I can’t even describe how insanely busy things have been lately…

Last week, I had to take my uncle to the hospital, he’s 90 w/alzhiemer’s and has been living alone since my aunt passed away about 5 years ago.  He was hallucinating when I got there and refused to go with me to the hospital, so I called 911 and one of the EMT’s was able to talk him into going.   His daughter needs to get a durable power of attorney, so she can make medical decisions for him, it would have been interesting if he had refused to go.

He was there for about a week and when he got out, my brother-in-law agreed to stay with him until my uncle’s daughter could get to KC from the Bay Area.

He has a couple of anti-dementia meds he is supposed to take, but he can no longer remember to take them or if he’s taken them today.   He’s 6’2″ and was down to 135 pounds, so I don’t think he was even remembering to eat.

He’s also suffering from “sundown syndrome” where he’s much more cognisant in the morning than in the evening hours.  It is almost like he has not take any medications at all some evenings.  It is probably something to do with the body’s normal rythems, much as we diabetics can see in the “dawn phenomena”.

My brother-in-law, who’s mother has alzhiemer’s also, says that it is very difficult for him to handle my uncle at times.  We all pretty much believe he need’s to be somewhere to get professional care 24/7, I hope that can get arranged soon.

Now he’s back in the hospital with pneumonia.  /le worried

Then work is just crazy atm.  We’ve purchased a new product line and are full-bore in the middle of the transition.  Some of these products are FDA regulated, so we’re going be dealing with a whole new animal than we’re used to.  I have a ton of SOP’s to write, luckily I’ve written a bunch for our sister company who is a pharma manufacturer, so we’re able to get some info from them. 

We’re also going to be implementing bar-coding as a part of this, so new interfaces to test and document.  Luckily, we have a good relationship with a local vendor that sells just such a package that works with our enterprise system. 

All by April 30.  /le sigh

Once that gets done, we dive right into a major systems upgrade for our enterprise system, I’ll be managing that project, so it is really ramping up now trying to hit a July 31 cutover date. /le moan

And then I get to deal with the D. 

It’s been pesty lately.  I take symlin w/ meals (Did you honestly think I would settle for just one type of diabetes? /wink) and as I loose weight, I’l hit a weight and have to retune all my pump settings.  I’ve been kind of hovering at one of those points lately.  Add a pound or two, need more insulin.  Loose a pound or two and I need less.  I’m trying to loose a little more, to get into a more stable weight range, but just can’t seem to get a that last few off. /le grumble

Hell, between 9pm and 4am I only basal 0.1 units per hour, and I am still getting lows around 1 am.  Of course at about 4am, I bump it up to 1.4 units an hour… /le boggle

I am finally begging to trust my Dexcom, even tho I had to replace 8 out of the first 12 sensors I received.  The only time that it is off by more than about 10 points is when my sugars are rapidly changing or when it needs a calibration reading.  All in all I’m happy with the CGMS, not to happy with the reporting on it tho.  Dexcom keeps all the data encoded so only they can see something, like alarm history. /le mostly happy 

Hmmm…. I wonder if they could be forced to release that info under HIPPA?  It is my data and if I request, the law requires that I be provided it. /le Hmmm…

I’m starting on an excel template that will take a data dump from my Minimed pump and my Dexcom CGMS to merge the two so I can get some reports like I got when I was on the MM CGMS.  The MM Carelink system is pretty good.  /le one more damn thing to do

Ok, enough rambling for today

Thanks for stopping by,
Scott

Today’s snarky comment:  If time equals money, that may explain why I seem to have none of either.