I've been on the pump for almost six months now (it'll be six months in four days). With all that has happened in the past few weeks I feel as if the Insulin Pump Gods are trying to throw every possible experience at me before the six-month mark!
Last week my pump got water in it ad I had to go back to shots for about three days while I waited for a replacement. I've found at least one infusion set that I'm fairly sure I'm allergic to (it gets incredibly itchy after just one day). And last night I had my first insulin delivery problem.
I went to bed at about 11:30pm with a blood sugar of 7.3 (131 mg/dl). Around 3:00am I woke up feeling ... well, horrible. I was queasy and knew immediately that I was high because a) I had to go to the bathroom (I'm pretty sure that's what woke me up) and b) I wanted a drink of something badly. I figured I better test and see what damage was done, figuring I might be 13 or so (low 200s mg/dl).
Nope: 19.5 (351 mg/dl), and barely three hours after being 7.3. That wasn't right.
I went to the bathroom and, not really thinking about it (mostly because the vial of strips was there) tested for ketones. I didn't really expect anything and was actually surprised when it immediately turned pink! Well, that wasn't right, either. I went and got a glass of water, back in my bedroom used my Precision Xtra meter to test for blood ketones, just to convince myself that the Ketostix had really changed colour. Yes: a 0.6 flashed back at me, which for ketones is high according to the Precision Xtra product literature.
Okay then. Three o'clock in the morning, not feeling too great, with high blood sugars and ketones. After everything else that happened last week, I actually stayed perfectly calm. I gave myself a correction shot with an insulin pen, changed my set, filled a new cartridge with insulin and changed the tubing. I checked the old cartridge and tubing for bubbles but found none. My site (which I'd just put in that day) seemed fine, and seemed to have been working fine earlier. The insulin could have overheated, but the past few days hadn't been as hot as last week had.
I debated staying up to make sure my blood sugar was coming down, but I was feeling really tired and queasy so decided to go back to sleep. My pump alarm woke me up an hour later to tell me my last blood glucose had been high. I retested and was relieved to see 12.7 (229 mg/dl). I was coming down. I took a few moments to do another bathroom trip and get another glass of water. By 7:30am when I woke up my blood sugar was 6.2 (112 mg/dl) and the ketones were gone.
Quite a night. I have no idea what went wrong, but I'm almost glad that it's happened. (Before starting on the pump the idea of something "going wrong" while I slept terrified me.) I'm glad I woke up, and even though I felt crappy it was easy enough to deal with. I can't help but wonder if anything else will be tossed my way in the next four days. I almost feel like a veteran and I haven't even hit the six-month mark!
