If It's Broke, Fix It

It comes in threes.  No, I’m not talking about celebrity deaths though it seems to be heading that way this week.  I’m referring to things breaking.  I’m at two, and waiting for number three. 

The first “crisis” occurred yesterday morning when the Keurig seemed to have encountered a kidney stone and could not pass water.  It moaned like a man who equates these stones to having a baby (never having had that experience, mind you) and dispensed 1/4^th of a cup of coffee.  We were faced with breaking out Mr. Coffee and the Folgers, a bad way to start any day.  I’m usually pretty good about keeping up with the descaling every few months but it has been a bit busy here, yeah?   We left the “Precious” with vinegar in it all day and I’m happy to report the stone has been passed and all is well with the world.  (Well, the coffee might taste a wee bit like a pickle, but that will resolve.)

The second breakage was not a crisis but an annoyance.  I am a Dexcom G4 junkie.  My son wears a CGM, continuous glucose monitor, which gives a constant readout of his blood glucose levels.  Using this constant feedback, I can fine tune his insulin levels and try to run his BG as close to normal as safely possible.  I can also stand back during sporting events and know that he is okay or throw carbs at him when needed.  (Not literally, silly!)  We were flat-lining it yesterday due to walking nine holes of golf and recent level changes.  Then awaking in the night as I often do (I’m old, give me a break), I looked at the receiver to see “Transmitter failed.  Replace soon.”  The transmitter is the “brain” of the CGM and is attached to his body via a sensor. 

A quick Google taught me that though I’d been under the false assumption the transmitters last a year, the new “improvements” mean that it might only make it six months.  We’re at eight months.  (I’m wondering if these improvements are similar to the geniuses that forced Windows 8 on us?)  Seriously though, love our CGM and very grateful for it when it is working.  It may last a week after you see the error, and it may not.  Phone calls to order one, insurance to contact and trying to insert a new sensor next on my list.  They are not cheap!

So that is two things broken, but possibly fixable.  Maybe that means there won’t be a third?

Update, on further reflection and more coffee, I realized I was overlooking that the iron is breaking (it will work if you smack it hard), my computer mouse died, and the computer itself has a fan not working and it is beginning to malfunction.  That makes a group of three, so I'm on my second group of three.