LOUD NOISES... and other stories from week one.

One week, four pump changes, multiple hypos, a couple of highs, and one VERY loud alarm.

I can’t believe it has been over a week already. One week since I last did an injection, and somehow, I’m still alive. It feels equal parts super strange, and super normal. Unbelievably, I haven’t even once accidentally picked up my pen to give myself an injection - I really thought I’d have to stop myself a few times by now.

The first site change was interesting. It felt like everything I’d been taught on the day we were given the pumps had fallen out of my head - I was completely convinced I was going to do it wrong somehow. I’m not sure what I thought would happen; maybe I thought I wouldn’t attach it properly, or wouldn’t properly connect it to the handset… my brain works in weird ways, but whatever I thought, I was wrong and everything was fine.

So now it’s story time for site change number two! I decided to be ‘brave’ and try it on my thigh; previously, I’d had it on my lower back, where I knew it was pretty pain free to attach it. I stuck it on and clicked the ‘confirm’ button to insert the cannula. The ticker clicked down from five… and I felt nothing. Literally painless. I was stunned, and obviously made a mental note to keep putting it on my leg.

After about an hour I felt pretty rubbish. I checked myself, and my sugars were high, and getting higher. Not ideal. I did a few correction units, which didn’t work, so I did a few more. Still no luck. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I decided to head out for a run to try to help bring my sugars down a bit quicker (plus, old habits die hard - I thought the high sugars might mean I could run a little further than 5k).

About a mile into the run I noticed a lady on a bike just staring at me. I had literally no idea why. I just gave her the most awkward of smiles, and carried on running, whilst she carried on staring. I thought it was so odd.

Running down the main road, I thought I could hear people using power tools in their gardens. I thought this for maybe a mile of my run. It didn’t click that an entire road of people using power tools in their gardens in the middle of the day on a Monday was actually quite weird. Then I stopped at traffic lights and realised - the noise was coming from my leg. My pump had never actually attached properly. It was giving off the LOUDEST high pitched shrieking noise. Honestly, I have no idea how I hadn’t realised it was coming from me? The staring lady also suddenly made perfect sense.

I stopped and called Brendan to see if he could turn the alarm off from home; he couldn’t, the pump was out of range of the handset (word of warning to any new Omnipod users - literally take your handset EVERYWHERE - I can’t quite explain how mortifying it was to be a walking alarm). Bearing in mind I was at least a mile away from home, I was in a total panic about what to do… so I ran behind some bushes, and pulled the pump off my leg. I don’t know why I thought that would stop the alarm, but it definitely didn’t. Now it wasn’t under my leggings, the shrieking was even louder.

I remembered the nurse telling us about a reset button on the pump; it’s a tiny, gold button at the top; like the reset buttons on Tamagotchis. I thought if I could find a twig small enough, I might be able to jam it into the reset button and hopefully stop the God awful noise. I gave it a good go; scrabbling round on the floor and poking sticks in this little hole, but they just kept snapping. It was SO frustrating, and I must have looked insane. I then briefly thought about stamping on it until it shattered and hopefully stopped, but I decided against that. Clearly I already looked mad enough; I didn’t need to start destroying things in public.

So what did I do? I squeezed it as tight as I possibly could, and ran home with it in my fist, trying to stifle the alarm, of course. Why wouldn’t I do that, when Brendan was literally a mile away and could come to pick me up in minutes? Makes total sense.

I got home and turned the alarm off. The silence was bliss; I had started to think I was going to hear that ringing in my ears for the rest of my life.

So that was disaster number one, and it definitely wasn’t my only low point this week; there have been a few. But the thing I keep trying to remember is; this is all trial and error. It’s new, and it’s going to take some learning to get it completely right (or as close to completely right as possible).

Saturday is a prime example of this (sorry, story time number two incoming!); we’d had a few drinks on Friday night, and were a little worse for wear, so we obviously ordered a McDonalds breakfast. I’d woken up hypo - 3.1 - and I sort of knew I probably didn’t need as many units as the pump was going to give me. But I went with it anyway.

A couple of hours later, I realised very suddenly that I was going quite hypo. I checked my sugars, and I was 2.5 and dropping quickly.

This TERRIFIES me. I think my biggest fear as a diabetic is ending up having to call an ambulance or go to hospital for a hypo. I’m not going to describe a hypo now - I want to save those for their own blog post - but they are the worst sensation. And they really, really scare me.

I shovelled some sweets down and I thought I had started to feel better. But about half an hour later, I still wasn’t right. I had to have more, and that was literally the last thing I wanted. You feel so sick but you have to keep eating.

It wiped me out completely and I had to have a nap . Later on - and I KNEW this would happen - I had shot up to 25. I felt bloody dreadful. And the worst part is, I knew all of it was my own stupid fault - my fault for drinking the night before, my fault for not using my own brain and thinking about how much insulin I actually needed, and my fault for over-treating my hypo.

But I will learn. At six years old, I managed to adjust to daily fingerpricks and injections, and I know I will get to grips with this, in time. My problem is that when I start something, I want it to go perfectly straight away, and when it doesn’t, I get frustrated. It means I’m guilty of micro-managing with my diabetes, and I’m having to re-learn and let go of that. I’ll get there.

I’ve had plenty of other incidents, good and bad, over the last week; but I think I’ve probably prattled on enough. I’ll bore you with them another time.

So what have I learned from my first week with the pump?

Firstly, not to be so hard on myself; and remember micro-management just does not work. Secondly, take your handset everywhere, unless you want to burst your own ear drums. And thirdly; if you didn’t feel it go on, it probably didn’t happen.