I'll preface this by saying that I don't always take the best-ever care of myself, but I'm usually pretty good about not causing catastrophic injury. Today though, the stars aligned for epic disaster.
It started out like any other Saturday morning. Got up, got the Toddler ready for daycare, got myself ready for work, felt rushed and frazzled because I'd slept in after not sleeping well all night. Dropped the boy at school, got on the road, got to work ready for the day. In a good mood, actually.
It didn't take me long to realize I felt like garbage in spite of my good mood though, so I checked my blood sugar and got this reading:
OMG, no wonder I feel rotten! Better give myself some insulin!
I even used the Bolus Wizard on my pump rather than just randomly pick a number of units and guess. I was on point with this taking care of myself thing. Why was it that high? Could have had something to do with the donut I'd just had for breakfast that I hadn't yet bolused for...Okay, Maybe "on point" isn't the right term. But no worries, right? I got this. Correction dose + donut bolus = Insulin had been given, the day would continue as usual.
Nope.
Fast forward a couple of hours, and now I'm feeling even worse. Like, over and above worse. I took a break from the desk to check my blood sugar, but didn't even have to go that far because I discovered something on my way to my office that really stunk...and I mean this literally. If not for it being Spring and my allergies making smelling anything difficult I'd have realized a long time before then that I was leaking insulin. Why?
Because the blasted pump setting was on wrong. I had given all those units of insulin to my shirt, and not to me. It's no wonder I felt like utter crap. And insulin has a rather unpleasant smell (and taste, come to that) which is usually an immediate sign something is amiss.
Just to give you an idea of what a pump setting is supposed to look like when connected properly, here ya go.
Flush against the skin, lined up correctly, and locked
I tried to duplicate what it looked like when it wasn't on properly, and couldn't. I can only therefore assume that since I cannot purposely put it on wrong the fact that I somehow managed to do so this morning after I got out of the shower can only be attributed to epic fail skills I wish I did not have.
The thing that really made it an epic fail, though, wasn't that I got it on wrong.
What makes it even worse is that I was already operating on a Low Reservoir.
Without me even telling you, I bet you can guess that a low reservoir probably means I didn't have a lot of insulin on me. (We already know I had none in me.) Basically, there's a little tube I fill with insulin that's called a reservoir, and the pump periodically gives me a little shot of the stuff from there to keep me in a normal blood sugar range. If I eat, I manually give more to cover the carbohydrates. The tube holds a lot of units, and when I have about 50 left the pump alerts me that the insulin reservoir is low, and I need to fill it soon. Technically 45 units will last me over 24 hours, because I only get 1.6 units per hour. Technically is bull, because that doesn't take into account eating.
Well, I was down to about 44 units, and I had given myself 14 units- correction, I'd given my shirt 14 units- and now I had to give myself 14 more units to counteract that goof. (And no, this time I didn't bother with the Bolus Wizard. I'd already messed up so I really didn't need to see how much higher I'd gone.) No worries, right? That's only 28 units given...leaving me with 16 or so, only I still had to figure out lunch. Lunch boluses are usually about 10-12 units, so NBD, I'd still have 4-6 units to last me the 6 hours before I got home.
1.6 x 6 = 9.6
CRAP. Now I don't have enough insulin to get me through the day!
That might not sound like a big deal, but a couple hours without any insulin going in is really, really bad. I mean, look how high it went after two hours of no insulin this morning...never mind breakfast, which I'd only just eaten and hadn't even had a chance to break down into anything.
Long story short (too late) I went home sick from work today, because I feel yucky and needed my medication. I am also really pissed at myself for landing in this predicament, because it was completely avoidable and I hate taking off of work because of this stupid disease. I very rarely do that. The real fail here is I feel like I didn't conquer, but was conquered, by my arch nemesis today.
Guess I know what I gotta do.
