I recently experienced a diabetes first: I bolused myself for 10 units of insulin instead of the one, single unit that I had intended to give myself.

Whoops.

Major whoops.

This careless mistake occurred because I simply wasn’t paying attention when I was inputting numbers into my PDM. I thought I had entered “10” as the amount next to the number of carbs I was about to eat when in reality, I overrode my PDM’s suggestion from 1 to 10 in the total bolus calculator. And I didn’t even realize this until I heard my pod beep randomly several minutes after I’d fiddled around with my PDM. Thank goodness I did notice that beep; otherwise, I would’ve been alerted to my mistake about an hour later when my blood sugar would inevitably start to plummet.

Upon hearing that beep, I decided to check my PDM to see what was up – I assumed that maybe I had a temp basal running that I’d forgotten about, and my pod was just letting me know that it was finished. Obviously, this was not the case. When I saw that I’d bolused 10 units, a wave a panic crashed over me and I immediately started crying. My poor mother, who witnessed me making this discovery, started inquiring what was wrong and I explained to her what I’d done while I brushed angry, frustrated tears off my face. I was in disbelief that I’d done something so stupid. My mom, though, brought me back to reality and redirected my attention to the fact that I should prioritize finding food to eat that would ensure that my blood sugar wouldn’t crash any time soon. I remember taking a breath, then scanning the kitchen for something high-carb that would kick in sooner rather than later.

My eyes landed on cereal, which is notorious for causing blood sugar spikes but also incredibly easy to eat lots of…especially when you aren’t overly hungry but desperately need to eat in order to avoid a scary situation.

So I poured myself a big bowl of Life cereal mixed with Cheerios – not my first choice when it comes to cereal, but that’s what was in my parents’ pantry and this beggar really couldn’t afford to be a chooser, given the circumstances. I sat there and stewed as I ate what was probably the least enjoyable bowl of cereal of my life because I was too busy cursing myself for making such a stupid mistake and wasting insulin that I didn’t really need. Why didn’t I check my inputs before starting my bolus? How could I have ignored my ticking pod as unit after unit of insulin pumped into my body? What kind of idiot does that to herself?

I can’t answer the first two questions, but I can take a stab at that last one – the kind of idiot who is a human who’s had diabetes for most of her life and errs from time to time, just like any other human being with or without diabetes.

Sure, I was furious with myself for screwing up like this, but all things considered…it was bound to happen eventually. We all make mistakes and it’s impossible to double-check every action taken in life. I’ve had some time and space to process this incident, and I’ve forgiven myself for this reason coupled with the fact that I’ve never done anything like this before in two dozen years of life with diabetes. That’s a significant amount of time to go without an incident like this!

Plus, with that forgiveness comes the value of an important lesson learned, which is to be more mindful when I’m taking a bolus. It’s so easy to mistype something on a computer keyboard or when texting someone and this scenario is no different from that. I need to be better about being my own autocorrect, but balance the weight of that responsibility with the knowledge that I’m a human who is managing diabetes 24/7, which is exhausting, and that perfection is a myth.

Major diabetes mistake made, lesson learned, and time to move onward and upward.