Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Eww.

Warning:  This post contains details that are kind of icky.

One of the benefits (or drawbacks, depending on how you look at things) of living with diabetes is that you develop a pretty high tolerance for all things Gross.  The sight of blood doesn't phase you in the same way it seems to bother most other people.  Needles?  Pssh.  Please.  Give me a real challenge.

That said, living with diabetes doesn't mean you won't still get a few moments of Gross that surprise you.  Last night, for reasons that escape me, I had a "gusher".  For those unfamiliar, a "gusher" is what soemtimes happens when an insulin pump infusion site is removed, and the hole it leaves consequently starts spurting or leaking blood.  (A Blood Faucet, if you will.)  I had been readjusting the bottom of my shirt, and somehow caught my pump tubing when I yanked - and, as you might guess, my less-than-24-hour-old pump site came with it.

And so did a whole lot of blood.

You'll notice that the cannula didn't even have blood
in it.  He was perfectly clean!  Jerk.

In my five years of pumping, this is only the second one I've had - which are pretty good odds, I guess.  It wasn't something I handled gracefully, either - I could be heard yelling, "Awwww, crap!" when I saw the blood on my hand (because yes, it splattered everywhere).

Eww.

4 comments:

  1. Great post, Kim! Don't you just hate it when that happens, unplanned so soon after changing a site? That's typically how it plays out for me. Of course, it's also usually when I'm wearing a white shirt, too. The jumping dog pull outs are the best, by far. And those jerky caninulas are always clean and mocking me... SOBs.

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  2. Once I had a bad site and decided to change it while at work. I went into the archive room (if that is the word for it) and removed the set. The only room with some privacy and a lock. Merapi volcano was a little baby! Blood was spurting out and also leaking down into my sneakers. Wearing white socks, of course.....

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  3. In over 7 years of pumping, we've had 2. But we were lucky in that they were 3 day old sites instead of perfectly good new ones... Always fun !!

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  4. I gushered the other morning at 6:00 as I was climbing into the shower to get my day started. I just ignored it all shower and just cleaned my arm post shower.

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