What it's like to have your insulin pump die while you're on vacation

(blog.lauramichet.com)

23 points | by speckx 2 days ago

6 comments

  • 1123581321 43 minutes ago
    I’m diabetic and found this strange for a few reasons. There’s a postscript in the blog post wishing death from diabetes on any diabetic who tries to point any of it out—so I’ll leave it at that.
    • an0malous 19 minutes ago
      I wish you life from diabetes to cancel out her curse
    • oompydoompy74 36 minutes ago
      I empathize with the author. I have severe panic attacks and getting advice from someone who has maybe had a little anxiety once is infuriating.
  • bluesounddirect 17 minutes ago
    My wife is a t1d and has the same pump. It sucks their support staff has no idea how the thing works or what its failure modes are. My wife once had her x2 tell her it gave here a 40 unit bolis out of the blue . This would have killed her. While in the er support from x2 said something like "there is no way for it to do this .. you must be wrong.. are you reading the display correctly .." All in all the x2 plus dexcom was supposed to be a closed loop cgm plus pump. It rarely cuts insulin delivery on low blood sugar, or it does it way too late to matter .
    • bluesounddirect 17 minutes ago
      also it didn't give here 40 units the pump failed .
  • lm7272 19 minutes ago
    Bizarre intro to the blog. Been a pump user for 20 years, forever grateful to the technology that allowed me to live a pretty unrestricted life. Sympathy of course to anyone who's had it harder than I have ofc
  • Symbiote 31 minutes ago
    I don't think the attitude in the first several paragraphs, wishing harm to the pump engineers etc, can lead to a good discussion.
  • nivethan 2 days ago
    This is a terrifying and illuminating read.
  • ahoka 48 minutes ago
    I stopped reading where he just googled what can be wrong with his life support medical aid instead of calling some kind of support line.
    • TimorousBestie 38 minutes ago
      I’ve called my father’s insulin pump customer support number once before and the medical advice they gave us would have endangered his life if I had carried it out (according to his GP, whom we called after to confirm).
    • oompydoompy74 41 minutes ago
      The author is a woman. She does call a support line during the course of all of this. The support line was fairly unhelpful.
      • kbcohhcoh 20 minutes ago
        the support line did everything she asked, and explicitly asked if she already had a backup plan in place, to which the author said "yes".

        the author admits to not even asking for the pump to be sent directly to her.

        the author admits to even ignoring the internet advice to call support, then gets mad that she wasted insulin while doing so

        • kbcohhcoh 16 minutes ago
          "I will probably also be meaner to everyone who gets me on the phone in the future during an emergency. I was trying specifically to not do that, but I suppose it's helpful to be mean when your medical equipment is failing."

          advocating for yourself is not being mean