“This device does not support your musical choices, or your life choices; therefore this hardware cannot connect to this device” was the error message on my car’s screen. Maybe not exactly that wording, but close enough. And it happened a few times sporadically until it started happening every time I connected my phone to my car.
“Huh,” I said, unplugging the charging cord and blowing into the base of the phone like it was a Nintendo game cartridge. Made no difference.
I thought it was the aftermarket charging cord I used in my car, so I didn’t think much of it. The phone charged fine at home, so everything was digitally hunky-dory.
Until we were at a RI Football Club game (RI!! FC!!) and my phone screen gasped and seized and the bottom half of it went completely white. The screen was responsive on the top half, but it was like the bottom was covered in a piece of white printer paper and could be pressed but nothing on that half of the screen reacted reliably.
I tried to look up “bottom half of iPhone screen stuck white” but the phone kept blinking like a lighthouse and then would turn off whenever it felt like it. I’d have to hard-reset it to get it to turn back on. Five seconds later, the phone flipped a metaphorical middle finger and cycled down.
“Huh,” I said, only less casually this time and not exactly “huh” but more “fuuuuuuuck” because now I couldn’t see my Dexcom data or access my insulin pump app. Not optimal. And further degrading the optimality, I am still hanging on tightly to the Dexcom G6 as my sensor of choice so I didn’t have any data feed going to my watch or anywhere other than my sad phone.
Heaps of privilege going on here, talking about fancy broken devices. I recognize that.
The other day I was talking with an adult who was recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and he asked me what advice I’d have for my younger self. This question hits differently than it did twenty years ago, when I was in my late 20s and my diabetes was marking two decades as my reluctant buddy. Now, in my mid-40s and into my fourth decade with diabetes, advice for a younger self becomes a mix of emotionally woo-woo and lumped with the most pragmatic shit ever.
Like, “Give yourself the grace to constantly make, and learn from, mistakes.”
That’s pretty woo-woo but also true-true, because perfection and type 1 diabetes do not mix. It is a recipe for frustration. The learning curve for diabetes is lifelong and dependent on the shiftiest barriers of all time, so the ability to dodge and weave and learn is crucial.
Sure, sure. Woo, woo.
But the pragmatic advice might be: “Know how to drive diabetes manually.”
Insulin pumps are amazing bits of technology. Continuous glucose monitors are borderline witchcraft magical shit. The best diabetes app is effective AF until your phone decides it’s done being a phone. And then you’re left with blinded CGM data and an insulin pump that still does its job but the only bolus option available is to use the button on the pump that is programmed (for me) in half unit intervals.
Streaming glucose results and precision bolusing? Pfffffft. See ya.
So I had to dodge. And weave. And remind myself that I am always learning.
Over the course of a week, between the phone breaking and being replaced, I blew dust off an old insulin pump with only a few supplies in my stash in order to continue to use a pump and CGM as my management method. I was lucky to have an old pump on hand, and lucky that my brain remembered all the nuances of setting up an older device. I was also lucky that I had a finger stick glucose meter with unexpired strips, both long- and short-acting insulins in the fridge, and a very old shoebox filled with syringes in my supply closet.
I had back-ups of back-ups, and needing to employ them on the fly made me thankful that I had access to the resources to be nimble, in a diabetes sense.
It also made me hyper-aware of how fragile the ecosystem of care is for this disease. Broken phone when the pump is phone-dependent? What’s the plan? Old insulin pump also MIA? Need another new plan. CGM gone rogue? What’s your finger-pricking plan? And these devices, though helpful and burden-reducing, mean nothing when insulin isn’t accessible.
Diabetes means always hoping to formulate, to accommodate, to access another plan.
“Huh,” I said, not feeling huh at all but instead immensely grateful for the ability to bring my particular issue to a resolution without panicking. And then I made a donation to Insulin for Life.
You can make a donation by clicking the link below:
Stay as safe as possible out there, friends. Always have a plan.
