Mama said there’d be days like this…

One Monday night I met up with friends for dinner and decided to hang out at the bar on my own for a bit to write on my laptop. At the time I was participating in National Novel Writing month and wanted to get another 1000 or so words out before going home and being distracted by my dog, TV, computer…life. The writing went pretty well, however, I was in for a terrible surprise when I went to grab my laptop bag and get up.

I looked down and the belly of my pants was COVERED in blood. I’m talking a good six inches across and 3 inches tall. I was shocked. At the time I had used a pump for about three months and had only seen blood one time and it was just a few drops. I stuffed my laptop in my bag and headed out to my car.

With the door shut, I checked the insertion site and could see the blood. I removed it and the bleeding stopped pretty quickly. What didn’t stop were my emotions. A dam inside me broke and I bawled. I was feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, ashamed, embarrassed, annoyed, sad and probably a few other things in there. I believe these were emotions I had suppressed since my diagnosis and had been extra accumulated once I got the pump. See the pump is great, but it’s a machine connected to your body all the time. People can see it. When I was doing shots I could do a shot in the bathroom and no one would know. Now it’s more visible. And so the emotions were released and I cried.

After a while I calmed down and was able to stop and drive home. I got home and showered and cleaned up and inserted a new site. I could see a huge, purple bruise had already formed where the previous site was. I was still a bit confused about what had happened so I got online and went to tudiabetes.org and posted what had happened to me. Within a few minutes I got responses from fellow diabetics. Someone named Heather explained that I had probably hit a blood vessel when I put in my set and bumped it and dislodged it. She also warned that one day I might take out a site and have a “gusher” where blood goes crazy. Now if it happens I’ll know.

The positive from the experience, in addition to realizing that I do have diabetic resources to turn to, was realizing how out of touch with the emotions surrounding my disease I had been. Now I try to deal with them when they come up. They have, they do and they will continue to appear. I just need to be ready to handle them so I’m not bawling in my car over some blood on my pants.

I should’ve been more ready to begin with. After all, mama said there’d be days like this…