Bad diabetes decisions.

Ever had one of those what were you thinking moments?


photo credit: inanutshell.ca


I had one of those today, and I made a bad diabetes decision.

I mentioned in my previous post that I was using one more final pod (infusion set) in order to finish off my current vial of Novolog, before switching to MDI for the first time ever, for which I will use a Novolog Jr. pen. So last night, I put on my last pod, placing it on my upper left butt. I went to work this morning, and as I was getting out of my car, my pod errored out. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.... that noise. I had not planned for this. It never crossed my mind to bring an extra source of insulin in case of pump failure. I turned off the alarm and sat back in the car seat, thinking, Oh boy, now what am I going to do?

I went inside work, put my stuff down on my desk, and went over to my manager to explain I needed to run back home to get my insulin pen. She gave me the go-ahead, but advised me it would be an attendance "occurance," since it was unplanned time taken off work to run home. I hate getting an occurance for a 40 minute round trip drive. Sucks. But anyway, I ran home, grabbed my pen, grabbed an insulin cartridge from the fridge (I have a refillable pen), and ran back to work.

I grabbed some coffee, sat at my desk, and prepared to give myself insulin so I could eat my breakfast. I start taking my supplies out of my bag. Novo Jr. pen? Check. Insulin cartridge? Check. Pen needle tips? .... Pen needle tips? ... Oh crap... I forgot to grab pen needle tips.I couldn't believe I forgot these! I have no way of administering the insulin. I forgave myself for forgetting these, as I've never done shots before and am not used to gathering all the necessary supplies. But the problem remained- what am I going to do for the rest of the day? I wasn't going to run right back home and get another attendance occurance. My option was to run home at lunch, which is a little risky because just a smidgeon of traffic will make me late coming back from our alotted 45-minute lunch break (which would be another attendance occurance). I looked at my food for the day, pretty low carb, and make the BAD decision to go without any insulin the entire day.

At first, this didn't seem like a bad idea. I ate my egg breakfast w/ veggies with no raise in bg (98). I skipped my 2 little nectarines.




I ate lunch- a 1/4 chicken breast with a 1/2 c of plain butternut squash and a caff free diet coke. And I watched my bg get up to 160 2 hours after eating. But it didn't go higher than that, so I didn't worry about it too much because 160 isn't a horrible blood sugar.

But as the afternoon wore on, I started to feel iffy. Sweaty, (despite finally having A/C turned on at work), blurry vision that I kept blinking away, and later, difficulty moving my arms, fingers, legs and jaw. At 3pm when I got off work, I was so light headed that I feared driving home. I felt panicked and almost cried. But I talked myself down and got myself home, where I ate M&Ms to get my bg high enough to administer insulin. I finally figured out how to assemble my Novo jr. pen. I couldn't figure out how to get the screw-thingy in so I could put the cartridge in. So I broke out the instruction manual and figured it out. I clearly didn't pay attention when the CDE showed me in the office last week. And doing all this for the first time makes me feel like I'm in Diabetes 101 all over again.




But I'll get it all figured out and be a pro by the end of the week.

And I'll make sure to pack everything I need for diabetes tmrw in my handbag so I don't have to try to remember everything at 5am when I'm basically sleep walking around the house getting ready for work.