Round 2

Nothing is ever easy. But I don't need easy, I just need possible. The past 24 hours have been an adventure, and the actual trial doesn't even begin until Wednesday! Let's back up to yesterday morning when my tire pressure light came on alerting me to the fact that I had a tire low on air (not noticeably flat, just low). Zach found the tire, filled it with air and it was completely fine the entire morning, but at about 8:45pm last night when we went to check on the tire to make sure it was holding up we found a gigantic screw or bolt or some piece of hardware that was the culprit. Having scheduled my continuous glucose sensor placement for 10:30am this morning, naturally when I realized that the car is not going to make it to Charlottesville in its condition at almost 9pm on a Sunday night before a federal holiday, I panicked.  In retrospect this was nothing to be panicked about, I think I was just so worried that I was going to miss this opportunity and these trials are SO important to me, that my gut reaction was just to panic. Fortunately for me, I have my own knight in shining armor who holds me together or picks up the pieces when things like this happen, and without fail Zach was there for me just like always to fix the situation. He spent about an hour on the phone calling literally every tire place he could find in the DC/MD/VA area finding someone to either patch or replace the tire, and by 10:30am this morning we had a fixed tire and were on our way to Charlottesville a mere 2.5 hrs behind schedule! Easy? No. Possible? Always. 

The culprit.

This time Zach was able to come with me for the CGM insertions, and having done this one time before, I sort of knew what to expect which made it a little less scary, but not entirely anxiety free. For the trials, I'm required to have two continuous glucose monitor sensors placed under my skin to check my blood sugar every few minutes. One is used for the artificial pancreas, the other is a backup in case the first fails because they require a 2 hour warm up period, and if you know diabetes, 2 hours without proper glucose control has the potential to put you in deep trouble.  

When we got to Charlottesville, Zach and I met with Daniel, my main contact for this trial. After going over exactly what would happen beginning Wednesday at the actual trial, it was time to insert the CGMs under my skin on my abdomen. For those of you who know me, you might already know this but it took me 9 years of injections to warm up to the idea of an insulin pump because I couldn't come to terms with having something under my skin all the time.  That being said, when Daniel asked me if I wanted to try putting one of the sensors in myself what went through my head was "No no no no never no no." But what came out of my mouth was more like "Uhhhh ummmm hmmmm uhhhh ok I can try". So we went over the directions, and with Zach helping read me the instructions, Daniel helping click the pieces into place, I inserted a CGM in my own abdomen! In about 5 minutes I was now able to conquer what had taken me 9 years to do previously. I was pretty darn proud of myself, but it was really a team effort. In the interest of saving time I asked Daniel to handle the second one for me, and now I've got my 2 sensors, ready to go for Wednesday. 

Look I did it!

On the drive home today I cried. Having these tiny little things under my skin means that it's really starting. That I'm really going to be one of the very first 5 people in the United States to use the Artificial Pancreas on the cell phone platform (I'm the 4th person, to be exact!)  and that I get to witness first hand how awesome the Artificial Pancreas is in an outpatient setting, in a real world setting.  Today was a very long day. Between the driving in Memorial Day traffic, the tire incident, and the nerves about inserting the sensor, I'm ready for an early bedtime tonight. But it was worth it a hundred times over and I would gladly do it all again. Wednesday here I come!