Has this ever happened to you?

You come home from work and the kids jump all over you eager to tell you about their day. You try to get a few words in with the babysitter before she leaves while your kids are still trying to butt in every few seconds. You finally give them a few minutes each but then you really need to get dinner going. While you start cooking you try to estimate both carb content and timing of the meal and take your bolus while trying to figure out why one of the kids is now crying. Tripping over some toys that weren’t there 2 minutes ago you finally get dinner on the table and sit down to eat. Things are calmer now at the table and you think how your blood sugar has been reasonably well behaved today and you really should have pre-bolused for this meal. But whatever, better late than never. So you do the math and bolus while hearing about who was sitting beside whom at lunchtime at school. Then 45 minutes later as the kids are getting into bed and wanting a last pee, a last drink of water and a last kiss, your Dexcom starts blaring and your first thought is “I can’t be under 55, if anything I under-bolused for that meal and my 2 week old Dex sensor must just be showing its age”. Then the symptoms hit. Hard. And both Dexcom and Libre are reading LOW. And only then you think “Did I… No, I couldn’t have…” Then you look in your pump history to find that yes indeed, you bolused twice for that meal, 23 minutes apart. Then you drink the rest of the orange juice in the house and sit down and wait to feel human again, thankful that your husband is now home from work.

Result of a double bolus.

Yeah, me neither. Until yesterday.

I’m pretty sure I haven’t made a mistake like that since going on the pump almost 14 years ago. I’m glad that my boluses are relatively small so that I only took 3.35u twice rather than much more. I’m also glad that I have a pump so there is actually a record of past boluses. I have now programmed my pump to alert me if I try to take more than 7u (basal rate included) within an hour.

Stay safe! Don’t double bolus!