Sometimes You Just Have To Laugh

Today was one of THOSE days. :) School hadn't even started when a student brought my phone out in the hall. It was the school nurse - Andrew's site had come out of his leg. I found someone to watch my class so that I could go put in a new site. The nurse watched as I had Andrew prepare most of it, and then she actually pushed the buttons to insert it. I finished it from there. The nurse said that if she wrote down the steps next time (there are 15 steps according to the manual I plan to give her), she could do it so I wouldn't have to come anymore. Sounded good to me! As I reloaded the insulin cartridge, the first alarm went off. Low insulin - less than 30 units. No problem. He uses less than that in an entire day. Then another alarm went off - low battery. Okay. I was glad I was there, because you have to change the battery right away and then the pump has to be reloaded, primed, etc. Problem solved & Andrew and I head back to class.

About 1:50 pm, the phone rings in my classroom. It's Andrew's school nurse again. Andrew was slipping his pump down his shirt so that the tubing wouldn't get snagged during recess. He accidently dropped the pump, and it ripped the site out again! This is a record! I have always found someone to cover & gone immediately - he does have to have insulin. This time, I looked at the clock. Gene has 7th period planning, so his students would be gone by 2:00. I had students until 3:27. Dad gets this one. Gene has only done a handful of site changes, so I felt bad for both of them.

Andrew gives Gene an A+ on inserting the site. However, since this was now the second time we had to prime the pump, when Gene went to fill the new tubing with insulin, there wasn't enough! We had emergency insulin at school, but it wasn't a vial. It was a cartridge used to fill one of his old insulin pens. Gene assembled the needle, filled it with air, and inserted it into the cartridge just like he would a vial. I'm laughing even as I write this. The pressure of the air inside the already packed cartridge blew the cork off the end of it and spilt insulin all over Gene. Gene somehow got enough insulin into the pump. When Gene went to remove the blue plunger (you can see it in the pictures of a site change), instead of snapping off, it crumbled into broken bits of plastic. Between the two changes, that's more problems than I realized were possible with site changes! Miraculously, both sites were good and Andrew's numbers have been fine.

Andrew has been wearing his pump during basketball practice. On his way in tonight, Andrew asked, "Can I take my pump off so I don't rip off the site?" Given today, I thought it was a good idea!