Bad habits

A diabetic is punished by their DSN for re-using a needle

I used to be a good diabetic. After my diagnosis five years ago I did all the things good diabetics were supposed to.

Such things included changing needles every time I injected, changing my finger pricking lancet every time I check my blood glucose (something my beloved co-writer gently took the piss out of the first time we met up in Edinburgh). From time to time I also commit the heinous act of injecting through clothing. Except, of course, unless I’m wear a crisp dress shirt and dinner jacket – that just ends in disaster every time. Red blood spots on your white shirt – hardly the thing to do in polite society.

These bad habits develop over time and they all come down to laziness. I don’t know about you, but I check my blood glucose about 6, 7 or 8 times a day and inject probably about 5 or 6 times. When I changed my lancet and needles every time I used one I had to carry around enough supplies to last a day or two or three. Said supplies therefore required a bigger case and therefore a bigger man bag. We all like a good man bag but carting round a 70 litre rucksack of supplies is a step too far.

I’ve now gone all minimalist and have a small black pencil case (from Paperchase, don’t you know) to carry about my kit and so I just don’t have room to cart around a tonne of paraphernalia. I really just can’t be bothered lugging so much stuff around every day of my life, so I break best-practice and develop bad habits.

Looking at it objectively there are bad habits and bad habits. Not changing a lancet is perhaps not ideal but I don’t think it presents a major risk. Ditto changing needles. My fingers might be a bit more pepper-potty because of using a slightly more blunt lancet but, hey, life struggles on.

However, really bad habits, such as not bothering to check blood glucose or inject properly bring you into a whole new level of naughtiness and pain. Given that I’m quite fond of my sight, legs, kidneys, etc., I’m content to slip into some bad habits but certainly not down into the depths of true diabetic negligence.