Free Facebook Friday win from Pumpwear

Here's Korky sporting her new Hello Kitty pump pouch, we won it on Pumpwear's Free Facebook Friday. Every Friday, Pumpwear posts a video on their facebook page of items they are giving away and all you have to do is watch the video and leave a comment saying "I want it". Then they pick the winners, notify you and ask for your address and send it to you! All they ask is that you post a picture of you or your kid wearing the item on their FBook page when you recieve it. Anyways, about 2 weeks ago we won, we love Korky's new pouch, it's cute, its comfortable and sturdy.

Pumpwear also has lots of other items pump packs, pump bands, meter cases, purses, pump shorts, walk tshirts, car magnets, braclets and other jewelry, waterproof cases, gift ideas, gift certificates and much more. Also, Pumpwear INC is a supporter of Candy Hearts Life for a Child Campaign, 10% of the proceeds from the Candy Hearts collection are donated to the Life for a Child Campaign which provides children with life saving insulin.

Check them out at http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pumpwear or http://www.pumpwearinc.com/

the link for the Candy Hearts Life For a Child Campaign items is http://www.pumpwearinc.com/pumpshop/index.php?l=product_list&c=146

and find info on the Candy Hearts Life For a Child Campaign here http://www.candyheartsblog.com/p/life-for-child.html

Insurance and Ebay

Insurance and Ebay, oh yes I found a way to put them together, maybe you have too. Let me explain, we used to be on AHCCS (Arizona Health Cost Containment System) for our insurance. It was the state version of medicaid and it ended up being pretty good insurance. I never saw a bill or paid one dime for any of Kortnie's needs, the ER up here, helicopter ride to Phoenix, a day in the PICU at Phoenix Children's Hospital followed by 4 days on the D-floor when she was diagnosed. Never paid anything for DR visits or labwork. We never even had a copay for insulin, needles, glucagon, test strips, or lancets. When we got on a pump we never paid a dime for the pump, training or pump supplies. I know I had mentioned before that when we were on AHCCS they limited us to only 150 strips per month and anything extra we had to pay out of pocket, oh and we had to buy our own ketone strips as well. I NEVER KNEW HOW GOOD WE HAD IT! We got put off of our AHCCS at the end of December 2010. They said we make too much money now, we are only like $100 over the limit. Ever since then I've been searching high and low for new insurance. I found some that was pretty reasonable, $279 a month for our family of 5, I quickly signed up while intending to keep reasearching more options. My husband has insurance through his work, but it's a whopping $940/month! I'm still researching new insurances, meanwhile when we were on AHCCCS I always every month filled our perscriptions and got as much "stuff" as we were allowed each month. By doing that and proper rotation, I've managed to build up about a 8 month supply of extra "stuff" except for test strips. Well, our new insurance started on March 1st, and guess what, it doesn't cover any of Kortnie's items, she's covered for doctor visits and labwork, with a copay of course, but there are no discounts on any of her medications, strips, or supplies! I've been scrambling to figure out what to do, and I've been relying on my stockpile of supplies and insulin, but I'm getting worried! I did buy a vial of insulin last payday and paid $118 for it! Yikes! And I've continued buying test strips, right now American Diabetes Wholesale is running a special, 200 strips and 1 meter (with a thing of 10 strips) for $101.99. So I bought 2 sets of those. Then I thought, why don't I look on EBAY? And sure enough, you can get all kinds of test strips on EBAY. You have to be a pretty proactive bidder to get them though. Today, for the first time I purchased some strips off of ebay, 3 transactions later and I've gotten myself 500 test strips for $166.95 (that includes shipping) and comes out to a total of .339cents per strip! I am pretty excited, but also nervous, as I always am when I buy stuff off of ebay. Has anyone else ever gotten D supplies off of EBAY? (if you do go look at D-supplies on Ebay, remember to look for listings that have the expiration date in the description, or pictures of the exp date on the packages.) Also, on ebay we found a cute little ebay store called Pump'N In-Syle a lady makes cute little pump pouches, great prices too, most of hers are in the $10-$15 range. Check out her store if you like http://stores.ebay.com/PUMPN-IN-STYLE

JDRF Awards

Kortnie receiving her certificate from JDRF volunteer Ashley.

Kortnie and her Certificate.

Having a snack before the awards started, fruit plate and a spluge of Diet Coke.

Last fall we did our first ever JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes. We registered as a family team, the 5 of us and 1 of Kortnie's friends. We raised about $1300.00! A few weeks ago we got an email that said we were invited to the Family Walk Awards. It just happened that we were planning on being in the Valley that day (the Valley=Phoenix area) (we live about 3.5 hours away), so we RSVP'd yes we'd love to come. We went down Friday afternoon, I took the kids out of school at lunchtime and we drove down. Friday afternoon we did some shopping, Desseret Book and Costco, we checked into the hotel then headed over to the mall. We walked around the mall and had dinner at the food court. Afterwards we went back to the hotel it was about 7:30 p.m. the kids wanted to swim, the pool was heated so I thought why not, let them have some fun! It was a great day and the dreaded D actually behaved itself! The BG's stayed in range between 103 and 174 the whole day! I did notice that walking around the mall and swimming (swimming with the pump disconnected) did make her BG's go down about 15-20 points.

Saturday morning we got up, went to the Continental breakfast at our hotel, a total carb fest of course! Then we checked out and had some time to kill so we went over to Walmart to treat ourselves to new flip flops. We found the place where the JDRF awards were going to be held and signed in. They also had a breakfast set up so we went to see what kind of goodies they had. They had a fruit bar, danishs, donuts, bagels, cereals, sodas, juice, water, and coffee. They actually had alot more junk than I would have expected. Since we had had breakfast only an hour or so earlier I let the kids all get some fruit and a soda. The awards thing was nice, we got to talk with some other D families, Kortnie got a certificate of achievement and we picked up some tips for fundraising for next years walk. We also learned more about the School Walk to Cure Diabetes and I think we'll take part in that this fall. The awards thing ended at about 11:35am, perfect timing, because the main reason we were down in the Valley was to pick up my husband from the airport, his flight was schedualed to land at 11:45, the awards thing was like a 6 minute drive from the airport, we got to the terminal right as his plane pulled up to the gate. Love it when things work out that way! My husband and I both used to work at the Phoenix airport, I worked at Continental Airlines which he was flying in on so I got to see some of my old co-workers that was a really nice treat as well! After we picked up we headed home, doing some more shopping on the way. We went back to the mall and got new phones, then to Sam's Club and out to dinner at Old Country Buffett. As always buffetts give me a D-Headache, Kortnie picks out pretty much all carbs at these, rolls, cinnamon rolls, mac and cheese, mashed potatos, pizza, ice cream with sprinkles, you get the idea. Again, it was supposed to be a fun weekend so we let her get what she wanted. Her BG was 135 before dinner, we did a combo bolus for a whopping 100 carbs, one hour after we finished eating she was a 275, another bolus, 1 hour later down to 237, another bolus, 1 hour later she was back in range (kind of) at 175, another little bolus and by the time we were home she was 118. Midnight check of 116 and, 4 am 123. Not too shabby. It was a great weekend, and Ihave to say I felt like I conqured the D-Mountain!