I run on a double A battery. Yep, that’s what keeps me alive. My pump uses one single AA battery to deliver insulin throughout the day, receive information from my CGM and then report it back to me. The battery lights my pump, makes it vibrate and alarms when it needs me to look at it.

It doesn’t matter that AA batteries are easy to find, without the right tools, it’s not gonna work.

I learnt this last week when my pump battery was completely dead and I couldn’t for the life of me find a five cent (or ten) cent coin to open the battery cap of my pump, extract the spent battery and insert a new, fully charged battery to start giving me juice again.

I rummaged and searched for the right coin and then tried other things, getting more and more frustrated. (FYI – twenty cent coins don’t work, neither does a knife, my finger nail, a piece of cardboard or a pair of scissors). Nope. No luck. Eventually, at the bottom of my handbag, I found a lonely five cent piece and changed the battery, adding the coin to my ‘diabetes contingency bag’ for next time.

tiny hammer

Not the right tool.

I needed the right tool.

I was reminded of this yesterday afternoon when I tried to hammer a fallen picture hook back into the wall with a tiny hammer. Didn’t work. No matter how hard I bashed, there wasn’t enough weight in the hammer head to push the picture hook back in the wall.

Anyone else would have probably worked that out just by looking at it. But not me. Possible because I was being…. a right tool.

Am I the only one singing ‘If I Had a Hammer’ right now?