diabetes: a play of passion
Diabetics have a joke about changing lancets. You can get a box of a hundred lancets for $5 and they will last you the rest of your life. Lancets go into a “pen” that jabs your finger to give you a drop of blood to test your blood sugar level. Changing lancets isn’t hard, but it feels pointless (even though you’re changing the “point” so you’re not jamming a dull lancet into your fingertip).
They say you’re supposed to change your lancet “often”, but lets be real — nobody does. I have gone MONTHS without changing a lancet and one fateful day in 2005 I kinda paid the price.
These were the days before the “freedom” of Continuous Glucose Monitoring. I was testing my blood sugar three-to-five times a day. Pushing a button on the pen and jamming the lancet into my fingertips over and over until I would think, “Hey, I haven’t changed that lancet in a while. I should probably do that.” (every 2 or 3 months? probably around that).
One day in 2005 I started to notice the middle fingertip on my right hand was very sore. You get that feeling every so often when you prick your fingers, but this was different.
A couple days go by and it’s still hurting and I notice a couple lumps in the back of my hand, presumably in my vein leading from my middle finger. That’s weird.
Another day goes by and I track more lumps along the vein up my arm to my shoulder and chest. It’s leading to my heart.
This Isn’t Good.
I visit my doctor the next day. The lumps, while small, are pronounced. You can see bb pellet sized lumps every 2 or 3 inches up my arm. The doctor wants to remove one and get a closer look.
And he does.
Right there.
In his small examining room.
He injects local anesthetic in the back of my hand and waits a few minutes for the numbing to take effect.
This is happening right now? Yup.
He places what seems like a thick album cover under my arm and lays my now numb hand on the table in front of him.
I don’t remember the exact small talk conversation we had while he was cutting open the back of my right hand, but I could certainly feel the tugging.
I remember thinking, “I shouldn’t look down at that”.
I was nervous.
Everything happened so fast.
I casually glance down at the table next to me.
Yikes.
I see the back of my hand. In the center there is an inch long cut. The skin on either side of the cut is pinned to my hand, so it remains opened while the doctor is using tweezers to remove a lump (and some flesh) from inside of my hand.
Uh… I shouldn’t be seeing this.
I get light headed.
The doctor notices and stands up. He quickly walks beside me and catches my head. I don’t pass out, but I was certainly on the way. Had he not noticed I would have fallen to the ground and who knows what he would have pulled out of my hand.
I don’t have any photos from the time, but it has left a scar and an indentation in the back of my hand, from where one of the many “objects” and some flesh were removed.
Apparently there was nothing to worry about (?)
(sure, lumps in a vein from your finger leading to your heart is nothing to worry about? I’d like to see you try not to worry).
I had an infection in my blood from using an old lancet to prick my middle finger. That right there should have caused me to start changing my lancets more regularly.
Did it?
Not one bit.
I still have that same lifetime supply of 100.
