Just an ordinary medicine cup, but take a look inside...
Looks pretty innocuous, right?
This drop, this tiny drop, is 15 units of insulin.
Two days worth for Faith.
If withheld, it could make Faith sick enough to kill her.
If given all at once it would kill her.
I read once that insulin is one of only two medicines that a nurse has to get another nurse to double check before administering to a patient. Yet, I find myself doling it out on the fly, sleep deprived (*understatement), based on varying factors - many of which can't be quantified (growth, stress, the effect activity or the weather will play on bgs that day...), while juggling all the other responsibilities of the day.
No pressure, right?
**Insulin is not administered from a medicine cup. It must be given subcutaneously. This is just an illustration.
ONE DROP. Powerful seems like an understatement!!
ReplyDeleteGreat minds think alike....I posted this back in September:
http://www.candyheartsblog.com/2010/09/blink-tear-drop.html
Yep on the two nurses checking it ... in an ICU none-the-less. This is a great post, as was the one Wendy wrote. It is amazing how powerful this medication is...to provide life and to cause death based on dosing. UGH.
ReplyDelete@Reyna - I was shocked when I read that about insulin. This whole d (insert amn or iabetes here) thing is just crazy scary!
ReplyDelete@Wendy - I just went back to read it. GREAT post!! A friend & I were just talking about how when I throw a bottle of insulin out after its 28 days, you can barely tell there's any missing. When Faith was first dx I couldn't tell at all & had to mark them or make sure I threw the old one away BEFORE opening the new one. Gives me a whole new respect for how our bodies were created to work.
That's SUCH a small amount - wow. When Maddie primes her pen and squirts 2 units of insulin willy-nilly (all over the car, or the carpet, or the table) she probably "wastes" that much. It really is amazing how powerful and mysterious the human body's endocrine system is. Thank GOD we live now and not 100 years ago.
ReplyDeleteWow. That's really eye opening!
ReplyDelete