Let’s eat. NOW!

You’ve been staggering around, lost in the Sahara for four days, ever since your plane ran out of fuel high above the dunes and ditched in the arid sands. Luckily for you, the good folks at Hilton have just opened the Moroccan Sands five star resort, and, stomach growling, you stumble into the all-you-can-eat buffet.

By some miracle, you’ve kept your insulin cool all this time and it’s still good. Wanting to maintain that stellar A1C that made your crusty old endo smile, you take the time to enter a bolus into your pump before you dig into the mountains of mouthwatering food that await you.

Trivia question: Just how many steps does this take on a Tandem pump vs. how many steps does it take on a Snap pump?

Are you fucking sitting down? Tandem: 14 steps. Snap: 6.

What???? Yep, that pretty, shiny, high-tech t:Slim makes you go through more than twice as many steps and “are you sure” screens before you take your first bite.

Maybe the Snap really is a snap, after all.

Now, because the flamers are cracking their knuckles and saying, “No frickin’ way,” let me bore you with the steps to prove my point.

Tandem:

1.) Wake pump up with silver button on top.

2.) Touch target 1.

3.) Touch target 2.

4). Touch target 3 (the pump is now unlocked).

5). Select Bolus.

6). Press Add BG to enter your BGL (or you can do carbs first, it doesn’t matter).

7). Enter your BGL. Although this probably takes three key strokes, I’ve counted this as one step.

8). Press Done.

9). Tell the little fucker that, yes, of course you want to correct your blood sugar, if you didn’t why would you embarrass yourself by telling it what your sugar is in the first place??).

10). Select Grams to enter your carbs. Now, I again counted this as one step, even though there is no saying how many key strokes it could take. You can also use the “+” key to enter multiple carb-counted items that build your meal. If you do, you must now however press “total” to add them up.

11). Select Done.

12). Select Next.

13). Confirm your request. If you choose to do a combo or extended bolus you’ll add a few more steps here.

14). Press Deliver.

Snap:

1). Press the bolus shortcut button, the one on the far right, to wake up the pump and take you to the bolus screen.

2). Enter your BGL. This does require scrolling, which depending on your BGL may or may not take as long as typing a blood sugar value into the Tandem. The higher your BGL, the longer this takes. Bear in mind that neither system has a meter that “talks” to it. Yet.

3). Press Next.

4) Scroll in your carbs. Note that you can also add the components of a meal. Just like with the Tandem, all you need to do is hit the Next key again and the Snap keeps a running total. Unlike the Tandem, however, you don’t need to press yet another key to total all the numbers.

5). Hit Next again. The Snap shows you the total insulin bolus. If you want details, you call scroll to the side to see them, but it’s not required.

6). Hit Start to deliver. And that’s it. It’s time to eat.

What? The Tandem user has fainted from hunger at step ten? OK, let me eat one more lobster tail, then I’ll go help him.

Now, the Tandem people have been telling me that all the “are you sure” and “are you sure you are sure” screens were required by the FDA under the new pump guidelines, and that, going forward, all new pumps will be designed for the stupidest diabetic on the planet. But… wait a sec. The Snap is approved by this same FDA, under these same new guidelines… Hmmmm…

I suppose some of the extra steps might be because of the Tandem’s innovative touch screen (certainly that’s true of the first four steps), but I wonder if Tandem was being straight with me. Even without the touch screen unlock, the t:Slim would have four more road blocks between me and my insulin than the Snap does.

Today I’m liking Snap a lot. She’s not as pretty, but she loads fast and lets me eat faster. But the honeymoon has just begun.

Tomorrow: Are there things I DON’T like right out of the gate? Oh, yes. Yes, there are.