I love certainty. Knowing exactly what to expect in a situation keeps me calm. When I don’t know I try to guess… But living with diabetes is different. I can’t really make a guestimate when my life is at stake.

After my first rapid-acting insulin injection a few weeks ago, I had a total meltdown, my blood sugar skyrocketed and I had to make several trips to the loo. It reminded me of one of those dares your friend gives you when you’re a kid like; I dare you to take off all your clothes and run around in the snow or, I dare you to tongue kiss Danny Marsden. You want to do it, but you’re also terrified. What if you freeze your butt off or end up swallowing his tongue!

There were definitely things to be paranoid about. Not getting the dose right, reacting to the insulin, the insulin not working, injecting into a muscle and crashing my blood sugars. Not to mention that the sheer mechanics of getting the shot ready were a nightmare.

I had no idea you had to prime a syringe, that a ½ unit is a tiny tiny amount so tiny you can hardly see the plunger moving when you push it in and that pulling insulin out of a pen without all the proper handling techniques can make your syringe fly across the room.

It became obvious quite quickly that listening to my CDE tell me what to do and doing it were two different things. In the beginning, there was a lot of insulin wastage. Something I don’t like doing as I am very aware of the cost of this life-saving medication. As those of us living with diabetes know, insulin does not grow on trees!

After two days of trial and error and wondering if it was ever going to work, it did. My postprandial blood sugar coasted up a mere 10 mg/dl and then 2 hours later coasted right back down.  I couldn’t believe it. Working with long-acting insulin to cover meals meant I always went up between 40 to 50 mg/dl after every meal… I’d gotten so used to the spike I didn’t see it as an issue. Even though logically I know it’s those spikes that give me a higher A1c.

Success didn’t last long, just because it worked perfectly once didn’t mean it worked like that again. The day after my very successful bolus I wrestled with lows. urgh.. the frustration… now I had to wait for my blood sugar to come up again to try bolusing with a meal. I even lowered my long acting to see if that was the issue and then WHAM…the next day blood sugars were too high.

Count carbs, prime needle, take the shot, monitor blood sugar, treat a low, check blood sugar, take a correction OMG! It’s a total head spin.

I am in awe of every single person living with diabetes. I am stunned by how inaccurate the treatment methodology is. No wonder we need diabetes coaches, peer support, better and better technology’s and smarter insulin and did I mention YOGA!

with great respect from the trenches…