Bubble Trouble

Several nights in a row my Dexcom has woken me up.

BUZZ BUZZ. Excuse me, Marie. I hate to be a bother, but your BG is rather high right now.

BUZZ BUZZ It's me again. I hate to disturb you, but it seems your BG is high again.

BUZZ BUZZ Oh I am terribly sorry. My programing requires me to inform you that your blood glucose is high.

BUZZ BUZZ...

Shut up! That thing is more demanding than a puppy.

It was also right. My blood sugar was rising overnight. I got into a routine of testing and correcting with my pump, getting frustrated and giving myself a rage bolus with a syringe. My blood sugar fell as predicted. So, why wasn't my pump working.

I got up, changed my set, primed my tubing, went back to sleep and everything was fine. For a day or two. Then the same thing happened. I was so frustrated. Finally I pulled out my cartridge instead of my set. Then I saw it. Bubbles. Hundreds of them. Bubbles everywhere, like some lunatic spit at the top of my cartridge. Where did these evil things come from? I primed out the bubbles and everything worked better.

Now I have a new and improved pump filling routine. I fill my cartridges 48 hours in advance. This gives all the almost invisible bubbles a chance to migrate to the top of my cartridges. Then I push them out of the cartridge while my pump is rewinding. Bye bye evil bubbles. Finally I stopped having bubble trouble.

So of course yesterday I forgot to plug my pump back in after my shower. Yeah, that was kinda dumb. It turns out not having insulin for several hours wasn't a good idea. I did get to see what a ketone stick looks like when it turns purple. And I learned that high blood sugar can make my face buzz like I am playing an invisible trumpet. Between my pump and yet another syringe, I got it straightened out.

Bubbles I can fix. Being an absent minded professor, not so much. Ah well. Two steps forward, one step backward. That's still forward progress and it matters.