Diabetic Days – a break from barking at the moon

In the latest of our Diabetic Days series, Tom describes an average day:

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Barking at the moon. Woof!

0700 – That time of day again. Wake up, wish I hadn’t.

0705 – Something to make the day better, breakfast mmmm Weetabix… Remember I have pre pump training. This certainly does lighten up the day! Then remember that I have to go into work in the afternoon. Dampener on the day once more…

0800 – Pace around the house like a caged lion with nothing to do. Irritate Mother in so doing.

0803 – Remember that we have Sky, surely there must be something that I might find vaguely interesting on now… Fingers crossed…

0905 – Berate the telly, somehow I did find something to watch. It was more a case of “what’s this shit I’ve been watching for an hour?!?!” than anything pleasurable.

0945 – Get in the car for Mum to take me to the pre-pump session. This is two hour marathon/trial by committee involving two DSN’s and a dietician.

1000 – Arrive at the diabetes centre. Start of a two hour appointment grilling session as to what is going on in my life, working out starting basal rates and insulin to carbohydrate ratios. Oh the joys. At least I’ve been given the pump. It’s a shiny, new and very much blue Medtronic Veo. Cutting edge stuff. My DSN uses the Roche Accu Chek Spirit Combo and I work in the same hospital that treats me, so all is well.

1200 – End of the two hour marathon grilling session. Time to go to work, bugger, I thought I’d managed to shirk that one! At least I walk straight into a one hour lunch break. That gives me more time to fiddle with my pump.

1300 – Start working. Damn it. Ironically enough, I’m helping to run the Pathology Laboratory side of the Diabetics clinic that is on today.

1400 – Start to get bored and wonder why we’ve not got much stuff coming down in the pods from out patients. We’re running HbA1C’s, glucoses and urines for the medics somewhere far from us.

1430 – Have a giggle when I see that the analyser we use to do the HbA1C’s is made by Menari Diagnostics… Ironical considering that one of the worst blood glucose monitors commercially available is also manufactured by them!  [Too true, review here – Tim]

1530 – Get bored and wonder if patients are actually turning up to the clinic. Go up to the out patients area of the hospital to see what they’re doing with the bloods. Wander around looking intelligent and somehow vaguely trust worthy in a lab coat with my NHS ID card bouncing all over my chest.

1600 – Attempt to work the pods system to return the damn things to whence they came. Typically the thing decides to bugger up when we need it. Curse it and summon my boss who knows about these mystical machines. Chat about life and swear at pods until half four.

1645 – End of day, thankfully I’m a student underling to all the BMS’s in the labs so I can pretty much bugger off when they’re bored of having me around. That or when I’ve got under their feet too much!

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Tom, a type one diabetic since 1996, also avidly barking at the moon from the time of diagnosis. A student in that jewel of the south coast which is Brighton. At the moment haunts the corridors of the pathology department in a nearby hospital claiming to be on the staff as a student underling to the biomedical scientists therein! Claims to be vaguely sane despite the aforementioned lunar antics…