Friday 9 April 2010

My robo-organ

On the month anniversary of getting my new robo-organ and after a month of seeing more single figures per day than I can remember for years (and I truly mean YEARS), I started off knowing today would be a good day. I was 4.2 when I woke up, had a great nights sleep and was looking forward to the forthcoming holiday I'd been counting down the days until.

I arrived at work nice and early but was feeling a little on the low side. Not a major low, not the kind where you start shaking and feel like you could manage several sittings of an all you can eat buffet before you would be even slightly satisfied, but I was a touch flustered and feeling a little 'wonky', shall we say. Tested again, 4.1. OK, it doesn't class as a full blown hypo and it seems to be stable but it was enough for me to want to have something to eat make sure I didn't dip down any further. So I got myself a nice bacon and cheese turnover and a coffee. For some reason (seeing as I was nice and stable) I decided it would be a 'good' idea to have a teaspoon of sugar in my coffee, rather than my usual sweetener. I also decided that as the bacon and cheese turnover would have a high fat content, and as such would take longer for the carbs to get into my system, I would inject after the meal.

It must have been about forty five minutes later that an all too familiar feeling crept in. I started to feel a little spaced out, my thigh muscles were starting to ache when I stood up from a sitting position, a little as if I had been a done a full body workout at the gym - only I hadn't. Suddenly I realise how thirsty I was. Man, is it on hot in here or just me. Then the light bulb went on.

"Shoot! I didn't give myself the dose after my meal! I better do a blood test."

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - 17.2!

Turns out, I enjoyed the cheese and bacon turnover and coffee that much, I happily dove into my work after the last tasty bite, satisfied and ready for the day! So the sugar, the processed super-quick acting pastry and even the milk in the coffee hit my system like runaway steam train!

After happily swanning around for a month so happy with my sugars I would happily regail the beginning of my pump journey to anyone who would listen, I hit a major fail! Granted, within a couple of hours I was back down in the 'good' numbers again and was certainly the wiser for it, but it just goes to show that with this disease there is no such thing as a free meal and there are no days off. Forgetting a dose isn't something which we can be blasé about. There's no cheating the system in this game.

It also shows how reliant we are on that little dose of transparent liquid. It never fails to surprise me how such a tiny dose of liquid can have such a huge impact on our day. Missing that dose took me from 'perfect' to 'better act quick' in the space of an hour. Even this was a jump which surprised me, but brought me back to the fact that this little device is probably the closest thing I have to a guardian angel. Although this guardian angel has a computer in it and comes in a range of funky colours!

I have no doubt there will be many more occasions when I forget myself for just a moment. And despite the blip, the rest of the day my BG was right in target, it just makes me remember that with this disease you can't take your eye off the ball, or off the cheese and bacon turnover for that matter.

Anna - just eaten dinner - bolus given. And relax!

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