LifeAfterDx--Diabetes Uncensored

A internet journal from one of the first T1 Diabetics to use continuous glucose monitoring. Copyright 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

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Location: New Mexico, United States

Hi! I’m William “Lee” Dubois (called either Wil or Lee, depending what part of the internet you’re on). I’m a diabetes columnist and the author of four books about diabetes that have collectively won 16 national and international book awards. (Hey, if you can’t brag about yourself on your own blog, where can you??) I have the great good fortune to pen the edgy Dear Abby-style advice column every Saturday at Diabetes Mine; write the Diabetes Simplified column for dLife; and am one of the ShareCare diabetes experts. My work also appears in Diabetic Living and Diabetes Self-Management magazines. In addition to writing, I’ve spent the last half-dozen years running the diabetes education program for a rural non-profit clinic in the mountains of New Mexico. Don’t worry, I’ll get some rest after the cure. LifeAfterDx is my personal home base, where I get to say what and how I feel about diabetes and… you know… life, free from the red pens of editors (all of whom I adore, of course!).

Friday, July 19, 2013

Prime time meets primetime


I cannot tell you how long it takes to prime my 43-inch infusion set tubing on the Snap. My reflexes simply aren’t good enough to time it. I can’t even reach for my iPad timer before it’s done. I think the Snap charges the line in around one second. It might be half a second. It might be a second and a quarter. But for all practical purposes, it’s instantaneous.

That would be amazing compared to any pump, but it’s especially amazing compared to my slower-than-molasses t:Slim with its six-minute tube-fill time. The t:Slim fill is so vexingly slow in filling it’s tubing that while it’s doing it I make coffee, check the weather, get dressed, eat breakfast, see if anything new has showed up on eBay or Etsy, and still have time left over to surf for porn. Now, like Emeril Lagasse, Bam! The tube is fully charged with insulin as soon as I attach the tubing to the pump. The damn Keurig hasn’t even warmed up yet. My morning routine is now shot to hell.

How’d they do that?

Damned if I know. But I don’t care. I love it.

Getting the Snap ready for action gave me visions of those old war movies where the Marine recruits are blindfolded and fieldstripping their guns while the instructor times them. I think that happened in the sub on its way to the pole in Ice Station Zebra, and during training in The Boys in Company C. Or maybe it was Full Metal Jacket.

But snapping your tubing full of insulin is so fast you wouldn’t even have time to get the blindfold on.

Bottom line: Getting the pump’s tubing ready for the week’s run is… well… a snap.



Next time on LifeAfterDx: A real-time meal time shootout. I compare the number of button presses between me and my food on both the t:Slim and the Snap. That’ll be on Monday. Same time, same channel. Be sure to tune in.


1 Comments:

Anonymous Terrell said...

Cool!

12:50 AM  

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