Type 1 is such a prick

One of the most annoying things about being in the hospital is having your sleep interrupted by the nurses asking if you’re comfortable and getting enough rest. Well…I was. Then you came in here prodding me and ruined it. When you’re in the hospital for diabetic ketoacidosis there’s added fun. They stick your finger to take your sugar every 60 minutes. Not only does this wake you in a way you can’t go back to sleep, but it’s generally unpleasant and it’s always a different nurse so they don’t know which finger they hit last. Fun fact: the more you hit the same finger, the less it bleeds. Actually, it’s probably just micro scar tissue making it harder to get the blood out. Sometimes you get a 2-for-1 deal on the finger sticks.

After 4 days of prickly fun I was sent home with a meter, test strips, and a box of lancets so I could mutilate my own fingers, sans sadist nurse. I’m fortunate in that I only had to check it 4 times a day. I know of some people doing it every hour. And I do mean every. Up every hour at night to do a check. For me it was before each meal and before bed. Initially, I had a strict regimen. Eat 30-35 carbs per meal and dose insulin on a scale based on the resulting blood sugar. How do you dose insulin you ask? MORE NEEDLES!

One one hand, these are better because they don’t hit the same small part of the finger tip with a spring loaded “fuck that hurts” surprise attack. On the other hand, they go into the belly, thigh, back of arm, or other fleshy part that’s learned to be hardened to protect itself. With every sugar check, came a correction. So that’s now 6 times I got stuck. Add in one more long acting insulin shot and we have 7 stabs per day. If I wanted to be stabbed 7 times per day, I’d jog in Central Park at 2am with $100 bills taped to me.

What happens over time is you begin to flinch before the needle hits you. Now it’s a game where I see which hand is faster - the one hitting the button on the spring loaded son of a bitch or the hand ready to dart away and live to fight another day. Eventually the first one wins, I squeeze my finger tip like a 15 year old with a zit. I dribble a few drops of blood onto the test strip and watch the countdown. I sometimes silently countdown like it’s New Year’s Eve until I see the glucose number and the judgmental meter telling me when I’m over target and I shouldn’t have even sniffed that french fry, but only when I’m not cursing like a madman at the lancing device.

But just before I developed Tourettes and lost the ability to contain the obscenities, I got the call. I was getting a CGM. That’s a constant glucose monitor, ya pleb! This thing is a game changer. It’s the Dexcom G6 which is a technical marvel. And it’s my first step to becoming a sugar free Iron Man. This things is 3 parts - sensor, transmitter, receiver. You hold what appears to be a 1990s computer mouse against your gut and let the adhesive stick to you. Then you push a button and another sharp bastard jumps out and into your belly. Remove the mouse and voila you have a sensor attached (more on how it works later). Then you clip in a transmitter. And then you wirelessly connect the receiver (in my case it’s my iPhone). Now this sensor senses and the transmitter transmits my blood glucose every 5 minutes. And the trauma of the needle attack? Once every 10 days! I still have the insulin injections 4 times a day but subtract 3 sticks and add an additional 285 data points throughout the day. I now have near constant visibility into my sugar levels. And it’s all BLE (bluetooth low energy). No charging, no wires. Just magic!

Near the end of the first 10 days I started to wonder how this was happening. I couldn’t be dribbling blood. Surely it would soak through the adhesive. Plus I’d have clotted by now. If there was a needle lodged in my gut, I’d feel it every time I moved. What kind of sorcery was this? On day 10 I excitedly pulled off the sensor, and most of the hair it was attached to. Sticking out of the bottom is a 2 inch wire about the thickness of a human hair that had been inside me measuring all that time. With that, Type 1 became just a little less of a prick.

You were born in the 90s

If you thought I was holding a computer mouse