Pumped

My insulin pump, a Medtronic Paradigm 722, is worth $7000. It is also two years old, banged up, and covered in little bits of dust, dirt and my own skin, but the price still remains. It is also not waterproof.

It is also, now, broken.

Yesterday marked the meandering start to Toronto's first heat wave of the year: slightly sticky, a little heavy, mostly pleasant. The temperature was stable at 25 when I went for my run at 6pm. I usually remove my pump when I run: too much basal insulin makes me bottom out, and the thing is so fucking expensive, right? What if I trip and smash it? What if my tubing gets caught in a tree branch? Yesterday, though, I decided to keep it on. I shouldn't have it detached for more than an hour at a time, and my training distances will keep going up in advance of my races this year.

So I kept it on, clipped to the inside of my sports bra. Around 11km I dug it out to check the time. It was slick with sweat. Pressed a button. Nothing happened. Pressed another. Nothing happened. The clock was still working alright, but the buttons, it seems, were brucked. When I got home I blasted it with a hair dryer. It started to beep at me like a crazy person. Then it flashed its final message: "BUTTON ERROR".

The jig was up.

This pump may not be waterproof, but it should, at least, prove sweatproof. I'm not a terribly sweaty individual. I didn't drop it in the toilet. It shouldn't stop working for this. I picked up the phone prepared to give Medtronic a piece of my mind...but the customer service agent I spoke to was so surprisingly nice I couldn't even muster up rage. Instead of the standard 24 hour wait, they had a replacement pump sent by courier to me within the hour.

This new pump isn't dented or covered in old skin cells either, so, y'know, every cloud.