Pump Wear Inc

Yes Nikki Tyler you can have the Chocolate Donut!
A Business built of Love!

- by Julie DeFruscio This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Our 13 year old daughter Nikki Tyler DeFruscio was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes on June 19, 2000 at the age of 2. This date will be planted in our minds forever. You see that's the day that our lives and Nikki Tyler's life changed forever.

The best way to describe our life with diabetes would be one big roller coaster. We were constantly chasing highs and lows, forever trying to figure out when the insulin would peak and always trying to predict what the unpredictable Nikki Tyler would want to eat! As most who have small children would agree this was not an easy task. Meals became a battleground where we knew that we had to get Nikki to eat something (often we would have to settle for cheetos) because the insulin was going to peak and she would get to low and cheetos were the only thing that she would eat. Our lives were on hold and everything revolved around handling the high or low of the moment.

Through all of this we searched out websites for information and went to support groups to gain support and knowledge of someway to help our daughter. What became a common theme was that the children on the insulin pump seemed to be getting better numbers more control and enjoying happier times.

Finding a doctor willing to put a then 3-year-old on the insulin pump was also a struggle.  Thankfully for Nikki Tyler and our family we found a wonderful doctor Dr. Jill Abelseth and her nurse RN Diabetes educator Eileen Hogan who were willing to help us gain control of this monster of an illness.  They understood our need to bring Nikki Tyler’s blood sugars into line.  We wanted our happy fun loving little girl back.  Because of Nikki Tyler’s uncontrollable diabetes she was very moody.  Looking back on just how out of control her numbers were I can now understand just how sick Nikki really was and that the mood swings were a direct result of her unability to maintain a balanced blood sugar level.

A major reason for choosing insulin pump therapy for Nikki Tyler was to gain better control of her diabetes and to hopefully avoid future complications that are to heartbreaking to even think about.

The first 3 months of putting Nikki on the pump were very emotional for me it was hard seeing our beautiful little girl wearing this pump that was her life support. Also with the insulin pump came a different problem, the pump is the size of a beeper and holds a vial of insulin that is dispensed through out the day.  Where do you put this on a small child?  If we clipped this on Nikki’s pants it would pull her pants down and the holder that came with the pump was very medical looking.  That’s when I started to purchase t-shirts for Nikki and had pockets sewn on the back for her.  These looked really cute and Nikki liked wearing them and I had easy access to the pump.

One night my best friend Dawn and I started to search for other items that might be used to give Nikki different ways of wearing her pump. We quickly discovered that our choices were limited.  It was at that time that we decided that it didn’t have to be this way that children and adults could have fun creative ways to wear the insulin pump.  Dawn and I had always thought we would do a business together we just never thought that it would be developed out of the love of Nikki and the thousands of other children and adults that suffer from this illness.  That’s when we created Pump Wear Inc. www.pumpwearinc.com a website that offers children and adults fun creative ways to wear the insulin pump along with “cure diabetes support items”.  Pump Wear Inc. is committed to making a difference in the lives of people with diabetes.  Both Dawn’s family and mine help in coming up with ideas for the designs and everyone helps with folding brochures, stuffing envelopes and filling orders.  Dawn’s girls and my sons even help us out when we do a show.

2 years after Nikki Tyler’s diagnosis our two sons were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, the boys were diagnosed 4 months apart.  Our son Patrick knew he had diabetes but didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to see me cry.  It’s amazing but you just never know, as you sit here reading this story I am sure that you are thinking how thankful you are that your loved ones don’t suffer from this illness, but the truth is that type 1 diabetes can be a part of your child or someone close to you and has just not shown up yet.  Type 1 does not discriminate and no one knows the cause.  It’s believed that we are born with the gene make up and that we possibly come into contact with a trigger that starts the system killing off the beta cells that produce insulin.  This would explain why children are diagnosed at all different ages.

Today Nikki Tyler is a happy fun loving little girl who is getting ready to start Middle School.  Maintaining her blood sugar level is still a struggle but the insulin pump has allowed us flexibility that we thought we had lost and has given us the ability to treat high blood sugar levels quickly and has minimized her lows.  The insulin pump is not the “cure” but a way to give our daughter the best chance at maintaining her blood sugar levels.  Nikki Tyler has now been on the pump for over 7 years.  I look back and know that we made the right decision for our daughter, food is no longer and issue, I never thought that we would gain so much pleasure in being able to tell our daughter “Yes” Nikki you can have the chocolate donut.  We have been given back our life and the lives of our two sons.  There were so many times when either my husband or I couldn't go to a baseball game because something was going on with Nikki. I think that this bothered me the most about diabetes. It's a family illness and we were losing precious time with our sons because there was always something going on with Nikki.   Now several years later and with the boys being diagnosed it really has become the norm in our house.  The boys are now grown and ages 16 and 19 and learning to live with diabetes.  I say that because every year there are new obstacles with this disease, this year Patrick who is 16 is learning to drive with diabetes, Adam is 19 and learning to be an adult in an adult world with diabetes and the importance of medical coverage.

The pump has given us back our freedom and allowed us to function as a family again. Now Nikki can sleep in the morning! She can eat lunch at the same time as everyone else! We don't have to home at a certain time so that she can get her insulin and eat. When we have a high we can gain control of it so much quicker. Now we feel like we are in control!

We still have our ups and downs even with the pump but we have better numbers, more control and definitely more freedom in our lives. We know that with Nikki & the boys  on the pump we are giving them  the best chance there is for controlling there diabetes. By being allowed to put Nikki on the pump at the age of 3 we feel like we are saving Nikki from years of out of control blood sugars and the devastation that this can cause to her body. The pump is not a cure for Juvenile Diabetes but it has given us hope!  Now 7 years later there have been many changes in the pump world and we are learning to use sensors to better regulate the numbers.

We would like to thank Dr. Jill Abelseth and RN Diabetes Educator Eileen Hogan. Without these to wonderful people we would still be searching for help whose time and dedication to our daughter has made our pump experience a success.

Please check out our website to see all that we are doing to help find a cure, we participate in the JDRF Walk to cure diabetes our family team has raised over 80,0000 over 7 years.  We are also supporting bringing awareness to  The Double H Ranch in Lake Luzerne who provides a Free family weekend for families of children with diabetes.

Sincerely yours,

Julie DeFruscio

www.pumpwearinc.com