Sarge, the cannula's out and we got a bleeder!

Well last week I was pottering about while the maintenance man was replacing the sink in my flat (appartment for my cousins over the pond), which for a long time had a crack in it but was exacerbated by the shelf falling off the wall during one of next doors marathon door slamming sessions!! They are now ex-tennants and its so beautifully peaceful that I cannot express it in words!!

I digress, I was pottering about making myself useful, making tea and supplying biscuits, setting the world to rights with the nicest of tradesmen.

I bent down to muzzy my cat and as I stood up, in a split second, barely measurable on a timescale, my pump sprang to life wriggled out of my pocket, defied the clip which was also attached to the edge of the pocket where it had been innocently slumbering. I heard the crack of plastic meeting plastic as the clip snapped shut on itself.

Instinctively I stooped and grabbed for the little blue lightning streak, too late, too late!! As it reached terminal velocity I felt a pulling on my belly and then a relaxing as the pump reached the end of it’s tether and bounced back up (infusion sets are remarkably elastic!) Grab number two and I missed it again, it was like someone put me in slo mo and turned my hands into spades… and then the pulling and pfffft noise and the disturbing burning stinging sensation of a bloody big elastoplast being ripped off.

My pump lay momentarily motionless on the floor under its coiled infusion set with cannula still attached, looking remarkably like a mutant scorpion. It took a moment to register and then I realised I was disconnected!

I looked down at my belly and my nice formerly white vest was developing a large red splodge at high speed, there was an ensuing chorus of bad language which hung in the air like a blue cloud and a frantic rummaging in my meds box for some sterile wipes and something absorbent. The poor maintenance man looked all wide eyed and horrified and was asking if he could help (but I suspect secretly hoping I’d say no).

My gaaaaawd it bled alot for aaaaages, I went through several absorbent pads, plasters and such til it stopped, needless to say, my vest will never be the same, I am seriously considering taping the damn line on to me aswell and the maintenance man smiles nervously at me now, though I’m not sure if it was the frenetic rushing around, the language or the blood which has left him with the twitchy smile :o)

a bleeder, a gusher, Old Faithful, gawd, it can be so scary when it happens! thankfully, not often. It’s frightening to see all that blood! Then there’s the clean-up - you know, the bathroom looks like the set of CSI. Maybe if you soak the sweater in cold water. Sorry it happened to you, and in front of the maintenance man.

Marie, it did look a bit like a scene from csi just after someone’s been shot! all of you descriptions are almost exactly what was going on, and the clean up was… traumatic, lots of blood soaked gauze pads, sterets and plasters :o) My lovely new white sink was no longer white! ha ha :o)

I had a odd incident where I took my cannula out to replace and it started bleeding. I thought ok a bleeder. Well it started bleeding so bad I soaked a towel, my shirt and skirt. My husband and children thought I needed to go to the hospital. It scared my toddler bad. These things are just so scary huh? That is bad though it happened it front of maintenance. Thankfully thankfully the blood came out of my skirt I soaked in cold water.

You wouldn’t think your belly would bleed so much… go figure :oS

I had one in a drive through line at Dunkin Donuts once. However, I couldn’t find anything to soak it up so I had to use my hand! I eventually got to the window and had to get very creative paying for my coffee and taking the cup without revealing my blood-soaked hand! (For some reason I used my left hand to hold my right side and then had to use my right hand to do the exchange, out of the left-side window!)

Louisa-
You are so visual with your words! I felt like I was there with you and the maintenance man, okay, I was the fly on the wall. Thank you for sharing this. Gushers are gawd-awful aren’t they? Hoping your pump survived the crash? My worst experience was dropping the pump onto the floor like a bomb and the pump cracked in half. No bouncing, no chance for a catch, just a straight plummet to my hardwood kitchen floor.

Cassie - jees how embarassing isn’t it, and you do do daft stuff, I just stood looking at the pump and than my belly :oS
Erin - thanks I have always been quite florid in my writing, I like to involve you all :oD
My pump did survive thank god, I can’t imagine my health care trust would have been too happy as it’s the second one in less than 6 months although in my defense the first breakage happened before I even got the box open so it wasn’t me :o) x

ROTFL - I had my first gusher just this week (4 months on pump) - from a cannula that wasn’t working 3 hours after I’d inserted it. While they sometimes take a couple of hours to get going, I thought I’d pull this one out and start again. While I was peering at it thinking I could see a little blood in it, and then leisurely took a closer look, my gusher decided to gush all over the white trousers I was wearing, completely unnoticed by me. I was really surprised at how long it took with tons of pressure to stop the thing! The only thing I haven’t done yet is have the thing ungraciously ripped from me by a door handle or the dog. Not looking forward to that one!