Afternoon all – so, what happens when you’re in a Thai restaurant, you’ve inserted your new Dexcom Sensor and it fails?
Well – Likely you pull it out.
Bad idea… To make a short story long, I was on my very last sensor (as my other backup “last” sensor had failed) and it was – of course – Friday evening.
I had stepped out to dinner with my lovely wife in Georgetown and was parking the car when the calibration screen came up on Herman (FYI – if you don’t know – I’ve nicknamed my receive “Herman”. Herman is usually a good friend – he has a German accent (in my mind) and is very efficient. It also saves me from having to say Cee-Gee-Emm all the time, which is worth it, even when people look at me crazy on the metro).
Lo and behold, a few seconds later – the great ??? showed up.
Great, I thought, This one isn’t going to work. So I gave it an hour then called Dexcom, hoping they might be able to Saturday overnight me a new sensor.
As always – customer service was great – but they asked me for the lot number.
“Hold on,” I said. “I have to take the thing out of me.”
I yanked it off (Now this is while standing on Prospect Street in Georgetown mind you – lots of foot traffic, early evening in front of a popular restaurant) and I’m yanking an implant out while lifting my shirt up while talking in my iPhone to California – (Please note: It is always interesting being diabetic – in the Chinese Curse kind of way).
As I’m reading it off to the guy, I say in the phone these exact words, “Oh – It looks like it has a little dried blood on it – I wonder if that is the problem.”
Dexcom Dude says, “Yeah – definitely could be it.”
I look down and see a pool of blood on my right side – already having soaked through my undershirt into my brand new shirt (I love this shirt by the way – more on that in a minute). It looks faintly like I’ve been shot.
After replaying the past 5 minutes in my head quickly, and coming to the conclusion that I had, in fact, NOT been shot, nor was I wearing those fake movie type of explosive packets on my waste, I lifted my shirt to see me gushing into the undershirt.
Back into the phone: “Dexcom guy – ship me that thing please – I’m bleeding… a lot…”
Dexcom Guy: “Well, OK! Have a nice day!” (Excellent thinking on his feet there).
So, now looking like I”m shot, with an exterior blood stain roughly circularly the size of a coffee cup, I’m walking back into the Thai restaurant – with our Edamame and Chicken Satay sitting on the table – and a quizzical look on my wife’s face.
I dash into the bathroom – which is of course full of 3 people – and promptly begin to remove my clothes like a fugitive/spy. (There is no doubt that one of them thought I was a spy, he pretty much sprinted out the restroom like I might kill anyone who saw me.)
I held the dry parts of the undershirt until the bleeding stopped a few minutes later (I mean – this was a lot of blood – and I’ve seen my fair share of blood over the years) and was standing there shirtless while patrons went about their hand washing and normal bathroom activities in a moderately upscale restaurant in Georgetown (Suburbans – think Bonefish Grill and you’ll get there).
Anyway – I was left with a roughly 2 quarter size, tender bruise and got to spend the whole weekend Dexcom free – (What’s the opposite of Yipee?)
Anyway – my goal in writing this was to share some of the hilarity of being diabetic as well as some of the pain – I was so freaking pissed when I left the restaurant a few minutes after I walked out of the bathroom about my embarrassment, it took me over 2 weeks to put this down. But we all go through it, we’re all human, and we all need to remember – no matter what we do – diabetes may kick us in the head once or twice.
Regarding the specific problem – if anyone else has had this problem with heavy bleeding on removing a dexcom sensor – please let me know and if you know what caused it or how to prevent it, even better – because I have no clue how it happened after almost 10 months on the system.
Also - feel free to check out my blog - howsyoursugar.com - if you enjoy my ranting or want to share any comments.
Daniel Watson
Founder – http://www.HowsYourSugar.com