I apologize in advance to anyone who may find themselves humming later…
Life is weird. Yesterday, I had a significant pump issue. Today, I’m a big fan yet again. I guess that’s why the song goes “you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both…”
Yesterday, I had a site less than 12 hours old and suddenly found myself at 385. What?! Not 30 minutes before that my CGM had told me I crossed the 200mg/dl threshold.
So I took a shot and changed sites. My catheter looked like a “7” instead of an ”I”. No wonder I was so high; I hadn’t been getting the insulin I expected!
My doctor recently told me that she saw that I go low about 8-12 hours after an event like this; apparently sometimes the insulin I take via my pump to correct for a high glucose gets “stuck” in my scar tissue and takes hours to work out into my body. So yesterday I tried to avoid that low and was rather conservative on my boluses. I ended up taking two shots and miniscule boluses all day. I was a little higher than I like to be, but I did avoid the low. At least I think I did, and it’s already been more than 24 hours.
But I was pretty exhausted. It’s really rather frightening to have to face the physical side of diabetes in a thankfully unusual way like that. 385 and no insulin isn’t fun for anyone!
Diabetes is unlike a lot of other diseases, though; I would have appeared perfectly normal to anything but the most detailed observer.
So yesterday I can’t say I was a fan of my pump. Or rather, my pump catheter that kinked when I think I sat down and must have leaned forward, bending the catheter in my lower stomach and preventing any insulin delivery.
And then today I got a surprise gift from a bootcamper. He attended the 6am class and returned during my 7am class with the gift because he knew I had a very small 7am class and may not have been looking forward to the 7am hour. (Incidentally, it wasn’t true but that isn’t the point.)
It is a scene I’m sure many of us have faced; someone who doesn’t live with diabetes gives us some sort of food that we know “costs” a lot of insulin and yet the gift giver has no idea how we have to see food and only wanted to be kind and give us a little something.
So today my gift was a surprise mocha from Starbucks. It was very nice of my bootcamper; he had gone to Starbucks after his class and returned to the park holding this mocha for me in his outstretched arm.
I generally have a rule that I don’t eat or drink during a bootcamp class unless I need to. I think I’ve blown that rule maybe 4 times over the past four and a half years. Today was one of the times I blew it. A warm mocha on a rainy morning in a park? I can do that!
Thank goodness I was wearing my pump. I could bolus for the high carb mocha and enjoy it, without too much trauma. Yes, I’ll spend the rest of the morning juggling my insulin and food as a result of the 30+ superfast carbs I hadn’t planned for, but I can do that. No, it wasn’t in my plan for today’s eating. But it was a nice gesture from a nice man who appreciates what I do in his life.
…AND THERE YOU HAVE THE FACTS OF (pump) LIFE… the facts of life!!
(Sorry; I couldn’t just leave it hanging like that!)
