Sixty Bucks Gone, At The Press Of a Button

I am on deadline for another story but must write a quick post about my thumb. Because, simply put, it just fucked up.

I was putting together a somewhat nasty breakfast of cottage cheese and pomelo (nasty because pomelo — which is a sweeter version of a grapefruit and is usually delicious –has the unfortunate side effect of making the cottage cheese taste spoiled). No sooner had I set down my cottage cheese and cup of tea on the desk than I heard a dreaded sound: the buzz of my Abbott Freestyle Navigator CGM. (Why does no one admit that “vibrate” functions can often be even louder than the beeps they’re meant to replace?) “Have you removed the sensor?” its screen asked. I felt through my pants to the spot where I’d put on a new sensor last night after nearly three days without wearing it (I spent the weekend with access to a steam room, and thought that heat + moisture might not equal the best combination for my sensitive medical equipment, let alone its crappy ass adhesive, so I took it off). The sensor had indeed come off — but I easily snapped it back into place. No, I should have said. No, I did not remove the sensor. Do not assume it’s a new sensor, because doing so would restart the calibration period and require me to toss out a perfectly good piece of medical equipment.  IGNORE WHAT JUST HAPPENED.

And then my thumb fucked up. There were two choices on the screen in front of me: yes and no. Yes, I have removed a sensor and thus you should ignore the one currently on my thigh, forcing me to insert a new sensor and wait another 10 hours for it to calibrate. Or no, I did not do this, this is the same sensor as last night and it is but twenty minutes away from its first calibration and please, for the love of god, don’t make me throw this $60 sensor out and start again with a new one.

You know the Christina Aguilera song, Genie in a Bottle? The one where (I’m paraphrasing) her body’s saying yes, but her mind is saying no? It was like that with my thumb. My heart said no — but my thumb slipped and hit yes. And that was it. The sensor is still in my thigh, but it’s totally useless — my CGM is not going to recognize it. And since it’s already nearly 9:30 in the morning, I don’t really want to put a new one on right now, lest I get into the dreaded situation of 2am calibrations (which happens when your first two calibrations fail). So I’m probably going to have to wait till tonight. So there’s that. Another 24 hours and money wasted (I’m throwing $60 out there but I’m actually not even sure of the per-sensor cost — I just know it’s a lot), all because of a slip of the thumb.

In better news, Amy at DiabetesMine put up a great post about our coffee last week. Many thanks!

Catherine Price

Catherine Price (www.catherine-price.com) was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. She has written for publications including The Best American Science Catherine Price is a professional journalist who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. Her work has been featured in publications including The Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, Popular Science, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post Magazine, Salon, Slate, Men’s Journal, Health Magazine, The Oprah Magazine, and Outside, among others. A graduate of Yale and UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism

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Catherine Price

Catherine Price was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. She has written for publications including The Best American Science Catherine Price is a professional journalist who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. Her work has been featured in publications including The Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, Popular Science, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post Magazine, Salon, Slate, Men’s Journal, Health Magazine, The Oprah Magazine, and Outside, among others. A graduate of Yale and UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism