High/Low

beep BEEP beep.

The second beep is a higher pitch than the first and the last.

beep BEEP beep.

It’s what the pump says when it has an announcement.

- Low reservoir.

- No delivery.

- Low battery.

Last night J was rudely awoken by the beep BEEP beep.

His pump screen brightly flashed “No delivery.”

He rolled out of bed, tripping his way up the basement stairs to the cabinet full of fresh supplies. (He says it was more of a waddle, but I digress…)Nimbly he changed his set, like he’s done thousands of times before. 

And then he went back to bed.

And slept seven hours with a new pump site that was bent in half inside his body.

Insulin can’t flow through a bent pump site.  J’s body needs insulin to metabolize sugar, as you can’t live if you can’t metabolize sugar. So since his body couldn’t get sugar from the blood cells, it starting eating his fat for energy…which produces ketones…which causes vomiting…which leads to a miserable state of being.

Fresh set.

Fresh insulin.

Extra liquids.

A seven hour nap.

You would think he would feel better.

But that wasn’t the case at all, as he woke up from that nap 53.

“Why didn’t you check him while he slept?” You may ask.

I did.

Twice.

But he woke up low anyway. It was the kind of low you feel all over. He was lightheaded, and famished.

He wolfed down an entire plate of food in record time.

Currently, He’s staring at his second plate of food, “The feeling of the low has left my stomach, but it hasn’t left my arms and legs.”

He stares blankly in front of himself, like the air is full of dancing fairies. 

“I have a dilemma,” he says. “I don’t think I need to eat. My stomach wants me to stop. But my arms and legs do not want me to stop. They still feel the low.”

“Burp.”

He continues to take bites as if he was suspended in air. Slow motion. Focusing intently on his fork. His eyebrows furrowed. “I’m full,” he says as he takes another bite, and then another.

His blood sugar is safe now.  The ketones are gone.  But now he needs to recover from the effects of the low.

There is something about August. Maybe it’s back to school…yes, it’s probably because it’s back to school…but diabetes always sucks in August.

Well, it sucks all the other months too, though especially so in August.

If it seems like I’m punching at the wind, it’s because I am.

I need something to blame for the suckage that is Diabetes.

Today that blame and all my anger goes to August.