something else

In the wash-up, I need to split my reflections on the trial into two, the first being about the intensity of being a trial participant, the ‘LabRat’ experience, and the second being about the technology itself. I have written quite a lot about my feelings about being a 'LabRat' and I'd like to make some comment about the technology itself. The technology is extraordinary, the ‘algorithm’ that runs all the calculations, the engineering of the components needed to translate radio signals to bluetooth and back again. But there is an achilles heel that I discovered on that final night. I was shocked on waking to do my calibration check, to find that I HAD dropped to 2.9 and the pump alarm and and smart phone alarms had NOT woken me. The  thing that woke me was the fact that I had set a 3am alarm on my phone to wake and do the calibration test. My night watcher phoned to see if I was OK, as I was busily drinking the orange juice and contemplating whether it would wreck the tri

We danced last night at the local folk festival. I am so unfit! Its a long drive home in the rain, one headlight down, hardly anyone else on the road. My sleep is restless, I’m low at 3am, I eat glucose and try to sleep, things on my mind. I need to get that quote for the next contract done, I should join the club ride, I’m tired. Work wins out and I pike on the ride, but there’s a deeper factor. My BGLs drop and drop, I get them back up to 4.5 they flatline, I eat more. I square wave the breakfast bolus and delay walking the dog. I’ve got that weird feeling in my legs, I can feel the glucose being sucked out of my thigh muscles. Finally it comes up to 5.1 and the dog and I head out the door. I’m halfway home and the pump alarm is going crazy, dropping, dropping and I’m stuffing jelly snakes in my mouth. Make it home get the kettle on, swallow a banana whole, stagger into the study. The phone rings and it’s Brigid from the HeraldSun, ready to read me the story that’s going to print.

This research is not something to enter into lightly. Last night after a self induced late night on Sunday, when I stayed up way too late playing with graphics and updates to my new website, I almost hit the 'I'm over it!' button. It started with an early morning appointment in at St. Vinnies, having the usual pre-session, blood tests, urine tests, and memory test to see if I remembered how all the gear works. During the gear check, we opened a Closed Loop session and went as far as starting to download data from the pump, then we decided to shut everything down to pack it all up so I could head home. Wrong!  We pulled the plug on the App as it was halfway through a process. This was to create headaches late in the evening. I then complicated things by allowing my friend who was staying overnight as emergency backup, to cook dinner. My friend has recently been to Vietnam and was keen to demonstrate a Vietnamese recipe to me. The recipe was for beef and noodles wrapped i