When we moved to our new school we were somewhat worried to find out that our son would be the only student with Type 1. However our fear subsided when we met the nurse. She too had Type 1 diabetes! She immediately showed our son her pump and he showed her his and they were quickly on the same page.

For the first few weeks at the new school we felt everything was fine. Our son is quite mature for his age and tends to take care of himself well but we soon found him returning home quite high each day. After some questioning we finally realized that the nurse was correcting his “low” BG ratings with juice. This of course is fine, however, for her “low” meant anything in the 80′s and so our son would be taking in juice and rocketing up to the high 100′s.

We really should not have assumed that just because she had Type 1 that she would manage it the same way we would. In fact, it’s probably safer to assume that everyone with Type 1 manages themselves in different ways primarily because the disease experience is different for everyone.

We’ve decided to manage our son a bit lower with the hopes of averaging around the 90-110 range with an A1C of around 7.0. We do this because we’ve found that our son, when he experiences lows, still does a really good job of identifying it and treating it quickly. He also seems to be able to go pretty low without any real negative effects (like in the 40′s). Of course we don’t want him this low, ever, but having him in the 70s appears to be just fine.

Others however may find themselves completely out of it even in the 60′s and so they tend to manage themselves higher.

After realizing what was happening we simply had a conversation with our nurse and explained what we were trying to do. We also had our son’s doctor reiterate it with a short note explaining not to undertake any ‘corrections’ unless he was under 70.

Once again, open and honest communications has helped to ensure our son’s days are smooth and healthy.

The film, Patient 13, will follow Scott King who has researched and developed a potential cure for the disease.

Here’s a synopsis from the film makers:

Patient 13 follows Scott King – scientist, entrepreneur and Type 1 diabetic – at the climax of his 30-year quest to cure diabetes. Working with a team of world-renowned scientists, Scott is battling the odds to bring one of the most dramatic medical discoveries in history to human trial – even if it means experimenting on himself. Will the scientists be Nobel Prize winners or failed visionaries? If Scott succeeds, not only will he cure Type 1 diabetes, he will cure himself.

Here is a short video about the project.

1. 1. Rotate Your Sites: Since you have to change your pod every three days, it is important to rotate through a number of different pod sites.  We have 4 sites that we prefer – each side of belly and each side of upper buttocks.  In addition we rotate having the cannula facing out or in, so in effect we have 8 different placements.  This ensures that our son doesn’t create any hard tissue where we place the pod.  Such hard tissue can affect the ability of the pod to release insulin.
   2. Pinch When Inserting The Cannula: We always pinch the skin around the cannula when it is about to insert into the skin.  This helps to ensure the cannula is inserted into the skin layer and not down into muscle.  Not only does inserting into muscle really hurt, but it also will cause a blockage of insulin and likely bend the cannula, thus causing an error.
   3. Insulin At Room Temperature: We store our insulin in our refrigerator.  Not entirely sure this is needed or not, but we’ve just gotten into that habit.  However, we store our pods in a cupboard at room temperature.  Because the two items are at different temperatures, when we add the insulin to the pod we’ve sometimes experienced immediate errors.  Nothing like destroying a pod before you even get to use it.  Now what we do is either leave the insulin out for 30 minutes before injecting it into the pod or simply hold it in our hands for a few moments to bring the temperature down.  This seems to have eliminated these early errors.

Are there other tips that we should be following?  We still certainly get the occasional error but we haven’t yet figured out why.

Overall, it takes us between 2-4 minutes to change a pod, depending on how organized we are.

You’ll need 4 items on hand to make the change:

• Your Omnipod Personal Diabetes Manager (PDM)
• A new Omnipod packet (comes with a new pod and a new syringe)
• Your insulin (we use Novolog)
• An alcohol wipe

Here are the steps we take:

• Deactivate and remove the old pod:  By turning on your PDM and going to Home>Actions>Change Pod you’ll be able to deactivate your existing pod.  Make sure the PDM is close to the body and wait for the 2 little beeps that tell you your pod is deactivated.  Once deactivated, remove the pod from your body.  We find starting at the back of the pod is easiest so that the cannula comes out smoothly.

• Fill the new pod:  You’ll now want to fill the new pod with your insulin.  Just take the alcohol wipe and clean the top of your insulin.  Then, on your PDM, given your old pod is deactivated, it will ask you if you want to activate a new one – select yes.  Use the syringe that came with your new pod pack and fill it with the correct amount.  The minimum is 100 milligrams.

With the insulin in the syringe, make sure your PDM is on (sometimes it auto shuts off) and insert the syringe into the fill spot on the pod and pump the insulin in slowly.  With the PDM right next to the new pod, once the insulin is in, you’ll again hear 2 small beeps, letting you know you’ve succeeded.  At this time, hit Next on the PDM and it will ‘prime’ the new pod – essentially making the necessary connection between the PDM and the new pod.

Here’s a tip:  We store our insulin in our refrigerator and keep the new pods at room temperature.  Sometimes this difference causes errors with the pod.  When we load the insulin into the new syringe, we simply wrap our hands around the syringe for a minute to warm it up a little before placing it into the pod.

• Place new pod: Once your PDM says that it is done priming, you’re ready to place the pod onto your body.  We tend to rotate through 4 different spots:  each side of the tummy and each side of the upper buttocks.  Choose your location and clean it with you alcohol wipe.  Make sure it dries and then remove the cover to the new pod’s cannula area and the sticky tape and position the pod.  Make sure you smooth out the edges and press them down so you have a nice seal between the pod and your body.

• Activate new pod: This is the only part where you may feel a little pinch.  This is when the cannula gets inserted into your body.   Your PDM will guide you and ask you if you’re ready.  Say yes.  It is recommended that you pinch the skin around the area of the cannula so that you give it an easy entrance.  You’ll hear a couple of clicks from the PDM and then WHAM, the cannula will be inserted.  At first this was a bit shocking for our son and it hurt a little.  He’s now well used to it.  The PDM will finally ask that everything is inserted ok.  To be honest our eyes are good enough to see if the cannula is properly in there, but as long as we don’t see anything strange (blood, bent cannula, etc.) we press OK.

You’re now good to go.  Feel free to head out and go swimming if you want.  The Omnipod will allow you to do that.

Enjoy.

With our son being eight years old and having been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes just last summer, we were obviously extremely hesitant as we thought about summer camps for him this year. Not only has he never spent any significant time away from home, but with the added stress of worrying about his health, we were resigned to the fact that he would likely not be able to experience the joys of summer camp until later in life.

But then we were told of camps that specialize in adventures for kids with Type 1 diabetes. I did a little research, finding two camps within a relatively short distance from our home, and reached out. The camp we eventually chose was Camp Conrad Chinnock, located in the San Bernadino Mountains in Southern California.

The camp was excellent and completely inspiring. Being our first time, we chose to go to their ‘transition camp’ which allowed both parents and the child to stay for the weekend before setting the child free for the next week. During the weekend not only did our son immediately gain a sense of independence (“see ya!”) but we enjoyed a series of discussions with the camp staff, counselors, doctors and the other parents learning not only about how the camp is run but also what it is like to live with diabetes (note: almost all the staff and counselors have Type 1 themselves).

Of course the experience was valuable to us as parents, being able to ask young adults about their own lives with this disease and being able to learn about other parents’ experiences, but it was tremendous for our son on two levels.

First he got the great camp experience – staying in a cabin with friends, rock climbing, swimming, archery, hiking, all the great outdoors stuff. That alone was worth the money. By the end of the week he was completely exhausted.

But more importantly (and this may not have dawned on him given his age) but he got to meet a lot of other kids going through the same exact issues he goes through. He no longer was the odd kid out. There was no awkward moments where he had to excuse himself to go to the nurses office to get a shot – his whole cabin did this together. He didn’t need to feel shy about feeling ‘low’ – all his friends at one time or another did and all the counselors had testers and glucose tablets on them at all times to help out.

He also got to learn how other kids manage their diabetes. About half the kids his age were on the pump and the others were taking shots. He got to learn about the pump and see how to operate one. And they all learned about carb counting and bolus and insulin calculations.

We are so happy we found this place and so relieved to know that kids with Type 1 diabetes can not only experience a camp just like every other kid, but that they can grow up to be responsible and inspirational people – all the counselors were perfect models of this.

Our son was so enamored by the experience that he asked to go back, so we’re going to send him again in a couple weeks.