ain't science grand?

In today's mail I received, unsolicited, unordered, and unexpected, a new blood glucose monitor. For those of you not hip to this little device it's what I use to test my blood glucose levels five or six times a day. A tiny drop of blood and I know if I've eaten too much hot fudge sundae (I wish!) or need a carb hit. The monitor gives me a glucose reading, I program that into my insulin pump (below), tell the pump how may carbs I'm about to eat, and it then tells me how much insulin I need (or don't need). If my blood sugar is high or low, the pump tells me how much I need to get back on track. This is what it looks like with a nice blood glucose reading of 104.

Now this new monitor arrives ~ wireless radio frequency or RF operated ~ and announces that from now on IT will tell the pump what my blood sugar level is. What? My monitor, my pump and I have always had an honest relationship. I would NEVER lie to either of them. Actually, it's hard to lie to the monitor; it tests the blood and tells me the truth about either my sins (high) or my good behavior (normal). But now this new monitor completely bypasses human intervention and goes directly to the pump with the glucose numbers. It's called a "partner device" ~ sounds to woo-woo for me. But I set it up and it actually works. Here it is with the reading it sent to the pump. Amazing.



The next generation of pumps/meters is supposedly going to do it all for me; test blood, relay info to pump AND deliver insulin as I need it. It will deliver a steady drip of insulin as it does now but will also "sense" when I need more to offset meals. The blood reading will be relayed to the pump and then the pump figures the amount of insulin needed to bring the glucose count into normal range.I won't need to figure in my carb count and take enough insulin to deal with it. I will test after a meal, the meter gets the number, emails it to the pump and it takes care of things for me. I AM planning to live long enough to use one of these.