That Time I Lost My

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This was originally posted to my blog, Diabetes Odyssey.

Have you ever lost something super important? How did it make you feel?

“How could I lose something so important? I’m so dumb!”

“What is wrong with me!? I need that to survive!”

I suppose losing your insulin is like losing your pancreas. LOL

So what is losing your glucose monitor like? Hmmm, losing your wallet? Not sure if that equates.

“You lost your glucose monitor? How important is that?”

“Oh, not really important, it’s just my quality-of-life monitor…or my current-level-of-health monitor…or my how-compliant-am-I monitor…or my how-much-insulin-to-take calculator…”

So, how did I manage to lose this important piece of medical equipment?

I spent a week visiting my mom who lives an hour and fifteen minutes or so away from me. We had a good time keeping busy with projects, visiting, etc…

Of course, being there for a week means I had made sure to bring with me enough medication, insulin, and medical supplies, including my glucose monitor, pricker, strips, and all packed neatly and tightly into it’s little case.

The day my mom brought me back home I had made sure to pack all my stuff, forgetting nothing.

She drove me all the way home, dropped me off. I made sure to get everything out of her car.

A bit later I unpacked and put everything in it’s proper place. Then…over an hour later, I thought to check my BG and that’s when I realized I didn’t remember unpacking my meter. It wasn’t on my desk where I always keep and surely would have put it when I unpacked it.

Blank!!! (as my mom would say)

I called my mom. She was still on the road…less than five minutes from getting home. She said she’d check the car when she got home and would call me back.

A few minutes later she called and informed me she found my meter in the back of her car. It must have fallen out of my medical tote at some point.

Blankety Blank!!!

At this point I silently and quickly went through my options:

Mom can bring it down tomorrow. No, that would be a great inconvenience for her (even though she’s willing).

Mom can mail it to me. No, that would take too long and…dollars.

I can e-mail my doctor and get a new meter. Bleh, it’s the weekend so I wouldn’t get it until Monday. Too long.

I can buy a cheap one at CVS to get me through. Ugh! Why’d I have to donate all my old meters!

I could borrow a spare from my brother or diabetic friends to get me through.

Then it hit me. My brother (who lives with my mom, not the diabetic brother) had asked me if I wanted to go to the flea market the next day. He could bring me my meter!

Crisis over, I got my meter back and only missed three BG checks. BG was high, but oh, well.

Whew…

What diabetes care supplies have you ever lost/forgotten? How did you solve the problem? Did you experience a medical emergency due to the predicament?

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Heh, My logbook from when I was nine has a bunch of blank areas that say “left tester at school”. When blood sugar records resume the next day, it’s always with a high. I’ve forgotten my meter at home several times, and the first time this happened I ended up at 21.5 (387), but since that first time I usually end up with better blood sugars, sometimes even perfectly normal ones. I got a spare meter which I keep at home, in case I ever forget my meter at work.

The worse was when I forgot my pump at home once within the firs few months of pumping. I had showed and forgotten to reconnect. I tested when I got to work and, when I was 13ish (240ish), I went to correct and found I had no pump. So I got out my insulin pen and corrected with that, all proud that I’d handled the situation so well. Felt increasingly sick throughout the morning, but was teaching so didn’t stop to check. Tested at lunch at 26.4 (475). Cursed in my head, and ended up spending all afternoon feeling sick to my stomach and on the verge of leaving work for home or the hospital. Luckily, my blood sugar did come down by the time I was heading home. I still had ketones when I got home that evening. My mistake was only taking a correction and not accounting for all the basal i missed, yet I’m sure those three units prevented much worse things from happening, judging by how sick I felt. Since then, I’ve forgotten my pump one or two other times, but I’ve tested every few hours and corrected and replaced basal, and things have worked out fine.

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Left my insulin in hotel mini-fridge before a cross-country flight(Novolog for pump, Levemir and Novolog pens for back-up). Fortunately, CVS is everywhere! Hotel overnight shipped insulin to my home with a chill pack for my house sitter to put in my refrigerator and trip proceeded uneventfully. On subsequent trips, my wife puts a Post-it note on the inside room door–f@#!ing insulin!

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ALL of them. Most recently I came back from a bike ride to find that my BG meter had managed to pop out of my bike bag somewhere. I actually had a little locator button thingy in it and the app showed where it supposedly was, but when I road back and spent an hour looking for it for it–nada. I do have several old meters that still work so I used those until I could get a new Contour from Amazon. They aren’t that expensive fortunately. Plus I have a CGM, though having to trust it 100% isn’t something I’m very comfy with.

Mostly when I travel I try to be obsessive about bringing everything x3, but I always seem to neglect something, even if it’s as trivial-seeming as alcohol swabs. Turns out you can’t GET those in pharmacy’s–er, chemists–in London, so that was kind of a pain. Stupidest was going for a weekend in the Boston with my wife back when I was on MDI and discovering when I unpacked in the hotel that I’d somehow forgotten to bring any, y’know, insulin pens. Fortunately our house is only about 15 minutes from the Harbor Hotel so I just drove back and grabbed 'em.

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Spare meters are your friend. I have about 5 of 'em, along with strips. One lives in my desk at work, the others in my “I’m afraid to throw any of this crap away!” D-supplies drawer. Includes a Onetouch from the dark ages. Not sure I’d trust that one any more.

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I have forgotten my meter… Now I have one for school, one in my purse, and one that stays home.
I was camping earlier this summer and my Dex sensor/transmitter fell off (I forgot a spare sensor). I put it the cup holder in the center console of our truck, and someone took it and my hubby’s sunglasses.
I haven’t forgotten my pump yet, but the alarm when I stop insulin for my shower is super annoying.

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Ha! I’ve recently been purging everything I haven’t used in a year or more, including all my diabetes supplies. I’m not sure why it’s so hard. I just got rid of the meter I got at diagnosis (not the exact same one, but the same model) because the batteries were dead and there seemed to be no way to open it except to pry the case apart.

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I lost my meter the second week I had it – and it was the most accurate one i think i ever had…

I ‘lost’ my supplies bag at a restaurant once - but they owner knew me and was on the phone to my house as soon as I got home…

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Oh right–I wasn’t even counting these. I’ve driven off without mine more times than I can count. Not just restaurants either.

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Oh jeez, I really don’t know where to start. Sometimes it isn’t my fault, like the time I went on two week cruise/Mexican vacation and the cruise infirmary froze my insulin. Or the time I was traveling for business and I finished my insulin pen. I started a new one and then instead of throwing out the old one I threw out the new one. When I realized it later in the morning I had to come up stairs and work with the maids to dig through the trash to find it. That one was embarrassing. And I have left my diabetes kit at home any number of times simply making a bad decision about what I would be doing in the future. It is easy to take a trip to some store a few miles away and then have your plans hijacked for hours. And I have left my kit at restaurants before.

I do have three clones of my meter and keep extra supplies in my backpack which goes nearly everywhere with me.

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My daughter’s favorite thing to lose is her “pokey” (her FastClix lancing device).

First loss, I called Accu-Chek and they sent a free replacement. Second loss, same thing. Third loss, I made my daughter call Accu-Chek and ask for a freebie replacement. Fourth loss, I feared Accu-Chek’s stock value would begin to plummet as they continued supplying us with freebies, so I ordered and paid for one on-line. Fifth loss, I ordered 3 replacements. (I can be slow on the uptake at times. :thinking:) Fast forward to eighth loss, I ordered 5 replacements. She’s currently down to only one backup FastClix remaining. We have a Zombie Apocalypse-worthy supply of replacement drums just from the single freebie drums that come with each device! I honestly believe “The Cure” will be discovered long before I will need to pay for any more lancet drums because my daughter changes her lancet about as often as I successfully convince myself that those pants don’t actually make my a$$ look bigger. (And, for the record, I’ve never believed the “in only five to ten years” line)…

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My Accu Chek meter that regulates my pump, I was scared as I don’t know what, I thought I had just seen the pump but we couldn’t find it.

I finally thought about it days later that I had an extra meter until I’m able to pay $100 for a replacement.

Lo and behold as soon as I paid for the replacement meter, my meter that I thought was lost was under our bed on my hubby’s side behind his shoes. Now I have two as it was too late to return the new one.

Another time I lost my insulin at airport security, but I didn’t realize it was gone until I reached my destination. I cried and cried until I thought oh why not just call CVS and see if I can get a refill.

Thankfully they did let me get the insulin as a one time courtesy. I still had to pay. I was so relieved afterwards.

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We’ve made quite a few trips by car this year and I got really tired of listing and tracking down everything I might need. So I bought a not-quite-shoebox-size storage box with a lid and filled it with everything I might need (even pre-cut pieces of Op-Site to cover the Dexcom). Now all I have to remember is my Frio and insulins. Hm…maybe I’ll tape a note to the top of the box!

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I used to put my Dexcom in cupholders in cars, for ease of use…until I forgot it in a friend’s car for like the fifth time :slight_smile:.

The better stories, I think, belong to other people. My cousin left his insulin pump by his endocrinologist once – I’m sure he had a blast :grimacing:. Also, a friend of mine upgraded from a Dexcom G4 to G5, and accidentally threw out the new receiver, rather than the old…we spent a while trying to set him up with xDrip, but after a while he was able to borrow a receiver from a different friend. (Don’t throw out supplies, keep it as a spare!! For yourself or someone else!!!)

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As someone who pays out of pocket for all CGM related supplies ($800 per transmitter, $700 per receiver, $350 per box of sensors) the thought of throwing out a still-working receiver makes me cringe! Heck, I haven’t even thrown out my non-working transmitter, just in case I ever get a chance to change the batteries in it.

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This approaches being the diabetic’s creed, doesn’t it. Don’t throw it away, you might need it! Explains why so many of us have closets or drawers crammed with D-gear dating back to the date we were dx’d or near enough. I’m actually not a hoarder in any other aspect of my life except this one.

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I am the opposite of a hoarder, a minimalist. If I don’t use it, or haven’t used it within a year, it’s gone. This usually works quite well for me, but sometimes I regret my minimalistic ways.

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I know, right?

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Yeah. This past spring, I found supplies for my first pump (Animas IR 1000), which at that point was out of commission for >10 years. I was okay with throwing those away :wink:

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I still have an Assante Snap pump with enough supplies to go for a couple of months. Of course Assante only went out of business like a year and a half ago, but the point is they went out of business. But I somehow just can’t bring myself to throw the stuff away.

Having been dx’d in 1983 some of my stuff goes way back. I’m pretty sure I don’t have any of those pre-meter urine test strips any more though. Pretty sure.