Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Bag of Diabetes

Back in August I was out camping.  I was prepared with four spare infusion sets, long acting insulin in case my pump broke, some IV prep, and of course the usually millions of test strips and batteries.  We headed out on a Friday night and by the time it was 11:00am on Saturday morning I only had one infusion set left.  At this point I made the call to my good buddy Jeff who was off the wagon, I mean his pump for the past two or so years.  It has been fifteen years since I haven't had a penis, I mean insulin pump attached to my belly.  So he and I talked over the phone and I saved my last infusion set and went to old school diabetes 101 basics of long term insulin and short term insulin.  I of course shot short on all my insulins at first not wanting to go low while pooping in the woods or anything.  In the end the rest of the camping trip was a success but I lingered for more of this non pump lifestyle.  So I kept my pump off for another day, then a week, and now it has been something like two months and being pump free has been the most amazing diabetes break of my life.  I now know why the caged bird sings or something like that.  I understand why Jeff stopped using his pump.  I don't know how long I will stay this way but for now I am enjoying it.  The other cool thing is that I quit using my diabetes man purse and went to another cool trick that Jeff does.  He just puts his diabetes crap in a zip lock bag and goes with it.  I started doing this and have loved it as well.  I embrace the scared person who actually can see a needle in my bag or a vial of clear liquid.  The shock and awe I see in peoples eyes finally lets me show the world that I have a disease and let me have it.  Not, hey you just don't eat cookies and everything is good right, kind of society.  I embrace my diabetes and if you ever want to see men and women nearly go into a panic attack, I recommend you to do the zip lock bag test and report to me what you see.

1 comment:

  1. WOOT WOOT!
    there is a certain je ne sais quois about not pumping. Wait, it's not je ne sais quoi.. it's a known freedom that you can't quite explain unless you've been attached to a pump 24/7

    coming off the pump was the greatest and i'll never go back!!! as long as I still have diabetes that is....

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