For the first few months with diabetes, I was testing what felt like very often, and still what seemed like not often enough. I was getting better at understanding when I was low or high, but sometimes I would test and be super high or super low having no idea beforehand. Testing didn’t feel as bad as the shots, I hated the feeling of my Lantus basal insulin every night, but even then, it was unpleasant to prick my eleven-year-old finger. Besides, my father was reading all these books about diabetes, and it seemed like a way to regulate blood sugar well was to have a consistent reading through a CGM– Continuous Glucose Monitor. It was time to get one.
That isn’t to say I didn’t have my apprehensions. I was still ramping up my knowledge of how diabetes worked in the first place, introducing a whole new variable didn’t make any sense to me. I had seen camp counselors with CGMs, and they did not at all look comfortable. I mean, they’re inserted into your skin! It’s sometimes hard to make the decision to switch your processes away from something you’ve worked so hard to optimize, but after some convincing, I was ready (as if I had a choice).
So, a few weeks later, I was back in one of those brightly lit and colored hospital classrooms, in front of another slide presentation. I found it, at this point, so tedious to relearn things that they had already taught us in previous classes, but there was of course some technical information that I did actually learn. As always, it was weird to see other families in the same state of transition I was in. Even though it was clear that we were so different, I felt a weird sense of comradery with them, that we were going through the same thing. At the time, it was almost an uncomfortable feeling, because I didn’t know how to place it. That feeling has never left though, and now, whenever I meet a diabetic, I feel comfortable smiling wide at them even though I know nothing about them.
It wasn’t long after the class that I got my first Dexcom CGM. My father and I drove to the children’s hospital, entered the lobby, where a representative from Dexcom was waiting for me. In fact, we never left the lobby during the meeting. He was wearing a suit, and spoke very formally and professionally, which I found a little ironic given the fact that we didn’t even have a room to meet in. He brought with him our first sensor and a receiver. He went through 20 minutes of boring rigamarole about Dexcom that I tuned out given that I heard most of in the classes.
Eventually, it was time to actually put it on. The sensor applicator of the Dexcom G5 sensor was this weird clear plastic contraption with an adhesive backing and attached to this scary looking plunger carrying a giant needle. I was assured, this needle would not stay in my skin, it just made sure the flexible “cannula” of the device was safely delivered into the skin. I thought to myself, safe to who, me or the sensor? Of course, eleven year old boys don’t have a habit of wanting to show fear, so I said nothing, and applied the adhesive to my skin. Hesitantly put my hand on the plunger. I had never had a phobia of needles, but it was still nauseating, the idea of inserting a big needle by hand through the pain of it all. I started slowly, which was a mistake, it caused a lot of extra pain, but I pushed it until I heard the click, pulled out the needle, and removed the plunger. It felt horrible, not because the pain was bad, but because I had done it to myself, and slowly. For as long as I used a G5 sensor, I didn’t like applying the cannula, even though I got a lot better with the plunger.
Afterwards, the rep handed me the data transmitter to me with a smile and we put it on top of the sensor. I rubbed the heat activated adhesive on the outside of the sensor with my fingers, feeling like a total idiot, and then I was done. Apparently, the sensor still had to be warmed up and calibrated, which would take hours, but the rep showed us how to do everything, and then we parted ways. The whole way home, I was testing out how it felt on my skin, stretching my torso, pinching the skin around it. It was only an inch or two in length, and half an inch tall, but it still felt weird to me to have it attached to me. It wasn’t long before it felt more natural though, and by the time we got home I had to begrudgingly admit that it didn’t really hurt me, even though it was stuck in my skin.
It was bittersweet when I saw my first curve. Seeing a new point every 5 minutes was really cool, I felt like a scientist! I could see in (almost) real time how eating and dosing affected me over time. Dosing with just a glucose tester felt like shaking a broken flashlight to get a second of light, and then having it go black in your hands again. For the first time, we weren’t just taking shots in the dark when it came to dosing. At the same time, it felt like so much more responsibility: now that I could look to check my levels all the time, and I could be so much more controlled and precise, I had to be. Now, I had to put in the effort. I couldn’t claim ignorance about how what I ate affected my blood sugar, there was no hiding from the effects of what I was doing anymore.
Growing up T1D 