Numbers for the New Year

Happy New Year!

Continuing on the numbers theme...

I'll be celebrating my 28th birthday three weeks yesterday.
I'll shortly reach the six year anniversary of my pump start.
This year will mark seven years of living with the stigma of epilepsy and 2 years of living with Addison's.
I will also reach my twenty-fifth year of diabetes.

Twenty-five years.

Blimey. I don't know where the time went, but I know I've come a long way.

Yesterday was also the third anniversary of this blog.

I'd have liked to have posted yesterday, but I didn't expect to spend so much of my day travelling half-way around the country on a series of different trains. I was hoping that in next year's statistics, the number of complaints made to Virgin trains would be zero. Sadly that statistic is already at one.

Strictly speaking the chaos was not Virgin Trains' fault. It was caused by Network Rail over running on engineering works. But it turned my simple, direct three hour service to turn in to a three-changes-and-a-ten-minute-route-march-through-Birmingham-city-centre service. It took six hours and I was thoroughly unimpressed with Virgin's response to the situation - they cancelled the replacement bus services, gave us no information and left this type 1 diabetic with no access to food. (Don't worry, I had snacks, but I was rather hungry without any dinner!)

And guess what? They still aren't done with the engineering work! Britain, railways and joke make comfortable companions in a sentence. Lord knows what will happen if the forecast snow arrives tomorrow...

There is one other disappointing statistic already this year: In the six years I've been pumping, I've never before had a site infection. 2008 has brought my first.

When I use my thighs for sites, I've always used Quicksets or Insets. But this weekend I had only Silhouettes with me. I've successfully used Sils in my abdomen, hips, buttocks and arms. This was the first time I'd used one in my thigh. It had grown increasingly painful and red looking over the last couple of days, winking at me everytime I went to the bathroom.

I knew it wasn't working right. The 150% basal I was running was a big clue. But my journey was bad enough, I didn't have a chance to start changing out a set on an overcrowded train. And when I got home, well, I should have changed it then. But I was exhausted. I wanted to sleep. Stubborn little me took a somewhat generous bolus via syringe, knowing it would account for missing basal, for the snack I ate before bed and went to sleep.

The syringe bolus worked. At 2am I was at 7.3 (131).

Unfortunately by 6am I was at 19 (342) and nauseated with ketones.

Pulling the old set revealed an angry red mountain with a little nodding yellow head. I only had to touch the skin nearby lightly for the mountain to erupt like a volcano.

Ewww.

So I've spent the first working day of the new year with a pounding, throbbing volcano along for the ride on my thigh.

But I have my secret sidekick antibiotics, so here's hoping he won't be sticking around for much of this brand new shiny year!

Comments

[Scott K. Johnson]

Ouch! Sorry to hear about that!