Doing While Distracted

This morning I made what could have been a catastrophic mistake: I took a large dose of my fast-acting insulin instead of my long-acting insulin.

Usually I keep my two insulin pens in separate places to avoid this type of confusion, but I hadn't been feeling well the night before, and inadvertently carried the fact-acting pen upstairs. While talking to Marc this morning and going through my usual routine of testing and injecting (something I could do blindfolded), I grabbed the wrong pen and injected it for the first time in my history with diabetes.

I immediately realized my mistake, and went downstairs for a large bowl of cereal and some juice. I brought an extra granola bar to work, and even ended up having a few pieces of hard candy as I was trying to finish doing something before I grabbed lunch. Marc drove me to work just to make sure I didn't get sick on the train. Everything worked out okay.

But I was beyond aggravated this morning. My mind was racing from the moment I had gotten out of bed. I had gone to bed early, but still wasn't feeling great. I wanted to go to work and finish a few tasks with things I had left on my desk, so I didn't want to work from home. My twice a month cleaning service was coming today, so I need to strip our bed, put out clean sheets, take the towels and rug out of the bathroom, pack the kids swimming bags, put laundry in the dryer and clean up dishes from last night. I knew I could do all that - but I didn't think I could also pick up the blocks littering every surface in Max's room. So as I was doing my shot with the wrong pen, I was telling Marc, "I really shouldn't feel bad that Max's room isn't picked up for the cleaning people, right?"

Yes, I was feeling guilty for not cleaning for the cleaning person. I know many of us have been there, and many of us continue to do it. My defense is that I want them to spend more time on the deep cleaning of my house, that I can handle all of the picking up. But in reality, if I do it all, they probably just finish up my house faster.

But what I'm really guilty of is "doing while distracted" and the consequences could have been dire. Without food, it's likely I would have gotten on the train and had a fast, massive drop in blood sugar. I might not have had enough time to react, or even realize it was happening. All because I was distracted.

You've all see the PSAs not to text and drive (or in some cases, walk). I've read the horrible articles about a child being left behind in a hot car when the change in a routine made the parent forget about daycare drop off. This morning was a good reminder for me to slow down, to not do everything on autopilot, and to try to stop my always-racing mind.

And to maybe leave a bit more mess behind for the cleaning people. But thanks to Marc for scrambling to clean it up anyway, just to make me feel better.