We decided to drive up and drive back all in one day. It made for a LONG day, especially with the torrential rain and thunderstorms on the way home. Ugh. Next time we are getting a hotel.
The BIG QUESTION of the day: Would we be in the control group with our Medtronic 670g in manual mode with a Dexcom G6? Or would be be in the experimental group with the newest t:slim X2 with Control IQ? It was a nail-biter for a little while, for sure!
The blood draw could have been traumatic, but it ended up fine. Our super nice blood-draw guy (who I had met the week before at the TypeOneNation Summit) was very experienced with kids. However, Cat's veins didn't want to cooperate and they kept rolling away. And I made sure she was hydrated! We distracted her with visions of an iTunes gift card. She did great despite the amount of poking and prodding.
Next we filled out bunches of surveys. Surveys for the parents and for Cat. It was all on the computer. Also we did a fingerstick A1C. Yesterday was her regular endo appointment and her fingerstick A1C was 6.3%. Today at the clinic it was 6.6%. The differences in these A1C value serves as a reminder that A1C machines are not always accurate. The machine at your doctor's office, if it isn't calibrated right, may be off by a certain percentage. Regardless, I'll take it. Plus time in range is a new indicator for control, and she was 69% in range according to her Dexcom reports, with only 4% lows. That's AMAZING.
After that, the endocrinologist and our clinical trial coordinator came in with the AWESOME NEWS! The computer randomization had placed us in the experimental group! We were going home with a new pump. WOOOHOOOO! Two other families were at the clinic that day for THEIR randomization appointments, and they were also in the experimental group. So we all went upstairs for training on the t:slim Control IQ.
The next hour or so we spent setting up our new pump, learning about Control IQ features, and making sure we knew how to work the pump properly. Since she was already using the Dexcom, it was easy to pair her existing sensor with the new pump. Now we can see her numbers RIGHT ON HER PUMP SCREEN. I was really missing that feature from the 670g.
Here she is, all hooked up and ready to go! This t:slim is much cooler than the one that I had before I got my Medtronic 670g (I had the first generation). I will say I prefer changing the reservoir on the Medtronic 670g to loading the cartridge on the t:slim. MUCH faster and easier (thank you Medtronic!) And the steps for loading the cartridge on the t:slim have apparently changed since the first gen model. There is "burping" of the cartridge (getting the excess air out) and now you fill the cartridge before you put it on the pump. That is NOT what we did back in the day when I was trained. But whatever! It's all good!
It's only been a few hours, but our graph is pretty impressive. She had a pretty carb-heavy lunch right before we got hooked up and she's been pretty steady for the last few hours! Can't wait to see what the overnight looks like! I loaded her up on some carbs AND fat for dinner so we'll see how the pump does with that. Also, she had even MORE carbs for dessert (Klondike bar) after her carby fatty dinner of mozzarella sticks, corn and a fruit cup. But the pump wouldn't let us bolus for her Klondike bar. I mean she put in the carbs and her BG automatically populated, but it would not let her bolus. I guess it knows if it's enough insulin so I'm going to just go with it! If our settings are right, it should be all good. However, a pump is only as good as the settings that the user inputs. Soooo, we may have to do some tweaking in a week when we have a phone meeting with the trial coordinator.
While the Medtronic 670g and the Tandem Control IQ have similar goals (hybrid closed loop system...insulin is delivered based on CGM data), there are some pretty significant differences in how these two pumps work. I'll do a deeper dive into those similarities and differences next time....but for now....STAY TUNED!
(Diabetes Christmas today! Those of you with pumps know what I mean!)
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