I feel like it hurts all over. It shouldn’t, but it does, and sometimes it makes me really want to just stop with all the pricks.

The past several weeks, I’ve started really feeling like a pin cushion. After 34 years with diabetes, you’d think I’d be used to the pricks, pokes, and prodding. But I’m still not used to it.

This week, every time I prick my finger, it hurts. When I put in my infusion set, which I pretty much religiously use my stomach for and rotate sites, it feels like I am pressurized. Pretty sure one of these days I’m going to poke myself with that long ass needle and I’m going to explode like the Kool-Aid man running full speed into a wall. I’m apologizing in advance for the mess that someone is going to inevitably have to clean up. (Sorry about that.)

(I found this image on a blog documenting a project doing powder explosions. It’s amazing, and perfect, and I’m jealous that I didn’t get an invite to do powder explosions with them. So if you guys are reading this…can I play next time? Please? Because, so awesome.)

I hate every single time that I have to change my infusion set, and stab that wicked long needle into my skin, knowing good and well it’s going to hurt. I do it, because I love being on my insulin pump, and getting to say that I’m bionic. I feel like I have more control of my diabetes because of my insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor. But the infusion sets and the sensors, it hurts. Every. Single. Time.

We people with diabetes talk all the time about how difficult it is to keep our blood sugar in range, and get frustrated because we’re running too low or too high. But I feel like we often gloss over some of the details that really, quite frankly, and literally, are painful.

This isn’t a blog post full of solutions, and advice, and magical words that can be said to make this junk less “ouch.” It’s just to acknowledge that it freaking hurts sometimes, and if it hurts for you too, you’re not alone.