Of TSlims & Tantrums

Life is chock full o' crazy right now, it's the 6th out of 8 weeks in the Med Surg/Mental Health rotation. I'm not going to personally comment on what that is like, but I focus on two main things (exam prep, and surviving each clinical day without getting expelled from the program) & count down the days till the insanity will be over.(if it weren't the Internet, I could tell you a lot more) As for that little thing called diabetes..it's been downgraded to the very last thing on my to do list. I have absolutely ZERO time to deal with low blood sugars, and my bg average is pretty high. Survival dictates getting all your patient care done/charting in the computer/giving medications/ongoing assessments/nursing diagnoses care plans done in 5 hours that you are on the floor (& nobody dying)or you will get a plan for success. Fortuently, this insanity is only for a couple of days a week but it is tough. The goal is to turn you into a fast-thinking nurse, but when you feel like you don't know anything every second of every minute of that time it is really stressful. Not to mention the instructor has eyes like a hawk and if you even look like you might be having a low, you may get questioned/& possibly sent home. I really don't know how that even fits into the whole "diabetes accommodations" thing I have in place, but their line of reasoning is that those are the requirements of the program/what the real world is like.

Exam 3 is on Monday, and the final exam is in two weeks.

 

Several weeks ago, I made the switch to the Tandom T-Slim..I am officially done with Omnipod. The Rep stopped communicating with me(RE: my need for a new PDM, having gone through about 15 pods & figuring out that the issue lay with the device itself) and I couldn't reach any of the company higher-ups. Insulet is having both supply issues and new pod issues, so this isn't surprising, but the manner in which the area Rep treated me really ticked me off.(she said she'd get me a new PDM, and then just stopped talking to me. I left several phone messages,etc, with no response. The Tandom Rep confirmed that said rep is a bit of a mental case.) The rep came out to our house & ran through the nuts and bolts of things. (Because if I have to read anything else not connected with nursing school, my brain will explode)

Impressions:

Customer Service rocks. I had a pump within two weeks of faxing the info to Tandom. And my Endo rocks, for randomly just approving it out of the blue with no communication from me regarding my pump switch.

I really like this pump. The reservoir fill process is a bit lengthy, but not horrid. And I use Apidra without any clogging problems.

I love the bolus calculator(by which you can add up various numbers of carbs just by pressing the + button) So, so sleek and sexy.(also better for my control!) And although I'm not a fan of being retethered, it's actually better for control when you can bolus whenever and not have to physically be hunting for the bolusing remote. And although I don't hate Insulet, I am very disappointed in them as a company right now. A local friend is also on the Tslim & she encouraged me to go on it.(it's awesome meeting PWD who live literally 10 minutes away & go to the same Endo you do!) I highly recommend this pump..the days of scrolling through numbers is just SO 20th century.(it's all touch screen, with appropriate safety measures/locks in place)

So that's life right now...plus dealing with the govt shutdown, which put my hubby on unpaid furlough to who knows when.(we have savings but its still stressful) I really hope they clear up this mess pretty soon, I think both sides are at fault here. We can't keep spending ourselves(as a nation) into more debt, we need to trim all these extra non-essential stupid programs(jmo) and cutting waste. It's just pathetic.(and yet, we also need this agreed upon..these functions MUST go on, if we are to continue as a country)

 

Posted with Blogsy