Two-fer

Over the past month or so, my daughter's pump screen has been getting progressively dimmer.  At first, I thought I was experiencing yet another symptom of being 40-something.  But soon my daughter was complaining about it too.  Procrastinator that I am, I figured I'd find the time to call eventually.  The final straw was when the screen got to the point where we barely see it outdoors.  I called Animas on a Friday afternoon.

"We'll overnight you a new pump," the technical support person told me after a couple of her suggested quick-fix tricks were unsuccessful.

The pump arrived by 9:30 on Saturday morning.  I carefully transferred all of the settings from the old pump to the new one, double and triple checking my work like my third grade math teacher always insisted.  The last step was to pair our current meter remote with the new pump. I successfully paired the two up, with their screens showing each other's serial numbers, seemingly as a mark of true love.

Fast forward to lunch.  "What's going on?  Why won't this work???" my daughter grumbled as I washed the grapes.  "When I put the strip in, I get the timer thing-y and then the screen turns black and then the thing just turns off."

We took the batteries out and put them back in again, and tried a different vial of test strips.  We could power it on to check the history but once a test strip was put in, it shut down.

After lunch (don't fret- we have an extra meter or two kicking around- she was perfectly safe), I called and explained the situation to a person at Animas with the title, "meter specialist."  The meter remote would have to be replaced too. "Will not accept the test strip," was the specialist's official diagnosis.  I think it was broken-hearted at the disappearance of it's old pump partner myself, but the guy at Animas is the expert of course.  Meters being apparently less important than pumps, I was told the replacement meter was to come on Tuesday, signature required.  I tried to negotiate this detail since the (significantly more important and expensive) pump did not require my signature, but it seemed there was no choice.

"Put a black x on the back of the meter before you return it," the meter specialist requested.
Should we have held some sort of service of remembrance while we did so?

Tuesday came and we were more excited than we expected to be.  We missed the remote features, particularly at night if a correction was needed.  Rolling a sleeping 14 year old over in bed to find her insulin pump was no easy task.  Noon came and went- no meter.  My daughter came home from school at 3:15.  "Did the meter come?"  Nope.  At 5:30, I called Animas.

"It shipped and my tracking number shows it's out for delivery.  Let me give you the number too.  It should come tonight."

My husband came home, we ate dinner, and soon it was 8:15.  No meter. He called UPS with the tracking number.

"I'm showing it's on a truck and the truck is still out. Our days are already running long because of holiday shopping."

"I understand that," my husband said, "but this is a medical device for a child who is eventually going to bed...I'd like it to be here before that happens."  The UPS customer service person could offer nothing more than sympathy.

My daughter climbed into bed around 9:30 with her book.  At 9:45 (AT NIGHT.  PM.) the doorbell rang and my husband signed for the meter I'd been at home waiting for since 8 a.m. and which, according to the UPS tracking system had been on the truck since 4:30 a.m.  We set up the meter and paired it with the pump. They've gotten along splendidly ever since.

I hope, at least, that the previous pump and meter were reunited and that they will be laid to rest together.