CSI Summer Cottage

Setting:  A vacation cottage in a quaint New England seashore village.  Specifically  a child's bedroom in which all surfaces are draped in white and cream colored fabric including but not limited to the bedspread, rug, doilies, armchair cover and child's shorts.

Scene 1:  Mother prepares items for site change.  She draws up fresh insulin, gathers supplies from a large plastic bin.  Daughter assumes a position for comfortable site insertion and happily finishes a chapter of this summer's Harry Potter book. 

Scene 2: Unisolve adhesive remover is applied to the old site for easy removal and IV prep to a new site area for infection-free insertion.  Mother and daughter chat about the day's seashore adventures while the wipes do their trick.

Scene 3: Mother peels off the old site.  Blood shoots out of it, reminiscent of a fountain.  Mother screams, prompting daughter to scream.  Mother lunges for tissue box across the room, hands covered in blood.  She grabs a wad of tissues and presses it on to the gushing area.  Daughter performs yoga moves to elevate the affected area above her heart.  The bleeding slowly subsides.

Scene 4:  Damage is assessed.  Spots of blood are located on the white-covered chair across the room, behind the child.  A pool of blood is located in the bed frame in front of the child.  Spots of blood are also found in several areas of the rug, bed skirt, child's shorts and sheets.  Mother wonders aloud what cottage owners would assume had happened here if the blood could not be cleaned up.

Scene 5: Mother secures paper towels and cold water.  Scrubbing commences.  Daughter remains in a yoga pose with fresh tissues firmly pressed to the offending area.  The white arm chair cover seems most important to clean.  Blood is removed with surprising ease, giving mother hope.  Rug blood is scrubbed to the point of being difficult to detect.  The bed frame wipes clean easily despite a surprising large puddle of blood. The bed skirt is the only remaining item not belonging to the child.  This proves more difficult to clean.  Mother gives up and returns her attention to the child who still needs a new site inserted.

Scene 6: A new site is inserted without incident.  The old one has stopped bleeding but is covered in a band aid just in case.  More cold water, then a bleach pen are applied to the bed skirt, with adequate results. Mother then repositions it so a remaining faint stain is less obvious.  The sheets have blood stains already from nightime fingersticks, so mother decides they are not worth washing 2 days before vacation's end.  Spattered clothing is pre-treated and put in the laundry.

Scene 7: Mother and daughter have showered and dressed in clean clothes.  The family sips cocktails (and iced tea) at a semi-fancy seafood restaurant.  Mother continues to wonder what a blood spatter expert would make of the scene she has just cleaned up, and how much DNA evidence she has left behind.