Last night I was at a dinner with family and relatives. It was a somewhat dressed-up occasion at a nice restaurant.
I was trying to check my BG under the table. Just in keeping with decorum for a fancy place, I didn’t want to show off my blood drop to other diners in the restaurant.
My fingertips laugh at lancets trying to get blood, so occasionally I have to work hard to get a blood drop. I kept jabbing my finger over and over. I couldn’t get blood to come out.
My son was sitting next to me watching the whole thing. Finally he just shook his head, extended his hand and stuck out a few fingers and said, “Here, just use these.”
We need to talk. I know you expired 2 hours ago but you don’t have to keep shouting every 2 hours at me. I acknowledge your complaints twice already but you keep shouting at me in your beeping sort of voice. I mean it is embarrassing to me to have to explain to my co-workers about our ongoing argument - The whole office can hear you yelling at me. And my co-worker who I was having a heated discussion with, on a topic of importance, was interrupted mid-sentence with your “i am expiring in 1 hour” complaint. I know - you want to break off our relationship immediately. But I want to see if we can make our relationship last - well at least till I am home and some more of the insulin is used up and I can start a relationship with newpod. I really hope that newpod will love me more than you pod and won’t yell at me in the office right?
Really! This is a salient example of a trend that started decades ago. Who is the brilliant industrial designer who developed the idea to have our appliances yell at us? Toaster ovens, microwaves, clothes washers and dryers, … they show no mercy.
Yeah, lately this happens with any high fat/high carb meal, where no matter what I throw at it (insulin and exercise), it continues to climb. I’m also fairly insulin resistant at the moment, combo of hormones and coming back from an active vacation - spent yesterday in the car or on a plane.
It’s funny how in almost 6 months of using the Freestyle Libre, I’ve gone from a minimum 8 fingersticks a day to today bemoaning having to test more than twice (pharmacy mixup means no sensor activated today). So annoying.
Pretty much spot on. I was afraid I was going to rip out this new sensor yesterday, and all I could think was, “I don’t want to do more finger pricks!”
I don’t know if anyone else experiences this or not, but when I go to my pharmacy for my dia-shmeetes scrips (a Kroger-owned pharmacy), the tech or pharmacist checking out my purchases ALWAYS says:
“You do know how much this costs, right?” -or-
“And you are aware of the price???”
I always smile, wave my hand at them, as if the gesture itself is saying ‘oh pish-posh, I am aware, thank you’… to which they usually shrug and smile back. I usually say something trite like ‘trust me, I’d rather pay this co-pay than the entire out-of-pocket cost’, which usually results in nervous laughter from the tech.
My dear hubby has experienced this a number of times with me. I wave my knowing ‘pish-posh’ gesture. He raises his brows in surprise and anger. We finish the transaction, on the way out, he sarcastically says ‘Oh, NO. I am not going to pay that for the life-saving medicine I need to take daily to live. Noooo way. You put that right back.’
Makes us both wonder how many times a day they have people upset about pharmaceutical costs
I was wondering about that myself just last week when I picked up my Libre sensors. Every time I pick them up, the tech says, “And you know these are $75 right?” in that “you’re not going to actually pay that, right?” tone. I can’t wait til I have to pick up my Novolog refill…
Same here. Before I met my deductible this year I was paying $125 for 100 test strips. The kind pharmacy employees were always like, now, that’s going to be $125, is that ok? It was even more awkward when I bought extra out of pocket. Had I not met my deductible getting started on the Dexcom, a box of Humalog pens would have been $500+ and I was really dreading that interaction at the pharmacy. Thank goodness for samples
I have a family member who works at a pharmacy that says they are pretty much trained to ask. They don’t want anyone to freak out if the total is more than they were expecting. Pretty sad, actually.
No, they actually never ask me that. I’ve been going to the same pharmacy for 20 years (with four different names on the sign as they went from a single local pharmacy and have since been repeatedly bought out by ever larger chains).
On the other hand, they do ask me every time if I want my flu shot…
The onion rings and bangers and chips I ate 5 hours ago was worth it.
