I hadn't planned on adding this, but I'm going to anyway.

It's surprising to me that my routines and regimens posted so far seem exhausting to you, because I keep comparing them to my life on shots, which is so much more difficult and regimented that this feels (most days) like a minor annoyance and not a major obstacle. It's not normal, and it's not fun, but it doesn't feel exhausting to me, most of the time. As long as it's working. If my blood sugars were high this week, it would be a different story (and hey, it could still happen--tune in tomorrow!).

Shots entries would have been three times as long, much more complicated, and not as successful--my sugars were never this good. MOre like this:

6 am--wake up, test, 7.5 mmol. Crap. Three units of short acting and five units long-acting my syringe (can't do partial units by syringe because the needles aren't marked off that fine). One cup sugar-free cereal and one cup of 1% milk.

9 am--four crackers, four pieces cheddar cheese.

12 noon--test. 5.8. That's better. Three units insulin for sandwich (note: for a period of time I had a pen needle--which is like a big ballpoint pen casing that has a cartridge of insulin in it and a needle on the end. You can change the needle on the end. The advantage of this is that it's very portable, unlike bottles and syringes. The disadvantage of the first one I had was that it only measured out insulin in increments of two units, which for someone as sensitive to insulin as I am, is a disaster. So for a period of several months (before the ones that could measure in single units were introduced) I had to dose in multiples of two and then eat to the dose--very annoying).

3 pm--serving of sugar-free yogurt. Do you have any idea of how hard it is to find sugar-free yogurt? There are only one or two brands on the marketplace. Fat-free is everywhere (and maybe the latest carb thing has changed this) but sugar-free? Good luck.

6 pm--Supper. 6.3. Woah. Where did that come from? Measure out supper serving and dose for insulin based on it. Eat. Wait precisely one hour and then exercise for thirty to forty-five minutes (this is when insulin is at its peak--you can wait more or less but then you'd need to wait precisely *that* amount every time in order to be able to predict how the exercise will affect your sugar readings).

9 pm--Time for bed. 10.3? Crap. Take night-time long-acting dose and add an extra unit to bring the sugar down by morning (but it will be high now for most of the night).

So maybe you can see how, in comparison, I feel like a wimp talking about the pump stuff.

The thing is, the vast majority of type 1s are not on a pump, and they're living on a shot schedule.

They're working full time, travelling, staying home with twin toddlers who get sick at the same time, shopping, cooking, sleeping, going through pregnancy, getting the flu, getting cancer, having their weddings, going to doctor's appointments, going to protests, writing exams--on that schedule.