I am so very very lucky!! At the start of the year I rolled up my sleeves and started applying anywhere I could think of for funding for an insulin pump. I was lucky enough to have been loaned one by National Womens hospital for the purpose of getting my HbA1c lowered enough to safely conceive, and then to keep it as low as possible (if not even lower) during my pregnancy. The deal with National Womens is that you get to keep the pump up until six weeks after you’ve delivered your baby, then you have to give it back.

Going back to injections didn’t appeal to me (there’s a reason I went on the pump in the first place, the long-acting and short-acting combos just weren’t working for me on MDI), so I set about trying to get even partial funding, while doing my best to save, save, save in the background.

By the time I found out I was pregnant in March, I had researched about 40 organisations, and applied to about ten (most of them required you to be a group, and many of them stated explicitly that they wouldn’t fund medical equipment). The waiting game was on.

As this was happening, I found out that the ‘rent to own’ scheme North Shore Hospital had been setting up with ten Cozmo pumps was floundering a little. The legals and other bureaucracy required to set it up had proven a little too difficult, so they decided to instead put them into a pool of loan pumps which they would allocate to people who applied. I wrote them a letter that evening and posted it off the next morning.

By May, I’d been turned down by almost everyone, except the good old Lions, who pledged $400. Good on you Lions!! It may have been a small percentage of the $7,000 I had to raise but I was thrilled that they had read my letter and responded with a bit of help.

By June, all I had left was the NZ Lotteries to hear from. I finally chased them up, only to be turned down. My plan to raise enough money in the background to buy a pump by the end of the year was looking a bit shaky too after a few unexpected house-related expenses and the convenient flare up in my mouth which lead to a $2,000+ root canal operation! It was starting to look like I was going to have to go back to injections again.

I’d been routinely chasing up North Shore Hospital but every month they’d tell me a decision was going to be made by the end of the next month. I’d more or less filed that chance away in my head as well.

Then – the day after I had my baby, I was sitting there in my hospital bed, in a rare moment of quiet (there were always a cast of thousands coming in and out of my room, between visitors and hospital staff) and my phone rang. It was Waitemata Health calling to say I’d been allocated one of the loan pumps! WICKED!! Couldn’t have come at a better time!

So – I’ve had to sign a contract which underwrites my devotion to the cause of maintaining a good HbA1c etc etc, and I will be subject to routine checks on my HbA1c to make sure this is the case, and if it’s not they have the right to take it back off me. Initially I thought this was a bit harsh but I can totally see their point – an insulin pump attached to you does not a good diabetic make…. it’s by no means the silver bullet to good control – it takes hard work and dedication. Undoubtedly of the ten people who have one of these loan pumps, there will be one or two who find pumping is not for them.

Meanwhile – a HUGE thank you to Waitemata DHB. You have allowed me to keep the control I worked so hard to achieve over the last year and a half, and on top of that you have allowed me to avoid trying to find $7,000 which would have ultimately meant I’d have to go back to work several months earlier than planned, leaving my baby boy in day care at a younger age. I really feel like I’ve won the lottery.