Taking a trip down memory lane with our insulin pumps made my daughter and I laugh out loud.  Some of our antics weren’t so funny (ha ha) kind of funny, when they happened but they are to us now. 

You will find yourself nodding with self reprication if you or someone you have spent time with wears an insulin pump.
So, here it goes…

I once was scolded in yoga for WEARING A PAGER to yoga class.
Bad form I agree, if it was a pager.
He was embarrassed when I told him and the class at large…

Hello megaphone-
“I have diabetes and it’s an insulin pump”
So much for privacy, right?

 

My daughter was asked by a crazy little fella at school if her insulin pump
was a-
“BUTT THERMOMETER”?
(I know, I give that an A+ for creativity- we do wear it above our butts… JUST SAYIN’)

 

A few years ago I went mattress shopping and of course was testing them all out.
On the last mattress test I scooted off and my pump screamed and died.

Too much static for my pump at the mattress store??
That shopping trip erased all of my basal rates but I did get a new mattress and my pump did reboot…

 

On the dance floor at a party, my pump decided to take a dive from my undergarments
and swing in a “bad way” between my legs.
What to do- lift the dress?
I was really embarrassed…

 

Smash!  Yes, the awful sound of my insulin pump hitting the tile floor
as it fell out of the locker at the health club.
It didn’t seem to be affected at all…

Five hours later I felt like I was getting the flu-
my blood sugar was giant and I quickly realized it wasn’t the flu I was dealing with.

I destroyed my pump with the impact but got no malfunction alarms…
Can you say, “Bummer, find the levemir and my old school syringes and blow the dust off of them?”

 

On the 4th of July I was sitting on the pool deck and heard a little voice:

“Mom… I dove into the pool…WITH MY PUMP ON…”
Shoot!

Amazingly- Good ole Medtronic pump, no damage done!!

 

At a JDRF walk a woman came up to us and asked
if my daughter’s insulin pump was “a new kind of MP3 player?”

We were like. “WHAT?, Really, this is a diabetes walk!”
That made us giggle.

 

I always seem to manage a weird pump thing with either my daughter or I when we are remote and camping.

One year in Joshua Tree Nt’l Park I noticed a low battery alarm at the most convenient time of -9pm.

I realized the only AAA batteries we had were all accounted for in various ways throughout our camping gear.  We had everyone emptying their glove boxes, backpacks, etc. in search of the blessed AAA battery.

That was when I discovered you have to have a brand new AAA, not one that even touched a headlamp or camera or anything…

Luckily we did find one! (yippeee). And that will never happen again…

 

On our way to Yosemite Nt’l Park we were super remote and had no cell phone service.  We checked a blood sugar on my daughter and her Omnipod FREAKED OUT.

It would not let us do anything at all except to remove her pod and consider the pump dead.

Super bummed, I took my pump off to forfeit it for the smallest one in the car with Type 1.

Ugh, I was so frustrated, only one and a half hours left to the Valley for our week long vacation and a dead pump??

It’s also her glucometer and this Mom didn’t remember the levemir (this will never happen again either, note to self).
I did remember every other bloody thing though, but that insulin was the only thing that mattered right then.

Can you believe I got a hold of the most awesome rep over an hour and a half
later who walked me through the secret reboot button start on the pump??

Amazingly enough I found a paperclip in the car to do this.
and… IT WORKED!

I truly was so happy I offered to send him a bottle of wine!

It worked all week long and no driving to a large city to buy levemir after our 12 hours in the car.

Mom got to put a pump back on and her smile back on too!!

 

Starting a child on an insulin pump can be VERY scary and VERY challenging.  The equipment we have now is much improved over what we had even five years ago.

I was not a very popular parent at the time (with all of this newfangled equipment, a new diagnosis of type 1 and being 5 years old).
However, there I was by default- approaching my child to hand insert a silhouette.  It scared her to death, even with numbing medicine on her skin.

It was July and all of our windows were open.  She was crying, which made me start to cry on the inside and then on the outside too.

I’m saying I love you honey (while thinking) please, please trust me and let me put this inch and a half long needle in your 5 year old unscathed belly? (this is weird stuff, right?)
But you get it if you have ever had to do this, boo hoo.

She was screaming “STOP, you’re hurting me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I wasn’t even touching her yet… thinking “what does this sound like to my neighbors?”
My quick follow up thought was- who cares about my neighbors, my poor little girl!!

It truly didn’t sound like I was “trying to help my child with her diabetes”…

Will CPS show up at my door by mistake?

CPS didn’t show up (Thank you God).  I was super proud of my little girl,  but I was pretty bummed with Type 1 diabetes in general afterwards.

Diabetes, you can really stink sometimes…