Can I accidentally bolus without knowing?

One of the concerns I had when I was getting my pump was how I might inadvertently give myself a bolus without knowing that I was.  My fear stemmed from the fact that you can quite easily give yourself a bolus with a few clicks on the pump.  I feared rolling over on the buttons in the middle of the night and the proper sequence of buttons getting pushed, or when the pump was in my pocket that the buttons might be pressed in that order, too.  Something else that probably contributed to my fear was the fact I had received a "butt-dial" from my sister-in-law earlier that week from her cell phone. 

Well, in much the way that cell phones today have screen locks, your insulin pump has the same sort of blocking functionality.  This was a function I knew that my Medtronic insulin pump came with, and before using the pump I learned the menu navigation to turn the function on and off.  Incidentally, I have only ever used this function once.

There are other precautions against accidentally bolusing in this manner, as well.  I cannot speak for other pumps, as I do not have a wealth of experience with them.   However, with my Medtronic pump, while the the buttons are open and exposed, they are designed in such a fashion that you have to apply a certain amount of pressure on the right part of the button.  I definitely can't apply pressure to the whole face of the pump and depress buttons at random (I tried a few different ways, with various body parts, as if I was asleep). 

Finally, while my Medtronic pump comes with an "easy bolus" function that allows me to receive insulin in unit increments with very few button presses, you are able to turn this function on or off.  A reason some people use this function is, for example, if they are in a meeting and know that for the food they are eating there they need an amount of insulin, but do not want to pull the pump out of their pocket or belt (or wherever it is).  You can simply hit the easy bolus button and get a bolus done without even looking at the screen on your pump.  This function, however, can be easily enabled or disabled.

In the end I felt really safe in the understanding that there was very little chance of me giving myself an unexpected bolus, and you should feel just as safe.