It's 4:30am this morning, and the alarm on my mobile phone is going off. I know exactly why, because I was doing exactly the same thing two hours ago. It's testing time.
On with the light, fumble for the meter, open the test strip bottle, and....
Ah man. Test strips all over the bed. Fantastic. That's going to be fun to get back together.
Why am I testing at 4:30am? Same reason that I'm testing every two hours for the next fortnight. Yesterday, I started on my pump, and my team have asked me to do this in order to get my basal rates sorted. So it's not going to be a whole lot of fun, because there's not a lot of sleep going on there. However, I would rather do this now, and get it right, rather than having to be chasing my tail a few weeks down the line.
But it's only day two of fourteen, and I'll be honest. I'm already tired. Like I said the other day, I've not been having great sleep recently, and my tank is running more towards empty. But it's time to power through, and hit the ground running.
Because for any complaining and griping I might do within the next fortnight, I know that I am extremely fortunate. To have access to pump therapy is an amazing opportunity. But even if I didn't have access to it, I would still consider myself fortunate.
If ever I feel down about the state of things, I think about the amazing work done by Dream Trust, and how so many people with diabetes are in situations like those of people the trust works with. How it could just as easily be me.
I think about life before the 1920's. Before the discovery of insulin. How a diagnosis of diabetes was tantamount to a death sentence. How incredibly blessed we are to have access to insulin at all.
So, just let me clean up all these test strips off the bed, then...
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It'll be worth it. My one year pump anniversary is next month. It was worth it. It's still wonderful.
Hang in there!
eveb if you test every two hours for 2 weeks you will STILL end up chasing your tail a few weeks down the line. No one has it easy when they first start pumping, no one gets it right first time and anyone who thinks the 2 hourly tests at the start will be it, is a fool