UPDATE

If you can believe it we are still waiting. That is correct, still waiting for an answer to whether we are approved for the omni pod or not! This process started 18 days ago. We have 9 days until the start of school. The kicker is that the hold up has not been an obnoxious insurance company who would never understand the life of a diabetic. The hold up has actually been the dr.'s office!? First, they were late on sending in the letter of medical necessity. After Insulet recieved that I thought we were all set and would hear in a few days. I didn't want to appear like an impatient lunatic (which is how D makes me feel half the time anyway) so I didn't call to find out. After about a week I called my contact at Insulet, who is now becoming a friend of mine, to check the status. She told me that they had been waiting on clinical information from the doctor. There was silence on my end at which point she asked if I was taking a deep breath? I responded that I was taking several deep breaths and that it was a good thing that it was her on the other end of the phone and not my doctors office. 
I was pretty angry and ready to call the doctors office, however; I could feel the tasmanian devil brewing inside of me and did not want to unleash on some poor unsuspecting soul at the doctors office (knowing that I would not get the doctor directly right away).
 My contact person at Insulet reassured me that she would continue to call and she would contact me when they recieved the info and were sending out to insurance. Today, I did get a call that they were able to send out to insurance and they expect a reply in 1 - 2 days.
I am no dummy and I realize that the people at Insulet are all over this and very customer service friendly because they stand to make a decent amount of money off of my little girls illness, if this gets approved. That is their job - to sell the product. I expect more out of my dr.'s office. I expect them to UNDERSTAND, to have COMPASSION, and to want what is BEST for my child. It is pretty sad that the reason this process is on the move is because of money. It is not because there is a little girl dealing with a crappy disease who just wants to feel normal ( there is that word again).

A Little Vent

I have discussed the omni pod at length with Skyler's doctor. After making the decision to switch to this pump, the instructions I was given was to fax my info as soon as we reached the out of warranty date on her current pump. I was then to call the office and they would fax the letter of medical necessity. I did my part. Of course I did because I am the one who loves, and lives with, a little girl who is very anxious to get this new pump that does not have tubing.

 She wanted this pump for the summer so she could swim and not have to deal with "plugging back in" for a bolus. She has had to be very patient because her out of warranty date was August 13th (basically the end of summer where we live). She has been talking about swimming, phys. ed class, wearing dresses, her new purse to carry the pdm etc., etc.

 Now this little girl AND her mother are anxious because school will start soon and it would have been nice to have this in place before the start of school. Well, chances are that is not going to happen.  I called the omni pod company to check on the status (ready for a health insurance fight)and I learned that; after a phone call from me and two phone calls from the omni pod people, my dr.'s office has not faxed the letter of medical necessity!!!!!! Needless to say I am slightly annoyed. I have called and left another (very calm and socially acceptable) message for the dr. to please send the letter. If it doesn't happen now I don't know how calm or socially acceptable I can remain with my future phone calls. I understand that my daughter is one of many many patients at this office, but I don't think it takes too much to get this done for us.

We are now going on two weeks of waiting and it hasn't even gone out to insurance yet.

This, my friends, is my little diabetes vent for the day - thanks for reading and for, I am sure, understanding.

FINGERS CROSSED

 We are anxiously awaiting a phone call to find out if our insurance will cover a new pump for Sky. The warranty on her pump is up and we are trying to get her an omni pod. After much research and OVER thinking my husband and I (mostly me) were having trouble deciding which pump to go for. We decided to ask Skyler. I explained to her the different options on the two pumps that we had it narrowed down to.  She chose the omni pod which was the way were leaning also. We then dicussed this with our doctor and she was very supportive of our decision to change to omni pod.
Now, we wait with our fingers crossed.

Normal? I don't think so

It has been a long time since I have posted anything. This summer has been incredibly busy, but also very fun and full of time with friends and family. I have, however, come to a new revelation in my life. This is pathetically long overdue, but... here it goes..... get ready... WE ARE NOT NORMAL! That's right after living with diabetes for four and a half years I am ready to accept the fact that we are not a normal family.

Nothing we do is easy and none of our emotions throughout the course of one day would fall into the normal realm.

We can't call a last minute babysitter so we can have dinner out with friends, we can't do overnights away from our kids, and Skyler can't do overnights away from us (yet).

When Henry gets sick (and ends up in the emergency room twice - not diabetes related). I should be able to take that in stride and focus just on him, but we are not normal. We have to consider the fact that we don't want Skyler in the emergency room exposed to all sorts of things, but we don't want to leave her with others while we are an hour away in the hospital.

When we are spending the day at the lake (which we do everyday in the summer) Skyler shouldn't have to come out while all the kids are playing to "plug back in" for a little while.

On "date night" we should be able to go for a canoe ride where we will be out of cell phone range without having an anxiety attack half way through the trip, but we are not normal! (that date will not happen again in the near future).

We should be able to go to the wedding of a friend and leave our kids to be babysat on the beach by their grandparents (out of cell phone range), but we are not normal and my husband left the wedding after an hour because we were both worried.

I don't want to come across as I am complaining about Skyler. I love her more than life itself and will take care of her forever if I must or if she wants me to (doubt it!!), but I don't love diabetes and how much it impacts our lives everyday. What upsets me more than my own selfish complaints is that Skyler has no idea the frustrations that we feel, but someday she will feel them all too and will realize that this is for the rest of her life. I pray that she will take it all in stride and learn to live her life to the fullest regardless of the abnormal circumstances in her life.

Although this sounds very negative, I am actually considering my revelation a positive thing. It is helping me to be more honest with family and friends and actually express to them that this is hard and as much as they all want to help, sometimes they can't! We have focused so hard on not letting diabetes feel like a burden that I don't think we have been totally honest with everyone on how hard this really is. All of this, of course, with the idea that we are protecting Skyler from feeling like a burden. I am realizing that this actually comes at an expense to Skyler and that no one who loves her would ever consider her a burden. I guess we just so wanted to protect her and help her to feel "normal" that we stopped being honest. I still feel very strongly that diabetes will never stop her from doing anything that I would let her do without diabetes, but I just need to be more honest with everyone about the fact that this is hard work and we are not "normal".

I took Skyler to see the movie Beezus and Ramona and there is a scene where Beezus explains to Ramona that being different is what makes her so special. I whispered to Skyler that our family must be really special.

I am hoping all you D Moms might be able to help me. How did you educate your families and friends? I have read a lot of books about diabetes, but I am wondering if there are any good books geared towards helping family members understand diabetes better.