Freestyle Navigator - a huge mess, resolved

For whatever reason, these past few days have seen me go through a real rollercoaster with my Abbott Freestyle Navigator (the real-time blood glucose monitor). They say disasters come in three. I concur.

Roll back to Saturday. I went out with a friend, and we ended up in a somewhat wet environment. No real problem there, I am good at being careful with my Nav, but apparently I was not careful enough; after a bit, my receiver simply stopped working. Not a battery issue; they were relatively fresh, and when I took them out and put them back in, it instantly came back to life. Except it still didn't work. That is, pressing the main button (the right bottom one) did nothing. Performing a manual check proved the point, as the arrow buttons worked fine for changing the strip code; it was just that main button. Of course, without it, the Nav is useless.

I was freaking out, and called Abbott to open a case for replacing the unit. Friend then suggested to try and dry the thing out, as I was voicing suspicion that a little water may have entered the space around the button. Good idea; an hour later the device was back to operational.

However, this points to a design issue: the buttons on the Nav really should be waterproof, but they are not. So don't ever take it out in the rain, folks, or it might simply stop working for a while.

Move ahead 24 hours; I was in a big crowd and someone bumps me on the arm. I don't know which someone; many of them bumped me on the arm. But at some point the transmitter apparently detached and fell to the ground. I only found out 10 minutes later when my received started complaining - and by then, it was far too late to do anything about it.

Another design flaw: the coupling between the transmitter and sensor is not tight enough. With the Dex Seven, this would never have happened; if you got bumped hard enough to dislodge the unit, both the sensor and transmitter would get pulled off. This may sound painful, but that's the idea; you would instantly know something went wrong. Not so with the Nav design; if the transmitter pops, you will have zero clue that it happened until you look for it (or your receiver tells you its gone). So point two: use an armband to keep it in place if you intend to go to, say, a show. I know I will begin doing so from now on.

But the main distress came later, when I called Abbott. They first said they will overnight a new transmitter to me. Great. Then the lady calls back and says she can't do that, because it's out of warranty. I ask to buy one. She says she can't do that without insurance authorization. My insurance won't authorize a new one even if I pay for it myself. Argh!

I escalated and eventually got to speak to the head of the department, who took many notes and promised to return to me the next day.

Again move ahead 24 hours, and speaking to him again, he let me know that they reviewed the case and decided to ship me a new unit even though it is against normal policy. He admitted that the loose coupling problem has been noted before; this probably had something to do with the reversal.

So what did we have? receiver stops working (major downer). Receiver starts working again (upper). Transmitter lost (downer). Transmitter to be replaced (upper). Transmitter to not be replaced (downer). Transmitter cannot be acquired (major downer). Transmitter to be replaced (upper). All in less than 48 hours.

And all I want to ask you is this...

Is it a wonder my blood sugars have gone haywire?

Interesting art medium

... and the result is rather touching.

More on institutional rape

To follow up on my post from yesterday.

This should send shivers down your spine.

The Indymac sweetheart deal - at our expense

This just gets my blood boiling.

Institutional rape.

People, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but - stop paying your big commercial bank debts. These people have got to at least lose some money at the bottom while they are raping this country from the top. Everything is legitimate now. Credit cards? screw em, it's unsecured. If your credit card says "Bank of America", or "Chase", or "Citi", or "Wells Fargo" or "Capital One" or any of those - you know who they are - just charge it to the gills and let it rot. House underwater on the first and you have a second or HELOC? stop paying the second (especially if you're in California, where the HELOC lender literally can do nothing to you or your house except charge it off). At this point, I am of the mind that a consumer debt revolt needs to happen to bring this entire house of cards down. Work with your credit union or your small local and regional bank, work with your friends, just please, please stop working with the monsters.

And check this site for inspiration.

Selective Germophobia

See the title of this post? I now proudly proclaim it as my own contribution to the field of pop-psychology.

What is it? here is my best attempt to describe it:

Selective Germophobia = the tendency of many people* to attempt to protect themselves from disease-inducing germs** without giving a lick of thought to how internally inconsistent*** their efforts are.

(yes, yes, this post will be somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Like, when do I ever not do that?)

Instead of going into a long diatribe which will bore you to tears, let me instead take you through a couple of examples that will clearly illustrate the concept.

Exhibit number 1 - the office Espresso machine

Have you ever noticed how people will give you strange looks if you don't wipe off the nozzle that steams the milk after making yourself an espresso? actually, there is good reason to wipe it off, but it is not the one that these folks generally care about. For them, it's all about the germs, or in the truly deranged cases, the idea that an itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny drop of half-and-half will contaminate their no-fat coffee (no matter that the caloric gain is so miniscule it would not even be put on a food label as anything other than 0).

The point I'm actually getting at is that as industrious as they are to make the damn thing literally shine before they sink it into the next pot of milk - even if it is the same kind of milk! - they never, ever, ever, bother with the most important action: let air through the nozzle for a quick second. That clears it so it doesn't get clogged. Don't believe me? go observe Baristas at Starbucks for a while. They don't bother with the "shiny" wiping, plus they use rags that probably collect more germs than you would care to think about if you are that sort. But they sure do blow air through those nozzles. You might note that they also blow a bit of air before starting to clear any water in the line.

But hey, I suppose imaginary actions befit imaginary germs. Right?

Exhibit 2 - the coffee mixers

Next, I urge you to spend a bit of time in Coffee Bean, or Starbucks, or Pete's or whatever you folks have over on the east coast. Look at the condiments section. Observe people's behavior. Notice how some are so worried about germs that they will literally replace the cover of their coffee cup if it happens to, say, fall on the counter briefly as they add sweetener to their coffee. They look intently to see whether your hand may have passed within a couple inches of it and replace it again if it did. It would be amusing if it wasn't so sad.

And then... they grab a mixer (one of those wooden sticks) from the mixer cup to mix their coffee. Have you ever noticed how mixers tend to be stuffed together? have you noticed that to pry one out, you are going to inevitably touch a bunch of others?

dot, dot, dot

There's tons of other every day examples for this phenomenon (I've recently had the pleasure of having someone use a wipe to clean the steering wheel of the rental I drove earlier in the day - after shaking my hand several times during the previous meeting and thinking nothing of it).

Aren't we lucky to live in a world where these are things our minds can fixate on?

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* in the US, mostly
** oddly enough, these people seem to also believe that germs carry diseases***
*** that is, silly