I see that the NovoPen is celebrating a birthday this year—it turns 25!
I had no idea. Should I have gotten a card? Shoot. I must have been distracted by the fact that TODAY IS MY MOM’S BIRTHDAY. Happy Birthday Mom! But I digress.
The pen was first introduced in 1985, which makes me feel really old because I remember 1985. Dang. But anyway, it makes me really wonder why I never used a pen to take my insulin.
Well, I guess one reason would be that I was taking way too much insulin when I was younger—more than three times what I take now. Slightly frightening. I saw a new doctor once who told me to simply cut my dosage in half. Scary, but wouldn’t you know it; my blood sugars didn’t change. Talk about a lot of extra insulin.
(Alright; now I’m afraid that someone is going to try this because I told you I did it. DON’T CHANGE YOUR INSULIN BECAUSE I SAID SOMETHING. Go ahead and ask your doctor, but don’t think I did anything smart back then when it came to diabetes—I didn’t.)
But back to the pen. I used it two years ago when I tried going off my pump for a week or so. It was okay but not what I’m used to—I’m used to the vial and knocking the air bubbles out as I flick my fingers against the syringe. But the pen was nice and it was convenient!
I remember—when I was a new type one and desperate for anything that didn’t involve a needle—seeing an ad for a device that looked like the pen but was needleless. It essentially blew the insulin through someone’s skin and misted into the body. Geez I wanted that thing almost as much as I wanted a puppy.
I never got it, though; eventually after I saw it enough I figured there was NO WAY that thing worked like the picture said it would.
But I never got the pen, either, and now I wonder why. Was it not as prevalent then as it is now? I mean, I took shots for years and no one ever asked me if I wanted to try the pen. I would have used it, I think. I took shots at school every day and could have really used something less bulky than my little bright blue cooler thing (which really was a pretty good gadget, insulated somehow with spaces for vials and spaces for syringes all in a checkbook-sized container).
I bet there are thousands of type ones who never learned how to draw up a syringe. They don’t need to know because there are pens everywhere. Wacky! And here it was, thinking everyone with type one had to know how to do. I guess not—at least since 1985.
So better late than never: Happy birthday, insulin pen!