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September 5th, 2008
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Up until dinner time tonight, I was having a great day. Nothing out of the ordinary. And then I got an incredible shock.

I'd been snacking on some candy all day, but I thought I had been bolusing appropriately. Apparently not. I knew I'd be high going into dinner, but the highest I imagined was still lower than 250. I thought my meter was pulling my leg when I saw 448.

"Holy fffffffffffff..........." I said as I actually jumped as if someone had jumped out of the bushes and scared me.

"What? What? Are you high?" The Mr. wanted to know.

I nodded. I could feel my face getting red with embarassment. I looked at my pump (like it would have the answer!) and then my site. Surely there was something wrong with my site. I had just changed it about six hours ago and hadn't checked my sugar since. My site was obviously the problem.

I checked my sugar again, thinking maybe something was on my fingers and trying to retrace where my hands had been over the last hour.

"Is it worse?" he wanted to know.

I nodded again.

"Five?" he asked exasperated.

"Yes," I said sheepishly.

"Five, what?"

"Five oh six," I said, as I got up to wash my hands in the kitchen. This just isn't right, I kept thinking. What in the world could have done this? Oh! I was painting this afternoon; maybe there was paint on my hands still.

I sat down after washing my hands thoroughly and really, honestly expected to see a much, much lower number. Wrong again. Still in the upper 400s.

"Are you going to average the three?" The Mr. half-joked.

"Well the FDA allows something like a twenty percent margin of error on meters," I said trying to deflect blame.

I almost reluctantly entered my blood sugar into my pump, to which it beeped at me and kindly told me to check for an occlusion and consider an insulin injection. I entered my carbs and the bolus wizard calculated my enormous bolus: 12.3 units. I was almost sick to my stomach. I almost pushed my dinner away and left the table to wallow in my blood sugar.

I told my pump to go ahead with it, but actually had to go back and increase my maximum bolus! The shame of going through that twice was almost too much.

"What's the matter?" The Mr. wanted to know, as my mood had quite clearly shifted.

"I'm just trying to figure this out," I said distantly.

I had no signs of a high--no sinus-like headache, no incredible thirst, no extra bathroom breaks, no overwhelming urge to fall asleep (although I did take a short nap this afternoon), no dizziness. I really felt normal.

It took about an hour, but I finally remembered that, while working on some paintings for the girls' room, I had taken several handfuls of grape Mike and Ike's and not bolused for them. I should know better than to eat pure sugar anyway; I can get away with eating chocolate, but sugar coated sugar is just out--especially if I don't bolus.

*sigh* Lesson learned.



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That stinks. I can't wait until these things can bolus for us whenever our BG is over (say) 250 and we don't have any insulin on board.


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Michelle Kowalski
Michelle Kowalski, a writer, editor and photography hobbiest living in Phoenix, has had type 2 diabetes since February 2005. In January 2008, as part of her quest to start on an insulin pump, Michelle learned that she actually has type 1 diabetes. (Read More)

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