last week i made my third trip to virginia for the hotel portion of the study, also known as "the hotel stay".
there were three participants including myself and we stayed in the hilton homewood suites, each with our own room. we wore our study equipment every day, eating "regular" meals (as if restaurant meals can be regular) and doing a 4-hour activity all afternoons except for friday.
we were all happy to learn upon arrival that medtronic would pay for our snacks and meals for the week. SCORE!
here are some of the places we ate and activities we did--
(oddly enough ;) everyone loved my restaurant suggestions, starred below)
there were three participants including myself and we stayed in the hilton homewood suites, each with our own room. we wore our study equipment every day, eating "regular" meals (as if restaurant meals can be regular) and doing a 4-hour activity all afternoons except for friday.
we were all happy to learn upon arrival that medtronic would pay for our snacks and meals for the week. SCORE!
here are some of the places we ate and activities we did--
(oddly enough ;) everyone loved my restaurant suggestions, starred below)
monday |
tuesday |
wednesday |
thursday |
friday |
saturday |
day |
n/a |
tea bazaar |
royal indian |
revolutionary soup* |
the flat takeaway creperie* |
mariebette cafe and bakery* |
lunch |
n/a |
jefferson's monticello tour & walk |
rivanna river greenbelt trail walk |
uva campus walk |
n/a |
visit to the animal shelter & downtown mall walk |
activity |
bizou* |
lampo* |
the local* |
orzo* |
grilled food from wholefoods at the hotel |
n/a |
dinner |
my absolute favorite restaurant was mariebette cafe and bakery. i could go on for a while about how amazing their pastries and breads are. i should maybe let my freezer do the talking, though, because i have frozen 4 baguettes and 8 pains au chocolat from mariebette and i've only been there twice (once, last visit, and... oh wait, i did go there for breakfast sunday before leaving virginia). okay, i've been three times. don't judge!
back to the study, though...
we didn't have any afternoon activity on friday because from 7am friday until 7am saturday, we agreed to do frequent sample testing. every hour from 7am-10pm, and every half hour from 10pm until 7am, we had iv blood draws. one participant had one iv the entire time, another had several unsucessful iv starts and had to resort to fingerprick testing, and i ended up with four ivs (left arm, right arm, left arm, left hand). owie! the purpose of these blood draws was to see the difference between iv blood (most accurate for blood sugar) and the glucose sensor readings (based on interstitial fluid). for me, i noticed a range of readings matching exactly to being 40 mg/dl different. i didn't get a TON of sleep during the overnight blood draws, but i did get enough as i woke up promptly at 7am to have the ivs removed and go exercise downstairs in the gym area.
all in all, the hotel stay was a pretty fun part of the study. i hope that seeing the results of the controlled activities (with each of us doing the same things for several days) will help the developers/researchers/whomever needs to see that this pump is an improvement on previous models.
two trips to virginia left...