by Eric Devine

Created on: November 19, 2008

Love that pump

"Dude, you'll love it. I swear, bro!"

The insulin pump trainer sat across my kitchen table from me, beaming with his support. I was poised to "connect" after my rather unconventional trainer had walked me through the set-up process. He was a pump user or "pumper" as he called himself and others in the fold, and he was an exuberant example of the pseudo-cyborg-seeking-better- health-through-tighter-glucose-control I was about to become. There was a weak smile on my face, but I nodded assent at his encouragement and plunged the infusion set into my skin.

The pain was no worse than an injection and the site was completely painless once I removed the needle, leaving the soft cannula in place. I did fumble with the adhesive pad's backing, but managed to affix the entire set with relative ease. Then I filled the cannula and was, according to my trainer, who applauded when I finished, "Good to go." But was I? I smiled, politely, and for some reason, stood. The pump was connected, but not attached via its case to my belt. Therefore, it plunged before me and dangled like a bungee jumper, long done with the excitement of the jump, and the weight pulled at my abdomen, an odd sensation, possibly only matched by an umbilical cord. I reigned in my pump and promptly sat. In love? No. Scared? Absolutely.

I've had four pumps over the past ten years and have experienced all the perverse situations which befall all of us pumpers: catching the tubing on a doorknob; getting tangled in the tubing while sleeping; running out of insulin or battery power at the most inopportune times; negotiating a disconnection time during an intimate encounter; swimming, sunbathing, and working out, all while having a precious and to a degree delicate machine strapped to my hip; forgetting to bolus; forgetting to change the basal rate; forgetting to change the clock for daylight savings; having to change the site three times in one day; spurting blood from a pulled site; occluded sites and air bubbles in the tubing. The list could go on indefinitely, just as the new and challenging scenarios of life with a pump develop.

It would be easy, then, to dismiss such a product as unlovable, but I've neglected to highlight the positives, the aspects that have kept me in this dance for the past ten years: sleeping in; eating at whatever time you feel; easily adjusting to changes in activityliterally at the push of a button; not having to ride the roller-coaster; curtailing the "dawn phenomenon"; obtaining single-digit HbA1c's; feeling a sense of freedom, in spite of all the aforementioned encumbrances.

Therefore, yes, I do love my pump. We're married in this hormonal quest for symbiosis, and I'm remaining true to my vow, for better or for worse, because I've felt what my trainer expressed all those years ago: euphoria. It comes and goes, but when it does, I acknowledge the source, strapped securely to my hip.

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