Pulled plug

The things I miss the most are physical. I miss her body, more than her mind or spirit. Sounds shallow, doesn’t it?

How like a man.

But Revel’s body was slim and hip-hugging. CoZmo is pretty clunky.

CoZmo, however, is the smarter girl. So when you have to spend a lot of time with a girl, I find that, if I have to choose, I’m happier with one that’s smarter, rather than one who’s prettier. (Lucky for me I married one who is both.)

Overall, I think from a pump ONLY perspective, I like attempting to manage my diabetes with CoZmo better. The way insulin on board is tracked and displayed, the site change reminders, the increases in corrections with increases in blood sugar, on-computer programing, and the day of the week auto basals all trump Revel. Trump, hell. Trounce is more like it.

But from a system perspective, Med-T would have been the better marriage. Having a pump that was also a CGM was awesome. Less on the belt, for one thing, but even better was the integration of the components. The meters talked to the CGM. The CGM talked to the pump. It was all incredibly labor saving, and for those of you who don’t know, diabetes is labor intensive. Anything that buys me a few moments diabetes-wise, gives me those moments to do something else with. Like spend a few more seconds with my family. Hey, my time on earth is shorter than anyone who doesn’t have diabetes. I need to use it wisely.

And then there is Sentry. I was surprised that I didn’t miss him as much as I thought I would. Debbie, on the other hand, is less than happy. She really, really, really likes the Sentry. She’d much prefer that I was on Med-T CGM with Sentry than on the Dex.

Oh, and speaking of the Dex, how is that going, you ask? What’s it like returning to Dex after a couple month affair with the Med-T CGM? Well… Dex is big. It’s ugly. It’s dumb. The monitor, that is. But there are things that I like about the system. Or had forgotten that I like about it.

First and foremost, I like the sensor insertion. Dex’s dental-tool-from-hell inserter device actually works really well. I never bleed, and I rarely feel any pain putting in a sensor. And I never have sensors crap out early with Dex. I also like running seven days. It keeps my life simple. Oh, today is Friday. Time for a new sensor. With Med-T you need to pretend to change it at three days, then actually change it at six. Or, if you want to go seven, you have to pull the transmitter and reset it, along with that whole two and a half hour startup thing. And, to pull the transmitter, you must first pull up your Tegaderm. If you’re going to go to all that trouble, you might as well start over and put in a new sensor.

Oh, right. And speaking of Tegaderm, that’s another Dex plus. No need for an over-bandage. The Dex sensor stays on just fine. And the smaller sensor size means I can wear the CGM on my arms, which I prefer to the leg sets needed for the Med-T, although I couldn’t tell you why I prefer it.

Of course, I miss Revel’s predictive alarms, and it’s variable alarm thresholds, but not as much as I expected I would.

Dex is loud enough to wake me at night, but I do miss that big, beautiful Sentry screen that let me take in my blood sugar status at a glance.

Oh, and another thing I hate about the Dex monitor (come to think of it, there’s nothing that I like about the Dex monitor other than its capacity to generate a lot of noise) is the fact the inside of the screen gets filled with dust.

Which makes it hard to read in some light. The Revel is somewhat water-tight. No dust. Revel will also stay on all the time. Dex makes me press a button to look at my blood sugar. I don’t have time for button pressing, damn it. Can you imagine a watch you had to press to see the time? Oh. Wait. We used to have those. In the early 80’s. Remember LED watches? Yeah. The black-glass with bright red digital readouts? You don’t see those around anymore. Why? Because high-tech space-odyssey charm aside, you had to press a fucking button to find out what time it was, and frankly who has time for that? It got old very, very fast, and people stopped using them. I’m surprised it didn’t kill the digital watch as a product altogether.

After all, since the invention of the wrist watch, all you had to do was glance at your wrist to tell the time. Pressing a button is taking a step down the evolutionary ladder.

What else? I think I prefer Med-T’s approach to electricity, although you can learn to live with either system. For the monitor, Revel takes a AAA battery. Easy to carry a spare with you, should you be away from home for a longer-than-expected time period. Who knows? You might be standing on a street corner minding your own businesses when the Swedish Bikini Team’s tour bus pulls up and they invite you to travel with them.

Hey, it could happen.

The guy with the spare AAA battery is clearly at the advantage over the guy with the spare plug and spare wall in this circumstance. Yes, Dex needs a wall to recharge. And quite frequently at that, especially for a device that won’t fucking stay on.

As for the transmitters, the Med-T CGM transmitter is rechargeable. If you keep it charged (including during any breaks you may take for CGM vacations); it will work for years. The Dex transmitter is sealed. They promise it will last a year. But when it dies, it does so by getting funky, which is very frustrating. Even more frustrating is the company’s business model. You can buy a replacement transmitter, for $800, but they won’t guarantee it unless you buy a new monitor to go with it, too. Basically, if you buy into the Dex system, you’re on a treadmill of new system annually. That wouldn’t be so bad if there was a new wiz-bang gee-wiz model every year like with cell phones, but I’ve been on Dex since…. 2009… worn two… three? And they’re all the same fat, lazy, ugly girl.

That reminds me. My year was up May 17th. Oh dear. I’m going to need to make a CGM replacement decision very, very soon. I’ll take Tough Decisions for $250, Alex.

But, all things being equal, except for one itsy bitsy tennie weenie little thing, I could have been very happy with the Revel system. That one fatal stumbling block? The Motor Errors, of course.

Now I want to make it clear that I really do believe that this is unique to me or my environment—even though the root cause remains a mystery. Don’t you think, given our Twitterfied and Facebooked world, that if someone else was having epic Motor Error issues, you would have heard about it? Yeah, I think that if even one other person were having these issues (unless some poor Amish guy is having motor errors, and would an Amish diabetic use a pump?), I think we’d all know about it.

But for that, I would get out my check book and write Med-T a check for $3,000 for the Sentry right this very second. Ah… umm… of course the check would bounce, because I don’t have 3K to my name. But still, I’d find a way. My insurance will cover a new pump for me, and a new CGM, so I wouldn’t have to worry about paying for Revel and the CGM transmitter.

But I only get one new pump in the next four years. So I’m not going to use my “pump money” from the insurance to buy a pump that won’t work for me. Chronic motor errors would stress me out so much I’d have a stroke within a year. And I’m not going to pay $9,997.00 for a CGM monitor; the cost of buying a pump to use only for its CGM. Remember, Sentry only talks to Revel, if you want a Sentry, you need a Revel.

So for me, I guess it’s back to Dex and CoZmo. If my antique phone’s brass bell announces a break-through from Med-T before I finish packing up Sentry and Outpost and Pump the Fifth to send them back to Med-T, I’ll reconsider. But frankly, I don’t think the hard working Ghostbusters will ever solve this mystery.

So, how will I spend my pump money? Good question. I wasn’t too impressed with the Animas pump when I test drove it, but maybe I need to give it a second look. I always knock OmniPods off, so I think I’d rather stick with traditional pumps with tubing. The new tSlim might be worth a look (although, being old fashioned, I really prefer buttons to touch screens), and I know Roche has a new pump over the pond. I wonder when the frickin’ FDA will approve that?

And then there’s the CGM issue. My Dex could crap all over me at any minute now. I’ll need to choose a new CGM, like soon. Guardian isn’t an option. Not loud enough and doesn’t talk to Sentry. And Revel, for whatever reason, won’t work for me.

Oh. I guess I don’t have a choice after all. Unless Med-T figures out what’s up with their pump and I pretty damn quick, I’ll need to sign up for another year of Dexcoming.