Customer service called me
I’ve always imagined customer service departments as big rooms filled with small desks on which sits a telephone. Cheerful (if you’re lucky) customer service agents sit and stare at those phones anxiously awaiting a phone call from a customer.
Well, a couple days ago, I had a customer service agent call me. Apparently word got around to the manufacturer of my insulin pump about my previous post where I described how, when I changed the batteries in my insulin pump, some of my settings were lost and that resulted in a deactivated pod. The deactivation was the most annoying part of the whole experience.
I described what happened to her and she knew what had happened and why the pod had gotten deactivated. Her familiarity with the details of my experience made me think I wasn’t the first person to have something like this happen. She pointed out that the pod actually had not gotten deactivated but rather the PDM (Personal Diabetes Manager) could no longer communicate with the pod. Apparently, the unique signature of the pod, which is critical for communicating with the active pod and only the active pod, is another setting that had gotten lost. So, I could have continued using that pod up until the point that I needed to send it new instructions such as a bolus or a new basal rate.
She wasn’t sure why the first set of batteries didn’t work and neither of us were willing to believe that I just happened to pick the two batteries in the package that were dead. She didn’t believe it was the brand of batteries I was using, but emphasized that I should always use alkaline batteries (I was). I told her I had actually had other instances where the batteries had failed to work (minus the lost settings and an incommunicado pod). Upon hearing this, she offered to send me a new PDM. I declined that offer because, having had a replacement PDM sent to me in the past, I know what a pain it is to re-enter all my alarms, basal rates, carbohydrate to insulin ratios, custom temporary basal rates, custom food definitions, personal information, etc., etc., etc. into the new PDM. She said to call customer service (she even gave me her direct line) for a new PDM if the battery troubles start happening more often and become more of a pain than the pain of re-entering all those settings. It would have to happen a lot to get to that point, but it was re-assuring to have that option.
