Friday

It was 6:45 p.m.

My daughter had gone straight from play practice to meet friends who were watching the end of a wrestling match in the high school gym. The plan was to go out for dinner afterwards.

I received a text:

'Dexi is dead and the meter won't turn on.'

We knew the Dexcom sensor was set to expire before the evening was out. But plan B was that she had her meter and would be fine using that instead.

But now she was not.

I grabbed two AAA batteries and let her know I would meet her at the front doors of the school.

'But what if it isn't the batteries?,' my daughter wisely replied.

So I also grabbed her spare pink one-touch mini meter.  Since two dead meters don't equal a useful one, I popped in a test strip to check it, and, inevitably, its battery was dead. It takes one obscure flat battery. By the time I found a spare one of those, the contents of our 'diabetes box' were strewn across my daughter's floor and she was texting, 'Are you here yet?'

I pulled up to the doors, and she came out. She sat in the car with me and replaced the batteries in the regular meter. "Low meter batteries," it read.

"But I just put them in there- you brought new batteries, right?" I had, straight out of a container full of new batteries in the basement, I reassured her. Fortunately, the pink mini meter was working just fine so she was equipped for dinner.

She enjoyed her evening out and got home early enough to put in a new Dexcom sensor before bed.

The next morning I replaced the batteries in the usual meter one more time, and it worked.

Weird stuff can happen on any given Friday.

The Owl Bag is in the Orange Toolbox

"The owl bag is in the orange toolbox," the text read.

Nope. This isn't where I reveal that we're part of an intriguing spy ring.

The owl bag is, in fact, a small insulated cosmetic bag which currently holds a glucagon kit, one-touch mini meter, strips, a lancet and a pouch of glucose gel.

The orange tool box is a standard-sized portable toolbox which holds a vast array of items useful for repairing band instruments. Screwdrivers of all sizes with screws to fit everything from a piccolo to a marimba, pliers and wires, glue and assorted tape, reeds, mouthpieces and so much more are all housed in this very heavy toolbox which travels to the field for every rehearsal and with the band for every game, competition and concert.

We turned over the owl bag before summer band rehearsals began for freshman year. Over the course of that first year, it could be found in the director's desk drawer, in his messenger bag and on the sidelines of the football field. Last summer, at the start of summer rehearsals, I received the above cryptic text from my daughter. The band director, wisely we think, decided that if the owl bag was always in the orange toolbox, then it would always be in close proximity to the band.

We removed the owl bag from the toolbox and handed it over to the nurse who went on the recent overnight music department trip. It held just the right collection of things the nurse needed to carry. The day the kids returned to school post-trip, I was reassured by a mid-day text from my daughter:

"The owl bag is back in the orange toolbox."

Mission accomplished.

Stuff Happens

 

Today's the first day of Diabetes Blog Week! (!!!)

Today's topic is: Diabetes can sometimes seem to play by a rulebook that makes no sense, tossing out unexpected challenges at random.  What are your best tips for being prepared when the unexpected happens? Or, take this topic another way and tell us about some good things diabetes has brought into your, or your loved one’s, life that you never could have expected?

 

I try to maintain a family-friendly blog here, so I'll put it this way: Diabetes stuff happens. Like sitting down to lunch only to discover there's only a unit of insulin left in the pump. Or being so low all day that you run out of glucose tabs. Or discovering the meter battery is dead while you're on a sleepover. The stuff is not always preventable. So we try to be prepared for as many eventualities as possible.

 

At home or at school there are plenty of supplies to address any diabetes disaster. When we're out but close to home I can run over to a friend's house with a battery or we can stop home between errands for a new infusion set if we need to.

 

But sometimes we travel further afield. For day trips, excursions while on vacation and school field trips, we throw this Ziploc bag (or a facsimile thereof from school) in the backpack:

 

THE CONTENTS INCLUDE:

A spare vial of test strips

Spare batteries for both the meter and the pump

Glucagon (even though there's usually one in my purse)

The current open vial of insulin

Long-acting insulin for pump failure - at least if we'll be more than an hour or so away

A couple of syringes

Everything needed for a site change including 2 insertion sets

Dexcom tape
Extra glucose tabs

 

 

If it's hot, we put the contents in this insulated zipper bag.

 

It's a lot to carry around. We usually also carry extra juice boxes and water. But it beats the possibility of having to return home (or to our home away from home) if the infusion set rips out, or the pump battery dies, or somebody accidentally dumps all the test strips on the ground.

 

Nobody ever said having diabetes was predictable. Stuff happens. That stuff is less likely to stop us if we're prepared for it.

Want to read more posts about the Unexpected? Click here!