The saline bottle had to be kept refrigerated, of course. When I crossed the country by train to go to university, I didn’t have access to a fridge, so I just kept the screwcap bottle in my luggage and didn’t pay much attention to it. When I arrived on the opposite coast, I fell dreadfully ill and had to go to emergency, and I took the bottle with me just in case I needed to refill while there. All the ER nurses gathered around my bed to examine the newfangled insulin pump. Then the senior nurse, a Scottish lady with a thick accent, held up my saline bottle, gave it a shake, and said, “Young man, there’s feces in this.”
“Feces?!” I said, aghast.
“No, silly – fishes.”
Sure enough the saline was looking a bit pond-scummy after five days out of the fridge. The hospital kindly hooked me up with a big-city pharmacy that could provide me with – the novelty! – saline in a bottle with a rubber cap.
I tend not to get excited about things, but now and then I look at my little Omnipod and think it really is quite astonishing what they can do these days.