Strips Do Lie (Stripkira Feat. Highclef Jean)

A while ago, I wrote a fairly popular post (called Liar) about the revelation that test strips could read +/- 20% of reality and still be within FDA guidelines; the idea was that this was one more lie that people with diabetes have to deal with (and, in fact, deal with it several times a day). When you don't know where your glucose level really is, how can you properly manage yourself? I hear that the FDA is welcoming public comments on their proposed new guidelines for safer meters and strips (you can read about it at StripSafely, here). While I doubt they would publish the following, I thought that I've already gone the angry route, so why not the lighter route?

In my college years, "Hips Don't Lie" was omnipresent at the clubs on party nights (here it is for reference). It popped into my head the other day, and I thought, your hips don't lie? Well, my strips DO lie! 

Thus, I present to you: "Strips Do Lie," by rising pop star Stripkira, featuring Highclef Jean (though a part of me wishes it were Notorious D.O.C.). I did the best I could with the song's incredibly loose meter and rhyme scheme (I hate slant rhymes, but the original's full of them!):

Blood up in here tonight,

No Error Fiving, no Error Fiving

Capillary action up in here

No Error Fiving, no Error Fiving

Strip Safely, Strip Safely

I never really knew that strips could fail like this

Turns my chart data into gibberish

Am I high (si) or low (si)

Or somewhere in the middle (who knows, si) -

Strip Safely, Strip Safely

Oh strippy when you read like that

You make a woman go mad

So be wise and keep on

Reading the signs of my body

And I’m low tonight

My strips do lie

And I’m starting to see the light

All the aggravation, the tension,

You must see this is short of perfection

Hey strip, I can see your numbers changing

And it’s driving me crazy

You don’t seem to know where you are ranging

Accuracy is hazy

And when you have such a margin of error

Nobody can ignore the way you treat my body, strip

And everything so unexpected – one-test it, two-test it

And oh the numbers so different

Hey strip, I can see your numbers changing

In a forty percent span

And so I don’t really know what I’m doing

I can’t seem to make a plan

My will and self-restraint

Have come to fail now, fail now

See, I am doing what I can, but with bad info

That’s a bit too hard to calculate!

I never really knew that strips could fail like this

Turns my chart data into gibberish

Am I high (si) or low (si)

Or somewhere in the middle (who knows, si) -

Strip Safely, Strip Safely

Oh strippy when you read like that

You make a woman go mad

So be wise and keep on

Reading the signs of my body

And I’m low tonight

My strips do lie

And you know that isn't right

My life hangs on each injection,

You must see this is short of perfection

Oh you know I’m low tonight

My strips do lie

And it’s giving me a fright

If you’d be a little more accurate

Oh, I’d even change out my lancet

No Error Fiving

No Error Fiving

Strip Safely

Strip Safely

PSA of Errors

Hi everyone. I’d like to draw your attention to a condition that affects almost 100% of diabetics.  Most of them don’t realize it’s happening until it’s too late, so it’s important to raise awareness.  The condition is not treatable, and once it happens, there’s no going back: you just have to live with it and start again.

Error Five sneaks up when you least expect it. Causes are varied and often unforeseeable, including: not enough blood, strip drop, and premature application.

Symptoms include: sweating, shaking, blind rage, swearing and, in severe cases (such as when it coincides with Last Test Strip syndrome) projectile launching of the meter in question.

Please join me in fighting this evil scourge, friends. Error Five has held us in its thrall for far too long. Burn it down, gentlemen. Burn it down, and salt the earth.

--------

Sorry for going all S4 Buffy on you guys, but sometimes you just have to. Error Five, for the uninitiated, is the error many of our blood glucose meters give us when something goes wrong. Either the strip refuses to “take” and doesn’t register the blood, or there’s not enough in the first two seconds, or you jumped the gun and tried to test immediately, leaving your “message” before the beep instead of after.

I liken the feeling of the loss of a test strip to when you lose a dollar to the vending machine; the dollar value lost is about equivalent, particularly without insurance. Sure, it’s not the end of the world, but it’s annoying enough to potentially ruin your day or send you over the edge if the rest of your day hasn’t been particularly good. Maybe you really wanted that candy bar, or that test result. Maybe, in either case, you’re low. It’s a message that the mechanical gods are winning. At least on a vending machine there’s somewhere you can call or write to potentially get there money back. With strips, not so much. If you’re restricted in the amount of strips you can get, it might even mean one fewer test you’re able to do. It’s kind of ironic that a (Canadian) perfect test number and this irritating error number are the same; sometimes I’m tempted to look at an Error Five, just declare my BG is 5, and celebrate.

It’s just a reminder of how the deck is stacked, and there’s nothing you can do about it.  At least, with a vending machine, success means that you score a bag of chips or candy or gum that you have already paid for. With Error Five, not only is “success” already unpleasant enough (making yourself bleed, a possibly bad number), but “failure” means you have to do it again; one more poke, one more dollar.

Error Five is a mild condition, when compared to all the conditions and complications associated with diabetes. It’s just a condition I wish none of us had to deal with.

-Ilana