Somebody Ran Over My Dexcom

I have to go back to regular blood tests for a while. A few days before Christmas while running errands my Dexcom receiver fell off of me. I had it in it's belt clip and was wearing it on my left side. I guess I jarred it a bit loose getting out of the car and while I was jogging across a parking lot it fell off. I didn't notice it missing until I got back to the car and found it, still in it's leather belt clip in the middle of a traffic lane. Unfortunately it had been run over as it sat there.

Over the past few days I've had to get used to not knowing what my blood sugar is between finger sticks. I gotta tell you it's really weird.

I got so used to glancing down and seeing where I was as far as blood sugar went. Waking in the middle of the night and picking up my receiver to see how I was doing. Trusting that silly thing to wake me up if I dropped too low.

The good news is, wearing it for as long as I did taught me enough about my body and it's reaction to insulin and food that I've been able to keep blood sugars fairly stable without it. Even through the Christmas Holiday and several parties with lots of dangerous grazing food available I didn't get too out of hand. So even wearing a CGM for a while will help.

The other thing I pretty sure I've decided is that I might have been believing I could do far too much with this technology. I was trying to make my blood sugars look, "normal."  I'm fairly positive that is not possible. My body is not normal and no amount of technology and work that I do could even begin to match what a functioning pancreas does on it's own.

My goal now is to control it. To be close to normal. To not be swinging from highs to lows and spending hours and days far too high. My blood sugar may not be normal but I spend far less time above 200 than I used to and I'm going to try and be happy with the occasional spike.

I can't wait to get a new DexCom receiver though.  I hope to ordering a replacement fairly soon.

Sometimes you do everything right and it still doesn't work.

Rough night last night.

Admittedly, I didn't eat great.  Everyone else was out so I just grilled a ham and swiss sandwich added some Cheetos. I had some crackers and dip too because Kristy left some of this wonderful ranch/bacon dip that she took to the ladies Christmas banquet. I might of had some dessert too, a couple of Hershey's kisses. I was fairly sure I accounted for all of that, though, when I set up my bolus. I took almost 20 units of insulin 12 units up front and the rest spread over a two hour period.

Thant was all around 6:30. Around 8 I started seeing my blood sugar go up. By 9 it was above 200 and I took extra insulin. At 9;30 it was above 250 and I took more insulin. Remember I haven't eaten since 6:30 (Ok I  had a pickle and some cheese, maybe a carb) Around 10 it appeared my blood sugar was taking a break from the rise. It had leveled off at 290. I thought, maybe all that insulin was going to start kicking in. It didn't. I started feeling bad and also started asking Mallory, who was watching Oregon  beat up on Arizona with me, If she smelled insulin. I began to look for  leaks  in the tubing or evidence that  there  was  something wrong with the infusion site. While I thought I smelled insulin I couldn't find any  liquid on the tubing or near the site. I told Mallory  that  I would wait till morning and see if my blood sugar ever went back down.

At 11:00 though I looked at my blood sugar one more time; 323 and rising. I thought, "I didn't eat that much. It's gotta be the infusion set." 20 minutes later I had changed all the tubing and changed the site where it was connected to me. I over-rode the pumps safety features and took 15 units of insulin. I figured I hadn't gotten most of what I had taken through the evening. I set my continuous glucose monitor alarms to high set it next to my head and went to sleep. I woke several times overnight and each time checked my CGM. Each time it indicated that my blood sugar was going down but not dangerously. I woke at 6:00 with a blood sugar of 98

A couple of points to make through this story

• Sometimes diabetics do everything right and it still doesn't work. If you have a diabetic friend or family remember please  don't assume that a problem With blood sugars means they aren't doing a good job controlling themselves. And if they get frustrated by this disease, remember you'd rather have them frustrated and fighting it than having them give up and let blood sugars run Crazy because they are too hard to control.
• Another push for CGM's. This entire night could have been a lot messier and a lot more difficult without it.

All about that pump

Found another great diabetes blog site. This video reminded me that all of the stuff I go through: There are millions of kids and their parents fighting the same battle, remember insulin is not a cure!

http://blog.thediabetessite.com/type1girls/