Wednesday, April 23, 2014

(Almost) Naked Shower

Yesterday I just missed having my second naked shower since November. 

One in six months. That's just sad when I think about it.

Yesterday morning I went out for an 8k run in the cold spring rain. Dexter, who was already 10 days old and holding on by a combination of sheer determination, the fear of my wrath if he let go before day 10, and some well-placed tegaderm, didn't survive. My wet and heavy shirt kept rubbing on him and, by the end, he had come completely unglued. 

When I got home, I dug him out from under my wet layers, placed him on the counter to dry and headed up for my shower. 

After my shower, I noticed that my infusion site was also barely holding on after the rainy run. There was just enough insulin left in my pump to make it until dinner so I taped it in place, crossed my fingers and went to work. 

I fought highs all day. Not high enough to go home and change my site but high enough to make me think that I may have caused some structural damage to the site and not all the insulin was getting in. 

I changed it the minute I got home and that is when I realized that, if I had changed it in the morning when I was doing Dexter (that sounds worse that it should), I would have been able to have a naked shower. 

Dammit. 

Naked showers, for those of you who get to take one every day, are a luxury that I rarely get to enjoy anymore. 

The thought of not having to gingerly wash around my cyborg parts and just being able to enjoy the shower is, well, I can't even think of the right word for what it is but it's a damn nice thought. 

The thought of not having to think about where and how I stand in the shower so that the water doesn't directly hit one of my sites when the edges are already started to come unglued. 

How many of you actually know how to stand to make sure that some parts of your body get wet but never actually get directly sprayed by the water? How many of you care? I'm guessing it falls in the category of 'who the hell does that?'.

And imagine the whole post-shower drying off process. Dry arms vigourously. Dry legs vigourously. Dry abdomen...oh wait, dab, dab, carefully dab so as not to knock any cyborg parts off. 

Sigh. 

I missed my naked shower by a handful of hours. 

With pump site changes every 4-5 days (usually in the evenings) and with Dexter changes every 8-14 days, the odds of both sites coming off on the same day at the same time just before I need to shower are roughly the same as the odds of my taking up figure skating.

Or ballet.

Or anything else that requires a combination of grace and short skirts. 

2 comments:

  1. I hear ya! I do miss the days of soaping up and not worrying about ripping important medical devices out of my body! I have had a few naked showers and they are divine :)

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  2. I love when I have showers and no diabetes parts are on me! I have Medtronic CGM so I have to change that ever 4-6 days so I have those showers a little more often and they are amazing!

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