So my pod hit the end of the 8 hour grace period last night about 12:30, so I could change it before I went to bed. Yea, no wasted insulin!
So when I injected the insulin in the pod, no beeps. Blast! I withdrew the insulin and put it back in - still no beeps. Great, I want to go to bed and my simple pod change went wrong. So I get a new pod and inject fresh insulin. Two beeps! I continue the process and activate the pod. I hear the click, but there's no pinch. What is that?
Then I realize I didn't move the defective pod away from me, and that's the one that activated. Oh great, now what do I do? So I pushed the button saying the canula wasn't in, and I was prompted to deactivate the pod. Wait, I have two pods now, and the good one is stuck to me so I can't move it away from the PDM. Fortunately my 22 year old daughter is home and she takes the PDM and the bad pod to another room and deactivates it, after asking me, "don't you know how to use that thing yet?"
Now I am priming a pod which is already stuck to me thinking "now what is going to go wrong?" Success, the second one primed and the canula injected. Yea, bed time at last.
My CGM sensor had fallen off, but I had decided to wait until morning to put on a new one so I wouldn't have to get up in the middle of the night to calibrate. I threw my old sensor in my sharps container (one of the BIG ones like they have in doctors' offices) and headed to bed. As I was laying down I remembered that I never took the transmitter off the sensor so the transmitter is also in the sharps container. When it rains, it pours!
This morning I got to empty that big %@# sharps container (no easy task) to recover my transmitter. The story has a happy ending, I was able to recover the transmitter, even though it had wiggled its way down to the bottom of the container.
So the next time you have one of "those" days, just think of me and know you are not alone.
WOW…good thing your daughter was around, though, huh? It seems to me when I am having days/nights like that someone always comes through for me and helps change the situation. For me, it’s usually my wife. Who will do anything for me and we’ve learned that she has to be ready and able at any time of day or night! But, I swear, it does always seem to happen all at once…did you break a mirror yesterday? Did you curse/ (what am I thinking, with all that crap going on of course you cursed!)…well, did a black cat cross your path yesterday? I’ve got myriad stories along the same line…and love to share them with others who can appreciate the humor, and the danger at the same time! Once, I dislocated my shoulder as I was changeng my pod…talk about pain! (NO, the dislocation was not because I was doing anything unusual while changing the pod, I just have a trick shoulder that goes out at the WORST times!)
I still do injections, and I take Lantus before going to bed. One night I was so damn tired that I mistakenly switched pens and shot myself with 20 units of Humalog, instead of Lantus!! :-o
I then forced myself to be awake and drank a half gallon of water and sugar, and since this in my pre-Dexcom days, I was checking my BG with fingerstick every 30 mins or so to be sure that the effect of the huge amount of Humalog was over… I must have been up for 3 more hours that night… what a night!
Now, no matter what, when I take a pen in my hand, I always take a quick look and confirm to myself it’s the right pen to use. One learns from his own mistakes. Good you did that too!
Oh, by the way, I never remove my sensor together with the transmitter, I always take out the trasmitter first to avoid what happened to you with your Dexcom…
Pre-pod I took the wrong insulin too! I hadn’t discussed it with my endo, and I wasn’t sure if I could eat my way out of it. My wife took me to the ER. They didn’t treat me for about 3 or 4 hours and of course I crashed and needed glucose intervenous. I called my endo the next day and he confirmed I could have eaten my way out of it. I am so glad I am on the pod and I cannot do that again.
Brad,
I think that happens to just about every diabetic at some point in their lifetime. I’ll never forget the time I bolused 15 units of air instead of Humulin R. Talk about lousy bloodsugar results for the next 12 hours…Rick
I also had a pod that didnt double beep after filling… I wonder if it is because the batteries are dead??? … and then the next pod that I tried that night… It double beedped, primed and then when i went to wake up the PDM and press start; the pod started the continous alarm and i had to pull out a paper clip… the third pod worked though…
Emily -
third pod WORKED? I thought when a pod does the long, nonstop scream that means it is DEAD. I understand the only way to make the beep stop is by jamming a paperclip into the small hole at the end ( although my preference is just to toss it into my freezer and freeze it to death) but i didnt realize that the pod could still be active. Does the PDM give any indication of an error of any kind ?
Dude, you so have my sympathies. I change my pod tonight at 6:30. This morning I sat down and ripped the backing off the pod. I pressed it down and said out loud, “I’m changing this tonight at 6. I’m sure it will hold on until then.” I still have to take a shower. Also note that my Dexcom sensor isn’t sticking like they used to. I don’t change that until tomorrow. Things are getting dicey.
I have primed after the pod was on me before. Every once in a while I get carried away and get ahead of the PDM prompts. When I go to activate the pod, I discover the next step is to prime. The first time it happened I just tried to prime. I didn’t even think that it might not prime after I stuck it on me. Occasionally dumb luck kicks in.
Hopefully you will find it soon. I have mine set to vibrate and beep after it is out of range for 20 minutes. Of course that does no good when I am on a different floor. If my wife is near it and hears it, then I get the nasty question, “Where’s your CGM”?
Well, it’s definitely not in the house otherwise we would have picked up the out of range alert after 20 mins.
The clip on the case was a bit loose, and yesterday when I drove to the train station to pick up my wife, I did not pay attention if I had the receiver on me after greeting her. It must have come off when we were hugging by the car, and then we drove away. When we were home, about a 10 mins drive, I immediately noticed and drove back to the station, but no luck.
My biggest mistake was to not put a small note or business card in the case, so that whomever might find it would call me and let me know they found it. It is just an anonymous piece of electronics for 99.99% of the people. Not a cellphone, not an iPod, nothing really interesting for a petty thief. That’s why I also checked the garbage cans, but no luck there either.
Later this morning I will try with the police and the lost and found office at the station.
One of those days, as I said…
Lesson learned. Do put some information with name, phone number and email, in case you might loose your Dexcom receiver, or Omnipod PDM for that matter!
Maybe my “lost” sunglasses will help. In March I could not find my clip on sunglasses after returning home from out of state. I searched everywhere, including where we stayed the next time we visited. No luck.
Last week my wife went to visit her relatives out of state. She had to move the seat in her car so she could retrieve part of her GPS system. Guess what she found wedged between the driver’s seat and the center console? Yup, my sunglasses. Another time I lost a glucometer under the front seat in my car. Months, maybe even years later, an employee at a car wash found it when he was vacuming the interior.
So try searching your car carefully. Move the seats, use a powerful flashlight. Maybe you’ll get lucky.
Done that already unfortunately, Brad… Looks like I am out of luck, and somehow will also be out of money soon too!
On the other hand, it was pleasant to take a shower and not needing to care about the sensor when drying with the towel, for a change! And the BG look quite OK from the fingerstick.
