Dexcom for Brooke

After a lot of insurance headaches and phone calls and doctor calls and back to the insurance and blah blah blah blah blah... I finally got my Dexcom CGM. 

I have had it for 2 weeks now. It has been pretty great. I can see where my blood sugar is 24/7. Every 5 minutes, the sensor sends a blood sugar reading to the receiver. I have gotten to a point where I don't really notice the sensor anymore. It just stays attached to my stomach somewhere. But it does have to be changed out ever 7 days. It freaks me out every time I have to change it though. The first time, I was scared to take the sensor off because I didn't know what I would see when I pulled it out of me. That however, proved to be the least of my concerns. It's super itty bitty. Spencer described it as looking like a small piece of fishing line. The thing that freaks me out more, it pushing down the plunger with the needle to put the new sensor in. The way it works is, you attach the sticky pad to your stomach. It has a plunger with a needle inside of it and inside of the needle is the sensor. So you push the plunger down into your skin and then there is a part you pull back so the needle comes back out and leaves the sensor in there. Then you pull the plunger part off and pop in the Bluetooth transmitter. I have had to call Spencer at school every time because I've worked myself up into tears just thinking about it too much. Hopefully I'll get past that one day. But this last time I did it (yesterday) I was afraid I had screwed it up because it really hurt and would sting a lot. But the blood sugar readings look just fine so I'm pretty sure I just hit a nerve. Not pleasant though.

With a CGM, I have been trying to get to know my blood sugar trends better. It has been extremely hard to figure out how to exercise. I do know that something like going for a walk will make my sugar drop. I have to take gatorade with me all the time so I can drink some fast sugar. But on Tuesday, I tested out what would happen if I went jogging. I went before lunch though and I probably should have waited until my sugar was higher before I started. My sugar dropped to 59. I felt like crap. But it did that after I had stopped running and was waiting with Spencer for Institute to start. So at least it didn't happen while I was out. But I'll be sure to be more careful with it next time. 

It has made sleeping a little more interesting. The first night I laid there and cried because I could feel it so much and the sensor inside me was freaking me out. I didn't think I would be able to calm down enough to sleep at all. But I asked Spencer to give me a Priesthood blessing and it was perfect. He prayed that I would get used to it and I would be able to relax and sleep well. I fell asleep soon after that and by morning, I couldn't even tell it was there. Spencer made all the difference in the world.

Kadee has kicked it or sat on it and such a few times. That doesn't feel very pleasant either.. but so far we haven't had any big problems. She just knows that Mommy always has an "oow" and I've been trying to help her understand that she needs to be more careful. I don't think anything has really stuck with her yet other than she just says "oow!" every time she sees it. Getting Kadee to understand more will definitely be a constant struggle. I does make me worry about if I ever do get an insulin pump (hopefully but not looking super likely in the near future....) because there will be more things along with a pump that Kadee will have to be careful about. I don't know. We'll see.

But knowing where my blood sugar is at all times has been a huge blessing. I gets alerts every time my sugar goes below 80 so I can do something about before I really end up in trouble. Hopefully with this I won't experience any hypo blood sugars. I'm afraid the high sugars are just going to get higher as I start to need more and more insulin.