The Princess and the Pump.
A brief synopsis: There’s this prince who is looking for a bride and he’s on the prowl. Any woman up to snuff is a bona fide princess, and he’s not budging on that one. He scours the countryside and finds no princesses.
Slightly bummed – because he wanted a real princess pretty badly – he comes home and sits in his castle as a rainstorm thunders outside.
Then, comes a knock on the door! A woman, soaked to the skin and completely bedraggled, asks for a room for the night to wait out the storm. She claims to be a real princess, but seeing her in such a disastrous state, the Prince’s maid scoffs.
“Real princess, my ass. Sleep on this bed and let’s see how you fare,” and she puts but one pea on the boxspring and piles twenty feather mattresses on top.
Next morning, the claimed-to-be princess doesn’t look much better for the night’s sleep.
“What’s the matter?” asks the maid.
“No offense meant, but I didn’t sleep a wink last night. I kept tossing and turning but couldn’t get comfortable! There was something in the bed that was so hard it has bruised my whole body!”
Everyone gasps and clasps their hands and the Prince realizes he’s got the Real Thing here because only the skin of a princess would be so fair as to notice a pea under 20 mattresses.
So they get married. And the pea is put on display in a museum. And everyone lives happily every after.
Fast forward to last night: Woke up in the middle of the night, so uncomfortable. The skin on my back was tender to the touch. Leaning up this morning, I reached around and felt my pump lying on the bedsheets, biting and burrowing into my back all night long. It must have come loose from my shorts while I was sleeping. There is already a blueish-yellow, baseball-sized sort of bruise. The imprint of the tubing wrapped around my waist, the words “Medtronic Minimed” branded on my lower back.
Feeling much like the princess with fragile skin. And a little whiney, to boot.
I can't be the only one who has woken up with their pump wrapped around them like a boa constrictor.
And do boa constrictors have some sort of vendetta against princesses?
Comments
I can't tell you how many times I have woken up tangled in my pump tubing! When I go to sleep, I put the pump under my pillow. I can't feel it there.
Sorry about your lovely brand on your lower back. :) I bet Medtronic would love the advertising though!
Posted by: Elizabeth Zabell | July 10, 2006 10:54 AM
I had this happen the other night. I swear if some yanked on my pump i would have spun like a top! I must have had a dream about a tornado or something.
Posted by: George | July 10, 2006 11:24 AM
Not only do I sleep with my insulin pump, but I also sleep with a CPAP machine. You haven't lived until you wake up with the pump wrapped around you and under you, AND the tubing from the CPAP machine wrapped around your neck.
My record though was the night with a pulse oxymeter. Then I had three two and the tubing all wrapped around me when I woke up.
Posted by: Kathleen Weaver | July 10, 2006 01:17 PM
Oh yeah. Happens frequently, if I let the pump free roam in bed.
Does it still happen w/short tubing?(I'm a long tubing gal,so I'm just curious
I once tried to clip the case to the pillow-that was the night I woke up with the tubing strangled around my KNECK. Never did that again.
Geez, sorry you got branded-I guess that means you're a MM pumper for life? (or at least,till a cure!)
Posted by: Anonymous | July 10, 2006 03:32 PM
Oh yeah. Happens frequently, if I let the pump free roam in bed.
Does it still happen w/short tubing?(I'm a long tubing gal,so I'm just curious
I once tried to clip the case to the pillow-that was the night I woke up with the tubing strangled around my KNECK. Never did that again.
Geez, sorry you got branded-I guess that means you're a MM pumper for life? (or at least,till a cure!)
Posted by: type1emt | July 10, 2006 03:35 PM
Ouch, but think of the money you saved on a tatoo!
Hang in there Kerri!
Posted by: Taocat | July 10, 2006 06:01 PM
i'm such a restless sleeper. though mine seems to creep to my boyfriend's side of the bed then he rolls on it and gets the sore skin and lump under him. he he he :)
Posted by: vicki | July 11, 2006 04:47 AM
For the most part I use short tubing thought I always get one box of long tubing. Am currently on the box of long tubing right now and I can't tell you how many nights I have woken up with tubing wraped around my legs, tangled between blankets and pillows with minimed branded on my chest or side.
Posted by: Randi | July 11, 2006 10:53 AM
You can be whiney every once in a while...it's okay...really!
Posted by: Johnboy | July 12, 2006 05:35 AM
I got the short tubing for this reason, so now I only have baby snakes on my legs! I just saw the "ALIVE: Snakes and Lizards" at the American Natural History Museum, and they surely move in mysterious ways......how about a Bono Constrictor! Ha.
Posted by: ksc | July 12, 2006 09:13 AM
Oh wow the branding is no fun:-) but has happened soooo many times to me and sometimes I think it is on my shorts walk away from my bed only to feel BAM right into my leg the lovely Gideon (my pump) decided he did not want to leave the bed .. oh the stories we can tell
Posted by: Julie | July 13, 2006 08:46 AM
I use short tubing so it doesn't often get wraped around extremities or anything, but I often wake up with imprints of the tip of the reservoir on my arm, back, etc... The worst is getting out of bed when my pump has come out of the waist band of my shorts and it swinging like a pendulum from my tummy. I've lost a few infusion sets that way. Ahhh the trials and tribulations of pump wearers.
Posted by: Nicole | July 18, 2006 03:16 PM