgIt has literally only been about 2 hours since I turned this feature on and I’m sitting looking at one of the straightest, steadiest, in-range blood sugar graphs and I can’t help but get emotional. I have tears falling down my cheek as I type this. I don’t know that I can communicate everything that I’m feeling right now. For some of you, maybe you can relate, and for others, I hope I can come close.

Diabetes is all consuming. You have to be thinking about it all day, every day. You can’t take a break, you can’t say, “I don’t want to deal with you right now” without facing consequences to your health. Diabetes takes so much time and energy, and some days can be so physically and mentally exhausting. It’s exhausting when your blood sugar is running high and you’re not exactly sure why, it’s exhausting when you’re exercising or out with friends and it drops low and you have to stop what you’re doing and treat it and wait to feel better. It’s exhausting just not feeling your best or being able to give your best because you feel low, or high, or just off. It’s exhausting feeling like you do so much, but don’t have the numbers to show for it.

pump1.jpgJust the idea that this pump is literally asking me to give up a lot of control, trust the sensor, and let the pump do some of the work is simultaneously terrifying and liberating. It takes away just a little of the burden of living with diabetes, but even that little bit counts for so much! And I am so grateful and excited that a pump with a feature like this finally, finally exists. The fact that I potentially won’t have as many roller coaster highs and lows is such an incredible thought that is almost too good to be true.

I’ll let you know if I feel the same way 2 weeks into wearing this pump as I do 2 hours in, but for now, I am just so thankful to finally have a piece of technology that can truly help me in a way that I haven’t experienced before. And while it’s not a cure, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

 

 

The Fighting Kale

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There are a lot of words that I could use to describe myself, but gardener is not one of them. In fact, I often joke that I have a black thumb, killing even the hardiest of plants. My boyfriend on the other hand, loves to garden. When I managed to nearly kill a succulent, he nursed it back to health. When he talks about his plants that he grew in containers on his balcony and the vegetables that he harvested, his face lights up. You can tell it’s something that he’s passionate about. So when he suggested that I try to grow some vegetables on my apartment balcony with his guidance, I figured I’d give it a try.

DDDC4FF2-A5D5-439B-82DC-845CF497CFD3We planted 2 kale plants, one beet plant and some chives. I’ll admit, it was pretty amazing to see the transformation of the plants in just a few weeks time. My garden consultant would examine the plants and tell me when to water and how much, helped spray the plants with organic pesticides and just generally kept an eye on how things were going.

It became a ritual each morning to check on the kale plants and report back the progress. Everything seemed to going well until random holes started to appear on the leaves. At first I couldn’t tell what was causing it, but then we found the culprits: baby cabbage worms.

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Get off, worms!

My boyfriend picked them off and we sprayed the leaves again. I thought that was the end of it. We went out of town for a long weekend and returned to devastation. The poor kale plant was almost completely devoured by the now rather large and plump worms.

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At least someone’s enjoying them

It was a sad sight. The worms had won. I’ll admit that I pretty much gave up on my kale plants. It was a good first attempt at gardening, my black thumb prevailing in the end. My boyfriend cut off the mostly eaten leaves, leaving the middle stem, hoping for the best.

And guess what?! Those darn kale plants are fighters! They’re growing giant, strong leaves, with more leaves constantly starting. I look at the plant and I can’t believekale5 it’s the same one that I had practically written-off as a failure. I’m sorry I doubted you, kale. You survived the worm invasion and came out even bigger and stronger than before.

So why am I telling you about my gardening adventures on my blog about diabetes? I’ve been having a really difficult and frustrating time with my pump and CGM the past 3-4 months, which has resulted in poor blood sugars, bad moods, and a lot of frustration and even tears. I haven’t blogged in awhile because I didn’t want my blog to turn into a place of negativity and complaining.

While sitting outside working today, admiring the recovery of my kale plants, I realized that I am in the midst of my own worm invasion. (Metaphorically. Don’t worry, I don’t have worms). Things are hard right now. I feel my mental and emotional resources depleting. It’s sometimes hard to stay optimistic. But I, like my kale plants, am a fighter. And I too hope that in time, I’ll be even stronger and healthier than I am now. I wrongly doubted my kale plants, I won’t make the same mistake with myself.

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