An elegant injection
It was our first Type-1 group meeting at the clinic. We had a smallish turnout. Four T-1s, one family member. Still, having that many of our tribe in one room at one time in this part of the world is probably some sort of record. The conversation was lively and we all had a blast.
At one point the call went out: Let’s all check our blood sugars!
I fetched a meter and a hand full of disposable lancets.
Around we went. An 86 from a 30-year-old male, a 93 from the family member, a 176 from a young T-1 mother of the two most beautiful little blonde haired, blue eyed girls you’ve even seen (the oldest of whom was sitting on my lap--Rio has a complete crush on her because he thinks she looks like Tinkerbelle), a 133 from my assistant who swears she’s not even a little bit diabetic, and 368 from a 16-year-old-girl Type-1, and finally a 163 from me.
My teen-age patient whipped out a Novo Flexpen and in one fluid movement uncapped it injected one-handed into her upper arm and returned the pen mysteriously to where ever it was she kept it.
My jaw dropped. It was like ballet-meets-magic. I’d never seen a more graceful, smooth, effortless injection.
She noticed I was staring at her, speechless.
“What?” she asked, defensively.
“That was beautiful,” I told her.
At one point the call went out: Let’s all check our blood sugars!
I fetched a meter and a hand full of disposable lancets.
Around we went. An 86 from a 30-year-old male, a 93 from the family member, a 176 from a young T-1 mother of the two most beautiful little blonde haired, blue eyed girls you’ve even seen (the oldest of whom was sitting on my lap--Rio has a complete crush on her because he thinks she looks like Tinkerbelle), a 133 from my assistant who swears she’s not even a little bit diabetic, and 368 from a 16-year-old-girl Type-1, and finally a 163 from me.
My teen-age patient whipped out a Novo Flexpen and in one fluid movement uncapped it injected one-handed into her upper arm and returned the pen mysteriously to where ever it was she kept it.
My jaw dropped. It was like ballet-meets-magic. I’d never seen a more graceful, smooth, effortless injection.
She noticed I was staring at her, speechless.
“What?” she asked, defensively.
“That was beautiful,” I told her.
posted by Wil | 8:25 PM
3 Comments:
Well, I'm not sure anyone ever thought of my injections as "beautiful," but there were plenty of times when my parents would ask me if I took my insulin and I would respond, "Of course, didn't you see me?" Apparently I just became so quick and so quiet about it that my family never even noticed when I was injecting myself at the dinner table. Always thought that was funny.
I do injections through clothing, while driving, you name it ... I hardly think of them as beautiful, but it certainly is something that few of us really give much thought to. However, the mere thought of doing it terrifies many people out there, too bad they don't understand that the injections are the easy part of using insulin, the hard part is the constant imprecision, the accompanying highs and lows when a dosage fails to "cover" a meal or properly correct a reading. Instead, the priority in big pharma now is inhaled insulin, under the assumption that they can convince millions of type 2 patients that it is the solution to all their problems. If they only knew!
I love this site. It is one of the most human sites I've visited. Not a lot of statistics and quotes just real life. It's high end reality Internet. I couldn't wait to hear what the pizza did to you. Unfortunately it appears you did more damage than the pizza. Sounds just like the rest of us. Not only is this real life, I've also learned so much about CGM from you. I know it's not easy posting so often but be assured that it's doing a lot of good.
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