The One Where the Dexcom Goes For a Swim

I'm pretty upset. You see last night I was tossing and turning. At 2:45am I tested and was 256.  Bolused and then tried to go back to sleep. Finally at 5am I give up on sleeping and come out to the living room, curl up on the couch with my laptop and attack my Google Reader. I tested at this time and was 226. Bolused again. A little before 7am I am exhausted so I sneak back into the bedroom not wanting to wake Steve. The room is dark and I'm out of it. Recipe for disaster.

Without really looking I drop my Dexcom receiver on what I thought was the bedside table. In fact it fell into a half full glass of water. "Thunk". Oh crap. I reach in and yank the receiver out of the water hastily remove the pink cover and start shacking it to get the water out. Edge of bed is now all wet. After shaking it for a minute or two I check to see if it is still working. The reciever says my blood sugar is 212. Crap. Well at least it is working.

I crawl into bed and close my eyes. Oh sweet sweet sleep. Yet I can't sleep. Better check on the receiver and see if it is still working. ARGH. It is totally dead. I start shaking it and more and more water is coming out. I keep shaking it until all the water is out. At this point Steve looks over at me and asks what is going on. "Dex just wanted to go for a swim" I tell him.

At this point panic sets in. How am I going to manage my diabetes with out it? I'm going to have to test every 15 minutes so I can figure out what direction my numbers are going. Oh. My. God. AHHH!

Reality (and sanity) comes back and I realize that I can do this. Yes, I may be testing a lot more but that is totally ok. I can do this.

Dex has become such an integral part of my diabetes management. It helps me figure out what part of the day I run higher/lower, gives me piece of mind knowing that during the middle of the night if I go low Dex will sound his alarm and wake me up, it is a piece of the tool pie I use and rely on to manage my diabetes.

Can I do it without Dex? Absolutely, it is just harder.

I spoke to Dexcom and they said that they've never tried it but have had customers who say it'll start working after drying out. Thanks to twitter advice I have it sitting in a bag of rice drying out. I'm going to give it 24 hours and if it still doesn't work then I am going to have to order a replacement receiver for $299.

I'm bummed about loosing all the data that is on there. It is very helpful to my endo to see my dexcom data.

My poor fingers are in for a rough few days. Crossing my fingers that my numbers cooperate.