Selling diabetes.
Lows love to happen at crappy times. They love to just sneak in there and sabotage your rational thinking and ability to form coherent sentences at just the moment you need them. Like when you’re halfway through explaining your product to a group of 15 customers, who all have their attention focused squarely on you and you alone.
That happened to me just yesterday. I had brought lunch in for a large primary care office, and had taken a bit of a guess at bolusing for my food. My plate was loaded mostly with salad, rounded out with a tiny piece of lasagna. Blood sugar was at 90, and I had taken two units around 10 that morning to temper a rising 160mg/dL. What possessed me to take 3.5 units of insulin I have no idea. There weren’t even close to 35 carbs on my plate, and technically I still had about a unit on board, and a BG that might still be dropping.
Ok, actually I do know what prompted me to take that much insulin: its the fact I’m so deeply intimidated by pasta. Pasta is a guaranteed blood sugar ass kicker for me. Although it’s my favorite treat meal, I rarely eat it because I rarely get the insulin right. I usually end up through the roof, so I think I over did it because I somehow believe that pasta has blood sugar kryptonite as one of its ingredients. My pasta fear had clouded my diabetes decision making. And about halfway through my demonstration of one our product devices, my body let me know loud and clear that 3.5 units was waaaaaay too much.
Mid-way through a sentence, I became aware that my blood sugar was heading down, and quick. My own voice sounded like I was hearing it from far away, and I had trouble focusing on the faces of my customers. Still talking, I looked to my left where the lunch I’d brought was laid out. I weighed options in my mind while I talked. Ok, I’ve got a Gu pack in my purse that’s two feet away, the regular Coke that’s over by the lunch, and glucose tablets on my keychain which I can reach from here.
Talking like that makes me feel like some weird diabetes ninja. How many ways can you raise your glucose within the four walls of this room, ninja? Plan your attack! I decided the Coca-Cola would look the most natural, so I casually walked over to the lunch set up, STILL talking about our product, and poured a full glass of the sugary soda.
“So, any questions?” I said, lifting the glass to my lips. I start to chug the soda, knowing there’s nothing ladylike about the way I was drinking but hoping they were too busy thinking of questions to notice. And they did have questions, but not about what I just told them.
“Why are you having a regular soda? Didn’t you just say you have diabetes too?”
Busted.
“Yes, and I’m having a low blood sugar right now. I overestimated the carbs in the meal and I took too much insulin for it and now I have to bring my blood sugar back up.”
Thinking a group of healthcare providers would stop there, I hoped we’d get back to the material I’d just presented. No dice. My low blood sugar opened up a deluge of questions:
“How did you know you were low?”
“Where’s your pump? I can’t see it.”
“The pump is automatic right?”
“So the pump beeped at you and told you were low?”
“What’s a CGMS?”
“Wait you wear TWO things on your body?”
“Why are you low when you just ate?”
Oh dear. If the low hadn’t worn me out already, these questions would. But I took them, patiently, and explained as much as I could. Because I’m not just a representative for my company and their products. I’m an ambassador of diabetes. I am, lows and all, exactly what it really means to LIVE with diabetes. And if I can help my customers understand that, then maybe they can help their patients live better with diabetes. Which, at the end of the day, is really what I’m selling.
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Comments
Gee, when I’m in public all I ever have with me is caramels. My explanation would probably have to be, “I’m recreating that scene from Good Will Hunting where Will takes out Skylar for caramels instead of coffee.” Carrying juice is a pain and I have no desire to taste a glucose tab. Ick.
i love that even with your pump and CGM and all your knowledge and experience, you are willing to share your lows and how they happen. it really helps me, with 35 years of being type 1, to be reminded that we are all human, doing our best, and sometimes our rational mind doesn’t calculate that pasta, or whatever, correctly!
i carry Clif bars, but also Mentos for when i’m in a situation where i need something faster to eat and more subtle, so i can talk and raise my blood sugar at the same time!
Isn’t getting paid to have diabetes great?! (It helps me when I think of it that way.) Last week I was helping orient docs new to our hospital and since I knew there was a radiologist there, I made sure to point out that insulin pumps need to be removed from the body and the room during x rays, etc so that I wouldn’t read the reports stating “the patient is wearing some type of external battery pack” and find out later that the patient’s pump shut down when they got back to the nursing unit. At some point I patted my pump and said that I wore one, and when I was finished speaking the doc asked if he could please see my pump. Then he asked if it was a subcu infusion, and after hesitating for only a nano-second, I lifted my shirt up and flashed my infusion set at the only 2 males in the room. Too bad my set wasn’t on the same side as my diabetes tattoo that day. If I wasn’t battling my insurance company for a Dexcom right now, I could’ve flashed that also.
And mentos are a great idea!
Hahah Mary! I love it - “getting paid to have diabetes!” That’s a GREAT way to think of it, and I love that you flashed your pump. What’s your diabetes tattoo of?
Tim - HA! That’s a good call, and I am totally going to start bringing caramels - it’s like a diabetic version of charades or something….yeah juice is a pain, that’s why I switched to Gu packs. Glucose tabs are only for dire straights.
Brenna - I have looked abnd looked for more of the keycahins - I got mine for free from a meter company that had a booth at a local event a few years ago - it’s little purple plasic case, and it looks like it should hold contact lenses or something, but it holds four glucose tablets - I love it! It’s my super-duper backup for when I really have nothing else with me, as I don;’t love glucosed tabs. But they’re nice to have in a pinch!
I heard that the glucose tablet keychains might be at WalMart. My workplace just ordered some from a company (don’t knw where) but they haven’t come in yet. You could probably Google it if WalMart is out. Alexis, my tat is my own version of the medic alert symbol - an anime girl stabbing a pink snake (breast cancer gene) with a staff and stomping it out with my JDRF Chuck Taylors, and then a blue snake (diabetes) is wrapped around one of the girl’s legs and trying to attack but she is holding it at bay.
Wow, Im always trying to put myself in Miranda’s shoes and wondering what she feels like when she goes low or even really high. She dosen’t have the same amount of vocabulary choices as you, she’s only 6 but a very smart 6 when it comes to her diabetes so it’s great to hear other perspectives from people. Yesterday she had a 29! Bolused and then went swimming in the yard, I was so bummed but she comes back really quickly and yes we did over correct….aagghh
Take care..