Is it real

Is it real
Originally uploaded by LilituC.

It hits me at the oddest times. Tonight, after a very long day of fighting stubborn bg including 120% basal, rage bolusing, and trying everything to no avail, my purse was full. As I emptied it onto the table, I was suddenly struck by what I saw. For a minute, I couldn't believe they were mine.

Then it passed, and everything was normal again.

It works!

I was quite shocked the other day to be told by a (nondiabetic) friend that my insulin pump never works. I guess my blog gives that impression. Just for the record: yes, it works. It works probably 99% of the time. I blog the exceptions because they're of interest to me and I want to be able to review them later. If I wrote about every time something didn't go wrong, I would quickly drive myself nuts.

Why do I have so many exceptions? Well, step one is noticing. I'm really observant, know my body very well, my diabetes is usually really consistent, and I have excellent control. So, I can generally come up with the answer or a couple possible answers as to why something happened. It's (as you undoubtedly know) not the same for other diabetics. I blog about when the diabetes fairy visits precisely because it's so rare. It makes sense that if the diabetes fairy visited often, you'd have to give up trying to figure things out just to keep from going nuts.

Another important part is that I can tell when my bg goes over 120. I actually get physically ill. This is extremely rare; I've only heard of 2 other people that say they can do it and only one of them gets sick. That's what enables me to do what I do, or, more precisely, requires me to do it. Other factors include my small Total Daily Dose, my unusually consistent insulin absorption, my psychic ability to detect patterns without having a doctor look at my numbers on a chart (hey, I can't explain it), the way John Walsh has no explanation for most things about me. So my diabetes is different from almost everybody else's diabetes, and I find that interesting, so I blog about it. I haven't included a disclaimer in every post because I guess I figured people would remember the disclaimer. Probably I should actually write a disclaimer.

In the scheme of things (for the people that know me), diabetes isn't that huge a deal. Really, I'm much more likely to pass out because I have dysautonomia and neurocardiogenic syncope than from the diabetes.

Insulin soup

I could swear I need a checklist of everything that can possibly happen so I can start checking these things off. The trip to the Bostonish area went mostly okay. I didn't have any significant change in insulin requirements, but the first day we were on the island, I had to lower my basal by .05 and bolus by one g/carbs. After that, everything was normal. I anticipated how much extra insulin I needed on the plane and was right. That was great.

Now, for the weird part. The first day we were there, the place we were staying was around 90° and up. By the end of the day, the insulin in my pump had gone bad. I then had to refill it with cold insulin. I do have a pump frio, but I didn't think it would be warm enough outside to bring it. It wouldn't occur to me that I'd need to use it inside, since I can't be in that kind of heat due to another medical condition. In retrospect, we really should have rented a car and gone to a hotel. I did bring a frio for insulin, but it didn't really keep it cool enough. I did make sure to water it enough and let it breathe, so maybe it's because I used the waterproof inner bag? I'm still not sure why. When we got back, I just ended up throwing out all the insulin I took with me since our flight had been delayed and it had been hot, etc.

Despite all these precautions...the vial of insulin I opened upon our return (from my fridge) was bad. The first day, I thought it could be a million things and used 11% more insulin. The second day, I used 25% more insulin. Today, I woke up out of range for the first time in six months and was using 50% more insulin (!) when I finally went, "hey, wait a minute..." After I'd decided to return the insulin, I remembered that J. once had to return some bad insulin to the pharmacy (and we use the same one). I asked him when and he said a month and a half ago. Sure enough, that's when I picked mine up. So, I took them back to the pharmacy and got replacements. The pharmacist was quite surprised and looked grim when he said he'd have to pull everything from that lot. He didn't remember J. returning his. That got me thinking...if a whole shipment of insulin goes bad, why do so few people notice? Are most people getting it Type 2 and it doesn't make much difference? It's very noticeable to me because my TDD is so low. Do people not test very often? I wonder why that is.