Déjà vu Redux

Having just done this last week, I was confident I could do it on my second glass of wine. I’m once again programing a brand-spanking new Med-T pump.

But being a moron, or maybe thinking lightning wouldn’t strike twice, I apparently threw out the pump program I had downloaded from Revel number one. So up to CareLink I went again, and printed out a pump settings report.

And as I sat at the kitchen table, suffering serious menu-driven déjà vu, I realized something I had missed last time. CareLink’s pump setting reports do not, do not, do not match the Revel’s menus. In other words, as you work your way down the various menus to bring your new pump to life, you have to hunt and peck through the three page settings report to find your numbers.

What frickin’ idiot designed the settings report?

Annoying is too kind a word. It would be the simplest thing in the world to have the settings report match the programming order. It would be like using a checklist. You could simply work your way down the report, entering info, turning features either off or on as you went. It would be easier. Faster. And less likely to result in errors.

But thanks to the Rex-Goliath Cabernet Sauvignon’s intelligence-enhancing effect on my mind, I got to looking at my basal rate and began to think that it was looking a little too much like a Coyote-and-Roadrunner landscape; and a little too little like the gently rolling sand dunes of a properly designed basal rate. I did some fine-tuning on the fly.

Then I entered my CGM thresholds, patterns, and alarms. I entered my insulin to carb ratios. My insulin sensitivity numbers. My targets and all the rest of it.

Next, I linked my CGM transmitter; my two meters (every time Med-T sends me a new pump I score another user’s manual, more clips and holsters, AAA batteries, but not a new meter—they come in a separate box); and then it was time to get myAssistant on the case of the new pump, something that didn’t go as smoothly as I might have liked last time, as you might recall.

I flopped on my bed, got out my Kindle, opened a good book, set the pump next to the mySentry monitor and wondered if I shouldn’t have had a third glass of wine. You know, for prophylactic stress reduction.

To the tune of a hoedown: Go to mySentry Main Menu, then to the Utilities Menu, then to Link to Pump. Now bow to your partner, bow to your corner, allemande left. Next, on New Pump Redux-Redux go to Main Menu, then to Utilities, then to Connect Devices, then to Other Devices, then turn it On, then go to Find Device.

No shit.

Then I was told it might take two minutes. Yeah. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuure it will.

I settled in to read. But damn if it didn’t. Take two minutes, that is.

This time everything worked great. New Pump Redux-Redux shook hands with myAssistant, or they kissed each other on the cheeks, or whatever it is that these kinds of creatures do to greet each other—and in no time data was flowing from the newest pump to my remote viewing and alarming system.

Order was restored to my world.