Robot Parts: Life Changed

When I was a teenager, one of the biggest injustices of my life was having to pause everything I did to check my blood sugar.  It called attention to the fact that I was diabetic, it was a major inconvenience, it made people look at me strange, and fingerpricking hurt.  By the time CGMs came out, I had been a diabetic for an extremely long time.  I couldn't remember not having to prick my fingers 4-12 times a day.  I asked periodically about the CGM but didn't really ever get a positive answer and no doctor was eager to put me on one.

Two months ago, I had several scary bouts with extreme lows.  My husband and I discussed it more than once and I talked about it with my endocrinologist.  After looking at my numbers and reviewing the paper work for my insurance, she agreed that it would be a good idea to prescribe me a Constant Glucose Monitor.  It took me a couple of weeks to get it and another to take a lesson on how to use it.  It actually turned out to be very simple and painless (unless you hit a blood vessel).  It's a small gun, kind of like a piercing gun but no exposed needles in any way.  You put a few numbers into a receiver that looks like a cellphone (or your phone if you have the app and it's compatible, or both), clean your skin, put the gun against your skin and push the button.  It inserts a sensor under the skin that you snap a small, water  resistant transmitter into.  It takes two hours to warm up and starting showing readings but, after that, it shows you every five minutes, tracks trends, gives you warnings if you are too high or too low, and shows if your sugar is rising or falling or staying steady.  It can, essentially, show you in real time what your food/insulin choices do to your body. 

Is it perfect? No.  Nothing ever is.  What is perfect is the fact that in the past month I have finger pricked 3 times.  Twice was to calibrate the sensor when it was reading higher than I felt (not perfect, remember?) The other time was I was eating dinner during a sensor warm up.  That's less times in one month than I used to do in a day.  It's so nice to not have to stay up until 2 am because I'm afraid I messed up my insulin and took too much or too little.  The loud alarm will wake me if I go too high or am going to go too low in enough time for me to eat something and correct it.  For the first time in over half of my life, I can sleep at night because I'm not afraid of not waking up the next morning.  It's nice to not have to pause my life to prick my finger when all I have to do is pull out my phone and see my sugar at a glance. 

What I wasn't expecting was that I would actually love seeing the CGM sensor on my body.  Maybe it's because of the freedom it gives me.  Maybe it's because it's effortless when life rarely is for me.  I truly don't know but I am proud of it, in an odd way.  I let myself wear sleeveless shirts that show it on my arm or clothing that shows the outline on my stomach without caring if someone was staring.  Why should I care?  This thing helps me keep myself alive, a tiny robot part that changed my life.