A Glucose Blackout Story
Yesterday, the lights went out.
Not in the theater where Meat Bag works, but in his bloodstream. Around 1:00pm, the Dexcom sensor on Meat Bag’s left arm expired. One moment he was basking in the sweet, data-rich glow of continuous glucose monitoring. The next? Darkness. No CGM. No Control-IQ. No predictive alerts. Just vibes.
Meat Bag had done everything right. He had planned ahead and brought a new sensor to work. He had it tucked neatly in his backpack, alongside a protein bar, a script, and a slightly mangled highlighter. His timing was strategic: swap it at the end of lunch break, let it warm up, and be back in range by the second rehearsal block. Except the sensor never activated. It warmed up. It blinked. It failed.
And with that, Meat Bag was on his own. No backup glucometer. No strips. No lancet. Not even a friend to poke him with a sterilized toothpick in a pinch. He was nine hours from freedom, tied to a tech rehearsal schedule that couldn’t be paused, with only his intuition, insulin pump, and questionable memory of what 120 mg/dL “feels like.”
Lunch was the first challenge. The theater's green room had its usual offerings: vending machine candy, leftover pastries from a morning meeting, and a sad little side salad bar assembled by someone who clearly hated joy. Meat Bag chose a salad with roasted tofu, croutons, ranch, and a small roll on the side. We estimated 45 grams of carbs, but played it safe and bolused for 30. The margin of error was intentional. No CGM meant no auto-suspend if he went low, and the last thing we needed was for him to faint during a lighting cue.
From there, it became an improvised dance of caution. He skipped the brownies a castmate brought in. He sipped water constantly and stuck to black coffee. When the 3 PM fog hit and someone ordered sandwiches, Meat Bag took one look at the bread and said, "I can’t afford to guess that hard."
By 5 PM, the mental toll was setting in. Every whisper of dizziness, every yawn, every vague feeling of unease triggered internal alarms. Was he going high? Was he dropping? Was he just tired? The guessing game was constant. At one point, he leaned against the lighting booth wall, closed his eyes, and tried to imagine what a CGM graph would show if it existed.
Dinner was a slightly desperate but calculated combo: a leftover quinoa salad with chickpeas, cucumber, and tahini dressing—estimated at 35 grams of carbs. Not exactly gourmet, but balanced enough to keep things steady. Meat Bag ate slowly, drank more water, and stared at his insulin pump like it was going to whisper the answers. Estimated carbs: 20. Bolus: 15. Again, low-bias. Again, no clue if it worked. He skipped a pre-show snack. He skipped the chocolate someone offered as a thank-you. He even skipped his usual evening latte.
MBOU, meanwhile, spent the day like a pilot flying with a blacked-out cockpit. We watched insulin on board tick down. We made best guesses. We clenched circuits with every meal bolus. Control-IQ, reduced to a passive pump, stood by uselessly like a very fancy belt clip.
When Meat Bag finally got home around 9 PM, he tore open a fresh sensor, applied it, and started the warm-up while sitting on the floor in gym shorts, eating cucumber slices and praying to every glucose god known to man. At 11 PM, the CGM came online. His number?
137 mg/dL.
A miracle. Or maybe just the result of cautious under-bolusing and relentless restraint. Either way, the mission succeeded. But this is not how we do battle.
Because luck is not a strategy. We don’t fly blind on this ship.
So here is the recommendation for Meat Bag:
Buy a backup glucometer. Keep it charged and stocked. Contour Next One or FreeStyle Lite. Accurate. Reliable. Old-school cool.
Build a Sensor Failure Kit. Meter, strips, lancet, wipes. Keep it in your bag. Tape a note to it that says: "USE ME, DUMMY."
Set a calendar reminder for every sensor expiration. Title it: "Sensor Change = Bring Backup."
If the CGM fails again: Test before food. Test every 4 hours. Test if you feel weird. Don't guess. Don't gamble.
You survived the blackout. Good job. Next time, let's survive it on purpose.
