So apparently, a pair of Spanx hosiery actually messed up my health for the second time in my life. (The first time was my wedding and the hose rubbed at an infusion set and caused a staph infection to flare up.) THIS time was wearing the Spanx with my second omnipod.
I started the Omnipod on Wednesday. I feel like I kind of jumped into the driver’s seat while the gas pedal was down, but I think that’s just where I am in life this month anyway. (Normally, I’d have read the user guide from cover to cover by now.) My first three days went by beautifully on it. The PDM and pods were more discreet than I thought, the beeps weren’t aggressively audible, my sugars were excellent, etc. My first site change this morning went perfectly and I thought, okay, I’ve got this. I put the pod just above my waistline on my lower back because I knew I was wearing a very tight formal gown this evening for an awards banquet (high school choir banquet - I work for a h.s.) and wanted it out of sight there.
Then came the Spanx (for those of you who don’t know, they are the most fabulous piece of hosiery a woman can buy - seamless and invisible beneath your clothing). When I first put the hose on, which went farther above my waistline that I remembered, I thought, hmm, these seem a little too snug over the pod. Will I rub it the wrong way? Maybe I should roll the waistline of them down further. No, rolling it makes it really visible through the dress. Okay, I’ll hike the waist as high as it will go. That ought to work. I come out looking stunning in the smallest formal I’ve ever worn (down 3 dress sizes thanks to Weight Watchers) and we leave for the banquet. Sugar = 111. Not bad.
Once there, I start a crazy big partially extended bolus to cover all the eating. I eat salad, potatoes, chicken, veggies, rolls, AND a tiny sliver of strawberry shortcake. I’m doing it up big. It’s splurge night. Sugar is 146 before we go through the buffet line. Hmm, a little extra bolus there and I should be fine. I eat all the carby things last, just to be on the safe side of splurge.
An hour later, I’m in the 240s. Did I do the bolus wrong? Should I have anticipated needing a high temp basal? Maybe my adrenaline is up from all the excitement. Did they serve me sweet tea maybe and I didn’t notice? Feel the pod on my back. Seems okay. Wait 30min. Maybe the insulin will kick in. Check again. 346. Expletive Sick. Run a pump diagnostic and all seems well. But ugh. Nausea. Ketones. I give Kevin a look at the table and we slip out. I explain nothing to my bosses or their dates with whom I’ve been chatting. We just disappear.
At home, I find the problem. (Sugar = 390 by now, ketones abound) The waistline of the spanx totally rubbed the adhesive off around the side near the cannula and I’ve been squirting the d&mn insulin into my back all evening. No idea if I got some or none of the initial bolus. Great. A huge injection, a new pod, 2 bottles of water, frequent ketone checking and blood glucose checking, constantly watching the arrows on my CGM…
Four hours later, I’m still nursing it down. Or anticipating the crash from the unbelievable amount of Apidra I’ve been hitting this with. I just want to go to sleep. I was so excited about getting to wear the pod with a formal gown. I feel really stupid now. Had to rush home sick and embarrassed. I’m still high, I’m angry, I’m kicking myself for not checking the pod visually when my sugar started rising, kicking myself for thinking the formal purse was just too small to fit the syringe and insulin bottle this one time. I’m upset that I am such an open book that I will end up telling my directors exactly what happened and I fear they’ll think “i’m so sick of her diabetes stories” or they’ll think of the evening when I got sick from the kinked Inset cannula on a dinner cruise. Apparently, I just can’t eat in front of people.
I have three medical procedures to endure this week as well as my 3 month check up with my endo. I was not ready for this week to start this way.
Update: Insulet is sending me a courtesy pod to replace the one I killed. I appreciate that. Does anyone know how to retrieve insulin out of a pod? I had only filled it 7 hours before I killed it. The folks at customer support aren’t authorized to explain the process, but I know it can be done. Next time, I’d like to be able to get those units back into the bottle.