What is in my Bag?

Nikki at "Diabetes and Celiac Sunshine" blog asked the question: What is in your bag? Then she then proceeded to pour out all the dirty secrets us diabetics try to hide from most people in the world with a nice looking un-noticeable everyday bag.  Her bag was a nice fancy and very well organized bag which is the first step to living the right way with diabetes.  We use our bags constantly and they get put through everything so always start out with something that is of high standards (try to by name brand for their warranty) and made of quality materials.  When you look at my picture above you can see I carry an old school leather brief case to hide my diabetes lifestyle, or is it to keep my diabetes lifestyle in one place?  At the end of her post she put it out there for the rest of us to show what we have in our bags.  I think this is a great questin and whenever I get the chance to see what other diabetics or another camper carries in their daily bag I jump at the chance.  You can always pick up good ideas or products that make our diabetes lifestyle (or camping) easier to tote along with us.

This is going to get scary and I am not going to go through everything.  Remember I try to always be prepared for any sort of zombie attack.  From the beginning you can see I am a mess and my bag needs a thorough reorganizing.  You can see from the top of the picture meds that need refilling, the blue bag is my pump stuff (alcohol, cartridge, infusion set, insulin, old syringe as a backup, random over the counter meds), Then you can see some bills that need to be paid, a pocket full of random scout patches and checks, pen, grocery store discount cards, the red at the bottom is my glucagon pen, then a few snack bars, hand sanitizer, and lots more.

What you cant really see is that attached to my yellow "S" biner clip is my compass, magnesium fire starter, a flashlight is behind the biner in another pocket along with a pocket knife and in the pocket  a Swiss army knife with tweezers and a can opener (yes, two pocket knives in one pocet), batteries, and jolly ranchers.

I took out a majority of the things floating around and like I said before with the blue bag of pump supplies and glucagon injection kit I also have more snack bars of various reasons and types.  One snack bar is a fiber bar (you never know when you need to encourage a number 2), low calorie bar, and some health bar.  Then you have another pocket knife and this one is of the multi tool style, some single serve coffee bags, extra test strips and antibiotic ointment.

Then on top of that I keep my reading glasses in my bag and my test kit which consists of my rite in the rain notepad, finger sticker, meter, pen, and various Starbucks gift cards, allergy meds, more glucose tables, jump drive, library card, and band aids.

To top all this junk off I didn't even show all the papers and calendars I keep in the back of the brief case nor did I show you my wisdom teeth that were removed in 2004 that are in a sealed back in a hidden compartment of my brief case or all the mints and cough drops that are lurking at the bottom.  Yes I know I have a problem, it is just hard to not bring one of everything when you want to be prepared for every situation.  The comforting part about this is that my son knows if he is hungry there is a snack in my bag, if he needs first aid items that they are in my bag, or if he needs paper and a fire starter that they are in my bag.  The bag does get cleaned out every four to five months and most everything gets put into fresh Ziploc baggies or thrown away.  So now lets see what is in your bag.