sounds – Hugging the Cactus

While busy at work one afternoon, I was listening to a Spotify playlist (as I often do), when I could’ve sworn I heard my Omnipod beeping to alert me to a failure.

Oh noooo…I thought. I remember sitting in my chair, with my head cocked and music blaring, as I tried to confirm that the beep was indeed emitting from my pod.

I was so certain that my pod was failing that it didn’t even cross my mind (at least initially) that it could’ve been my music playing a little too loudly.

And then I realized…it wasn’t my pod after all. It was the song that I’d been listening to. Roughly 2:45 into the song “Honestly” by Cartel, the music rose to such a crescendo that I could’ve sworn that it was my pod failing, but nope, it was just the pitch of the sound emitting from my speakers.

What a relief! But also a stark reminder that this phenomenon occurs on the regular. I mistake beeps from standard household appliances, alarm clocks, television commercials, and the outside world in general for Omnipod beeps. And I’m struck by it every single time.

The sounds of diabetes, just like diabetes itself, are just something I’ve come to accept – in the many unique forms they appear in.

What does a blood sugar check sound like, exactly? And why would I want to capture those sounds in words?

I was thinking about it the other day – the precise ritual that is a blood sugar check. It involves very distinct sounds from start to finish.

The ziiiiiiiiiip of opening up the meter case. The soft pop from flipping the cap off a vial of test strips. The pulling back of the lancing device to get it ready – click – and choosing a finger to draw blood from before pressing the button to prick it, a sound that’s a bit like a pow that ends in a dull thud.

301B8560-5345-4434-97C7-F0E99374A78B — These three things make very distinct sounds.

I’ve been in rooms filled with other T1Ds checking blood sugars all at the same time. It’s a chorus of the aforementioned sounds that are so recognizable to anyone with diabetes that they can’t be mistaken.

Sounds that punctuate our lives multiple times each day.

Sounds that help us make so many decisions – from mealtime boluses to deciding whether to have a snack before a workout or not.

Sounds that are a constant reminder of diabetes and its perpetual presence.

Sounds that will be there, always…until there’s a cure.