The Summer Semester Pod Apocalypse
Senior year of college was supposed to be chill. A summer semester, lighter classes, maybe a little freedom before real life hit. But apparently, my type 1 diabetes had other plans.
The night before my first class, I went out. And by “went out,” I mean I don’t remember getting home… My car? Left behind at the bar. Uber became my only option to get to class. Adrenaline? Check. Sleep deprivation? Check. Regret? About to check.
Here’s where things get chaotic. I had one of the first versions of the OmniPod pump. It wasn’t the one with a fancy app I could control on my phone. Instead, it came with a little insulin-powered “phone” thing that controlled it. And…
I left it at my apartment.
So there I was, sitting in class, halfway through a three-hour lecture, when the pod started beeping. And I do mean beeping.
Six to eight times every 15 minutes, each one louder than the last.
I immediately knew what was happening. My pod had expired.
I had forgotten to change it.
I’m panicking. I mean sweat dripping down my back panicking.
There was nothing I could do to stop the beeping. Like excuse me what do you mean there is no fail switch!
I tried and very much failed to act casual.
Every glance from a classmate felt like they could hear the secret chaos erupting from me.
Step one: remove the pod.
Step two: wrap it in anything I had; My notebook, my reading glasses case, my pocket, my backpack… I was desperately hoping something would muffle the beeping.
Spoiler: it didn’t. Not really.
For an hour and a half, I sat there, trying to hide this rogue insulin device while it beeped like a tiny, judgmental alarm clock on steroids.
Every time it went off, I felt like a villain in a low-budget comedy.
Beep! My heart raced. I prayed the professor wouldn’t notice.
Beep! I muttered under my breath.
Beep! Maybe if I sit on it…
Nope. Still beeping.
To make the situation worse, the two guys next to me were so fine. One looked like a greek godess & the other was more like funny hot. Us 3 sat next to each other every class…
So while i’m already embarrassed, I have both my class eye candys looking at me like “girl are we about to be blown up?”
By the end of class, I was drained, cringing, and internally screaming, but miraculously still breathing.
I was also reminded: T1D doesn’t care if you’ve had a wild night or if you have three hours of class ahead of you.
It’s chaos, all the time, in unpredictable ways.
Looking back, I can laugh. Sure, it was stressful. Sure, it was loud. But it’s also a story about improvisation, survival, and the weird, hilarious ways diabetes shows up when life is already messy.
And honestly? It’s moments like these that make surviving T1D feel like a badge of honor.
Even if the badge comes with beeping panic and zero dignity.
