The Changing of the Pump

We finally did it...and it hurt. After 10 years of using a Cozmo insulin pump, and almost a year of no warranty, my son got a new insulin pump.

I was warned years ago that when we changed from Cozmo, we were best to simply forget that we ever owned a Cozmo. I was told to go forward as if this new pump was the very first one you had ever used. That was the only way to avoid the grief and pain that came with change. Boy were they right!

The change itself was beyond painless. I knew the pump that my son was okay with (if he had to retire his Cozmo).  The only issue was the color.  I contacted my Animas rep and in literally a matter of days, she had the pump ordered and was in our kitchen to do all of the training. Karyn is beyond amazing!

As we went through the features of his Ping versus the features we had on our Cozmo, Karyn was just as sad as we were to be switching pumps. She told us that she wanted some of those features on her pump! Kindly, another Animas employee asked that I send her a list of some of the features we were missing in hopes of one day being able to secure them for use in an Animas pump.  Did I mention that this company really has great people working for them?

The Ping doesn't automatically switch basals from weekday to weekend. It doesn't remind my son when to change his sites. It also doesn't allow you to preset personalized temporary basal rates or do all of your pump changes on your computer and beam it back to your pump. It does have a remote that speaks to the pump.  Granted we had a Cozmonitor that did that too but we haven't used it in years and it was attached to the back of the pump.  The Ping remote is a handheld devise that allows me to test my son at night, and do a correction without searching under the covers for his pump.

The Ping also allows him to upload his pump to a website and then Mom can "see" all of his bg tests as well as pump issues and basal rates.  This was a great comfort for reasons I will discuss in another post.

We are now about three weeks into pumping with the Ping.  There have been real glitches. We have both accidentally stopped boluses.  He has somehow suspended a basal rate.  He has failed to put a cartridge in properly and had issues but we will get there. This is still a good pump. It has a warranty if we have problems. We have great support and did I mention that its now under warranty?