Late

Late post this morning -- after I dropped the kids off at school, I came back home long enough to make some coffee and eat a cup of yogurt, and then I went back out to a doctor's appointment. Specifically, it was an ultrasound of my thyroid, so my doctor can be reassured that the bump he felt in my neck is really just a cyst and not an alien tracking/homing device.

That went more quickly and smoothly than I had expected, and I was walking out the door a mere 30 minutes after I'd walked in. Which means I should have time to hit the gym today, after all, whoo!

I'm working from home today, which is usually very peaceful and restful and productive, but it because of the proposal, it might have been better if I was working at work instead. Oh, well; we'll see how things go. If I'm really shockingly unproductive this morning, I might pack up and go back into the office after the gym and lunch. (The afternoons are less productive at home, anyway, because Penny gets home from school around 3:30 anyway.)

We had an interesting conversation in the car this morning, though, after we'd dropped Alex off. It started with Penny asking me when she might be allowed to eat the school lunches again. We'd tried her on them at the beginning of the school year, but they're so carb-heavy, they were making a huge mess of her afternoon and evening sugars, and after the first week, we gave up and switched her to a packed lunch. I tried to explain this to her, and I said, "Maybe if you were to go on a pump, we could try the school lunches again."

"But I'm never going to want the pump!" she protested.

"Oh. Well, sorry," I said.

Penny was quiet for a moment, then she asked, "Does it hurt?"

"The one I wore didn't hurt at all. It mostly just felt like a sticker on my skin."

"A sticker? That's it?"

"Well, there's a little bit of plastic that goes under your skin, but that didn't hurt when the nurse put it in. After that, all I could feel was the sticker that goes on top to keep it there. I don't think it would hurt any more than the shots you're already getting, anyway. And you'd only have to do that every two or three days, instead of having five shots every day. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"Yeah... Why not four days?"

"Well, after a while, your skin gets tired, and it needs to be moved."

"Where did you move yours?"

"Oh, I just had the one. I wanted to see what it felt like. But I just got the part that goes on your skin, not the whole pump. So when my three days were up, it was done. I pulled it out and threw it away, and I didn't have another one to put on. It was just a test one."

"Oh. Was there blood?"

"No, no blood."


"Oh. Huh." She thought about it for a little while. "What if I wanted to do a test one?"


"We can certainly talk to Dr. G about letting you test it, if you want, sweetie. Do you want to?"


"I don't know."


"Well, there's no rush. You think about it, and if you decide you want to try it, I can make the appointment for us to go look again. Or you can talk to Dr. G about it at your next appointment with him, okay?"


"But my next appointment with him is in August!"


"Well, yes. But like I said, there's no hurry. If you want to do it before then, I'll call. You just let me know what you want to do."


"I don't know!"


"I know, honey. You think about it, okay? ...You know what? Remember that girl, Amy, who said she might be able to babysit? She had a pump. Maybe we'll ask her to come over sometime and help us out, and while she's here, you can ask her about it."


"Yeah, that's a good idea. She was really nice. You should call her."

"Okay."

So. I don't know how serious Penny is about this move toward the pump, but apparently our chat cleared up some misconceptions she'd somehow come up with. That's a start. I hope I managed to project the right level of encouragement and support without getting pushy or trying to take away her sense of power over the decision. As good as a pump would be in the long run, I think she's got to fully commit to making that switch on her own, or it'll just be a waste of time and money for us.

But I'm hopeful.