Hypo Tax got me like....

I have been busily documenting my recent trip overseas, so please excuse my absence. I'm about halfway through that, and it's taking me a really long time. So I took a break from here.

This is relevant to my trip overseas, I promise.

The UK recently introduced a Soft Drink Tax, to come in to effect in 2018. Drinks that have more than 8gm of sugar per 100ml will be taxed at a higher amount. I'm just going to put it out there that I struggled in the UK to find adequate hypo treatment. Everything already has reduced sugar over there. I spent time way too much time when I was hypo desperately reading the labels of drinks trying to find something that was of a high enough quick acting sugar percent to bring my BGLs back up to a safe number. When normally in Australia I can drink 1/4 of a bottle of sprite to treat a hypo, in the UK I was having to guzzle half or a full bottle to treat a hypo because of the reduced sugar. Extra calories I didn't need, and it left me feeling really seedy, because I don't normally drink much soft drink.

The other point to to make is - I don't think that a soft drink tax is going to do jack for the UK, when a sample standard diet includes fish, chips, pies, clotted cream, beer, pasties, salt on everything and anything else you can name that will clog your arteries. Jamie Oliver is one of those that pushed heavily for the sugar tax and I did have the misfortune to eat in one of his restaurants. No surprise that the healthiest thing on the menu was a fatty pork burger. You did have the option to change the chips for salad - if you paid extra. But we already knew that Jamie Oliver is very hypocritical when it comes to healthy eating, so no surprise there.

So Australia has recently decided they would like to jump on the cave-man 'sugar bad' trend and is looking at introducing a similar tax. I'm disappointed. I'm sick of the sugar fear mongering that goes on. The more we talk about sugar in these terms, the harder it is for the public to truly understand diabetes and how it actually all works. The message about 'sugar bad' gets through all right - but only enough for everybody ever to question why I'm having sugar if I have diabetes, because that's what they're told it gives you. If I already have diabetes, I'm not sure what they think telling me 'sugar bad' is going to achieve; maybe if I don't drink sugary drinks it will stop me from getting some extra diabetes on top of my diabetes?

The 'sugar bad' fear messages only serve to instill in the senseless public that people with diabetes chose this disease. It encourages hate towards us, as a by-product of the fear they feel when they do a mental calculation of how much soft drink they have consumed and have conculded that they have put themselves at risk of Type 2 Diabetes. It encourages poor diets (such as that god-awful Paleo diet that people crap on about) in wrong-footed attempts to 'undo' all the sugar they have consumed in their life. 

Sugar saves my life, on an almost daily basis. I don't think it's fair to tax that, or disillusion the public about the role that sugar plays in helping me to control my BGLs, and more importantly, stay alive. 

Currently sugary drinks are the best and cheapest means I have to treat a hypo. Drinks are often the best way to treat a hypo because simply swallowing when you're in the brain fog of a hypo is much easier than chewing and then swallowing. 

Whilst the tax may be aimed at the drink companies, they are more than likely to pass this on to consumers, or start to make products with less sugar (and thereby less effective in raising BGLs to safe levels). A 2L Coles lemonade costs little more than a dollar and can be used for about 10 hypos. Similarly, a 6 pack of poppers is only a few dollars, coming in at something like 50c per hypo. Glucose tablets on the other hand, whilst they are great to keep in my handbag, cost a small fortune. If you go by the way of Amazon, you can get the bottles of 50 pretty cheap, but be prepared to offer up your first born to pay for shipping. Even buying the True Plus brand available in Australia is obscenely expensive. A pack of 50 costs $15 and will treat approximately 12 hypos. This is more than $1 per hypo, when a Coles Lemonade is less than $2 for 10 hypos. 

It should be the aim of the diabetes bodies in Australia to protect the interests of those with diabetes first. Which means that if they want to support this sort of sugar-hate (and in turn diabetes-hate) movement, they need to have a strategy for education about how sugar works so that I can stop being harrased by the know-it-all who sees my medic-alert tag as I save my life with a Sprite. Importantly, they need to be ensuring that we will continue to have fairly-priced access to hypo treatments. 

Add to this that we can't nanny everybody. At some point, you have got to realise that people are free to make their own unhealthy choices. Education about food needs to be introduced earlier to children so they can make the correct choices to look after their bodies. I understand that we would like to decrease the rates of type 2 diabetes, but the people who get Type 2 Diabetes from lifestyle aren't just drinking soft drink. There's so many more factors to Type 2 Diabetes than a like for soft-drinks. You need to be looking at increasing exercise rates, reducing portion sizes, educating about healthy food choices. They've also been making those choices for a very long time, and probably won't stop with a price increase.

And honestly? While Macca's, KFC, chips and other fatty, salty and calorie-laden fast foods are around, we don't have a hope on curbing obesity rates by introducing a simple sugary-drink tax. Extend the tax to them and maybe we can start talking about potential nation-wide health benefits.

Until you do that, I spend enough on my healthcare already, don't make me add 'hypos' to the list of reasons I will probably never own a house.

Diabetes.It

I collect Diabetics. Accidentally. Not in a creepy, Ed Gein sort of way. I just happen to find them, everywhere.

In Italy, I found 2. Or 2 found me my pump. You can't really miss my pump, especially if you know what a pump is. King sticks out a little.

I met the first Type 1 diabetic in Venice. My husband and I were on a bit of a search for good gnocchi. Google recommended 'Osteria Al Milion', so off we went.

Just need a miniature quaffle...

It was a very warm, inviting little restaurant, and the quidditch-hoop inspired candle holders gave me a good vibe. We were seated and given the free bread basket that you seem to get whenever you sit down for a meal in Italy. I noticed that the lady who attended to us was eyeballing my pump. I didn't pay much attention, figuring she was probably wondering what sort of ancient MP3 player I had attached to my hip. A different waitress took our order. As I ordered, I noticed the same lady still eyeballing King from across the room. As soon as the waitress left our table, she hurried over.

"I have one too". Proudly, she lifted her shirt to show me her pump. "But mine is old". A beautiful and well kept white MiniMed Veo sat clipped over the lip of her trousers. If hers was old, she must have taken the best care of it. King is less than 6 months old and he looks like he's been in a few cat fights in that time.



I smiled in acknowledgment and she took the encouragement, coming over to stand next to us. "Your only the second person I have seen with diabetes. I saw another pump once, in the market." She paused. "It's hard".

I agreed with her, and we had a bit of a chat about the joys of diabetes. By now, the restaurant was filling up a bit. She excused herself as our food arrived. Before she left to attend to other patron she turned back with a warm smile, and gave me the carb counts to my gnocchi, the panna cotta I had ordered for desert and the bread I had eaten.

Pannacotta...carb count: Delicious so it doesn't matter.

A week or so later found my husband and I in Sorrento (where the weather was remarkably warm). From Sorrento, we took a day trip out to Pompeii, which was only a half hour train ride by the Circumvesuviana line. Pompeii was quite warm, and for the first time since arriving in Europe, I was walking around blissfully sans jumper, T-shirt only. My T-shirt of choice just so happened to be my Type 1 Diabetes memes, "Type One Dia-Bad-Ass" Tee.

It was as my husband and I were trudging our weary way back out of Pompeii that I found my second diabetic in Italy. I was just hitting hypo (after a 3 hour walk around Pompeii in the sun) and focusing on placing one foot in front of the other when I heard "Are you diabetic?". My head swivelled towards the direction the magic word had come from. "I saw your T-shirt". An American girl had outstretched her hand towards me, holding in it, yet another glorious Medtronic pump.

"Yep!" My face split into a shaky-hypo grin.

My husband shook his head as the American Girl and I started up a conversation. "Seriously? You have a superpower. Stand together, I'm taking a photo".

We obeyed, and he clicked a photo, while her friend (or boyfriend, I don't know) did the same.

I didn't find out her name, but I do have a picture of her. And I know she's from California, and that she's excited for the 640G, which they don't have in America yet, but her UK friends have told her all about it. I also know that she's awesome by default.

I'm in England now, and just waiting for London to give up the diabetic goods!

Brisbane Airport Take 2

I don't know how this is going to turn out.

I'm snuggled up in my hotel room in South Korea right now, tapping this out on a portable keyboard the size of my hand, and fighting with blogger about how to login from a tablet. Blogger is definitely winning this fight, and has forced me on to a very basic app with little functionality. But I'm trying anyway, just so Blogger knows that it hasn't broken my spirit yet.

So my honeymoon Fiiinally rolled around. Only 9 months after my wedding (That sounds like a long time. I could have had a baby in that time if Id wanted to!) We're off to Europe for a month, with a stopover in Korea tonight.

My insulin is back in the Fridge (*fingers crossed it lasts because the Fridge to Go was pretty much room temperature when we got to the hotel), and my BGLs behaved quite nicely on the plane, stayingf between 4 - 10.

I did get randomly seletced to do a full body scan at Brisbane International. My immediate thought was panic. Followed by panic. Then I remembered the handy little airport security card Medtronic give you, which yes, I had bought with me.

So random security guy (who looked very familiar,) who picked me out for this is trying to tell me the full body scanners are fine to go through with a pump because people with pace makers go through.  I wasn't having any of it and thrust my little palm sized airport security instructions under his nose. Unfortunately for me, the instructions do say that the pump is removable (which contradicted my doctors note). So my options were limited. I had to do the scan.

I made it really obvious that Iwas feeling very anxious about taking my pump off and just handing it over to a random I had never met before. They must train them better at International, because he actually listened. He explained the process step by step, and answered all my questions (unlike the last security douchebag I came across in domestic.

The deal was that he would walk my pump around the scanner, in my sight at all times. Then he stood at the other side of the scanner as I got in. As Igot scanned, he held the pump up in the air, hands towards me, at my sight level. Door opened, I got my pump back. Then he walked me over to the dexplosives/drug swab dude, explaining exactly why they were swabbing the pump, which was basically because it hadnt been through any screening points.

Whilst I wasn't entirely happy at having to take my pump off and hand it over, I was very thankful to the security guy for realising how anxious I was about this and taking the time to explain what was happening and why, and doing what he could to help a situation that I wasn't comfortable with.So kudos to him.

Only 2 more airports to go through, and hopefully I won't get selected for 'random screening'.

Tabletop

My husband and I have started walking more. I mean, I wouldn't really call it walking. I would call this hiking painfully. Basically if the hike looks like it a unique form of agonsing torture caused by severe leg cramps and burning lungs then that's what we're walking.

I have suspicions my husband likes doing this so much as a couples activity because I can't breathe heavily and talk at the same time.

On Sunday we decided that doing death by Tabletop might be a good idea, as we were staying in Toowoomba for my bestie's housewarming.

Tabletop as seen from Picnic Point

Hugh, my bestie & I set off for Tabletop. The trip there was a whole lot of me and my anxiety freaking out about taking my little tiny Micra out on a dirt road to the wilderness*, and my bestie explaining as calmly as you can to someone with irrational phobias that her sisters little Swift did the trip 3 times a week.

We did eventually make it. All of my car tyres didn't spontaneously and simultaneously puncture on the gravel and go flat, so that was a plus.

Tabletop isn't a far walk. It's less than 2km return. It is a bit of a scramble though. You start up a steep little camel hump, get about 5 meters of reprieve, before the path is no longer a path. It becomes a jumble of quite large rocks that you need hands and knees (and in my case, bum) to scramble over. At one point I knocked my cannula, which was in my leg, heavily into a rock as I pulled myself up.

At the end of the camel's hump & the start of actual Tabletop, my BGL was quite comfortably on 13. I was happy with that; having purposefully not given at insulin at breakfast in order to exercise.

We continued the scramble, climbing up a steep path of shale. Rocks that slid underneath your feet as you climbed. This was probably the most exhausting part of the climb up, and probably the only spot we paused to catch our breath.

Looking up at the last climb

Finally, the last part of the hike up was basically a rock wall. I stopped here, not because I didn't have the fitness to go up (it was probably less than 20m to the top), but because I have a massive fear of heights (lots of my anxieties were challenged on Sunday). It was basically a rock face on the edge of a cliff. I'm also prone to fainting when I get really nervous. I made the call that passing out on a near-vertical climb was probably not in my best interests.

A flatter area of shale

My husband and best friend climbed up while I did more BG checks. BG was still good.

We started our climb back down, slowly over the shale, as it slipped even more when you head downhill. Then scrambling back over the camel's hump. About halfway back over the rocks, I spotted a shiny little familiar object in a small gap between the rocks.

A test strip. One that I could identify had come from a Verio meter. Somehow, as my legs ached from pushing up over and over again, I found it comforting to know that one of my kind had been here before me.

With renewed vigor (and feeling spurred on by being able to see the speck that was my car below) I finished the walk. BGL was 10.2.

I would have called it a success. Except for one minor detail. Remember that bump to my cannula earlier? Neither did I. Until an hour later when my pump was alarming 'No Delivery, blocked insulin flow'. A BGL of 23.3 (a 13 point rise in an hour) makes you feel pretty sick.

There's nothing like being physically exhausted with a high BG.

Thanks D, I really owe you one.




*Where the supposed wilderness is probably less than 5km from Toowoomba itself. We definitely could have walked back to civilisation in less than 2 hours. But try telling that to anxious me. Anxious me doesn't listen to reason very well. After all, I think Mt. Coot-tha is in the wilderness, and I managed an amazing panic attack the other day when my husband got us lost in Daisy Hill Reserve (I actually laid down on the dirt path and proclaimed I didn't want to die, and only felt relieved when we came across a sign pointing back to the car park).


_________________________________________________________________________________

Reason Why I'm Hypo: After correcting that 23.3, I spent between 6 - 8pm hypo with BGLs between 2 - 3. I can't say if it was due to the exercise or the ridiculous heat wave Brisbane has going on right now.

Be Prepared

Scar's lyrics have absolutely nothing to do with this post. As far as I am aware, I won't be plotting to overthrow Mr. Turnbull and take over leadership of Australia anytime soon. Although if they continue on with this idiotic idea that we should Americanise our health care system, maybe I might find myself a-plotting. All I can say is, once the pathology companies start charging me for blood tests that I don't even want to take in the first place; my endo is going to have to be satisfied with one single HbA1c test per year.  And she won't get me to do any of those frilly extra tests like cholesterol and kidney function that always get ordered. You want bad diabetic, libs? You got it.

I forget where I was going with this post, because I am definitely replaying the Lion King in my head right now. I know what I'll be watching tonight.

Be prepared. Constant Vigilance. 

Listening to Made-Eye has taught me well (But really, when has anything from Harry Potter not taught me well?).

I keep a spare vial of insulin in the fridge at work. Because CONSTANT VIGILANCE. I take spare needles with me because CONSTANT VIGILANCE. Spare Lancing device. CONSTANT VIGILANCE.

When you're diabetic, constant vigilance works out well. Diabetics are still, surprisingly, human. Humans make mistakes. Some humans might leave home with 2 hours left in their reservoir. Some humans might arrive at work, and find out they didn't remember to bring any extra insulin with them. Or reservoir connectors.

So I am very grateful for all these safety measures that I put in place. The insulin in my office fridge saved me a dash home during peak hour. The pen needles in the bottom of my bag meant I could inject the insulin into the reservoir in lieu of having no connectors.

A spare lancing device meant that when I was coming back from Japan a few years ago now, and my husband dropped and lost my lancing device in a crowded plane, I could still test my BGLs.

Diabetes requires CONSTANT VIGILANCE.

Always

I identify as many things. Type 1 Diabetic. Wife. Daughter. Sister. Team Michael shipper. Nerd. The quintessential 00's emo kid. Metal-head. Adult colouring-in enthusiast (although honestly, I've been printing colouring in pages off the interwebs for years, this new colouring craze just makes my hobby more accessible). Pokemon Master. Fussy eater.

A child of the Harry Potter generation.

It was ridiculously cute when my sister messaged me to ask me if I was ok today. 

Rest in Peace, Alan Rickman.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T

Today as I was browsing along in the interwebs, as one does, I came across an insightful & beautiful article written by a girl who was diagnosed with genital herpes. Although I don't have herpes or any related diseases, I still found myself agreeing with every word she had written about the stigmatisation of diseases such as herpes, HIV/AIDS, and of course...diabetes.

A mere 2 hours later, in a completely unrelated manner, I had a friend throw this picture up on Facebook:

What I'm sure was meant as a self-congratulatory pat-on-the-back came across as insensitive and uneducated on many levels. This picture tells people to be ashamed of themselves if they can't 'say the same'. It offers no chance for explanation (not that any is needed. In this life we live, stuff happens all the time that is completely out of your control). It again reinforces that specific diseases can make us less worthy to be called human beings. Having or not having AIDS does not make you a better person, nor does it increase or decrease your worth as a person. It doesn't change who you are as a person or what you've done, or will do, in your life.

It made me appreciate Elle's article even more.

Even the title of her article gave me the 'I feel you' fuzzies that can only come with knowing someone else out there gets you, however indirectly. Titled 'Why I Love Telling People I have Herpes', I feel very similarly about my T1D. Life and my interactions with others becomes so much easier when my T1D is announced and out in the open. Just like the author, Elle, I had a brief 6 month period where I felt like less of a person, and more a giant cesspool of self-blame, for having a disease that has been so stigmatized as something to be ashamed of. Diabetes is very much portrayed as a lazy persons disease with a very defined description of how hideously awful we are as human beings. I briefly wondered if I would wake up one day and have transformed overnight into the stereotypical diabetic - terribly unmotivated, largely obese and all of a sudden extremely ugly. Safe to say that so far that hasn't happened to me - because so far, diabetes is a disease that doesn't concern itself with how you look or act - It just picks a person and forces them to become best friends forever.

Like Elle, I also get a little kick out of the moment I tell someone I have T1D. Their reaction often opens up a natural conversation about T1D and Diabetes in general and gives me a chance to educate someone about what living with diabetes is really like. Its a chance to change the way we view and think of people with diabetes in a negative sense and hopefully one day, turn diabetes into just another disease that sucks to have, instead of a disease that society says we should be ashamed to have. A chance to reintroduce the human aspect of living with diabetes. I can only hope that if enough of these conversations are going on - by people with all types of diabetes - that there might be a day in the future when I am not asked why I am not fat.

People with Diabetes deserve to have their disease and their own sense of self treated with respect. The current generalised attitude denotes one of shame, avoidance and denial. Whilst we know people in the medical profession are taught the pathophysiological mechanisms of diabetes and its contracture, they too can become prey to this way of thinking that we should do as they say because we brought it on ourselves to begin with. Too many stories of doctors or nurses treating a person with diabetes as a lesser person or someone who needs to be 'controlled' by them, because of the way they percieve us, and our apparent lack of respect for self.

I have self-respect in bucketfuls. Self respect is far deeper a notion than how many minutes you worked out for today or what food you put in your mouth. Self respect is about consideration for your body, and all of its needs, including sometimes, the need to forego looking after one aspect of your health, in order to build up another. Its about recognising that balance between mental and physical health. You can have self respect and be in burn out. To me, self respect is about being able to speak up when people say or do something that doesn't sit right with you - including telling a medical professional that maybe they haven't got it right. Because I respect my body so much, that I do all sorts of unimaginable things to make sure I keep kicking on. Its through respect of my self and my body that I push needles into my skin and lancet my fingers.

We need more Elle's in this world. People who'll tell it like it is, and take embarrasment and shame away from ordinary situations.

Meet Mr. Awful

There are some moments (or in my case, years) of life that you'd rather forget. My biggest regret in life was the degree I received my bachelors in. My whole body cringes when I think about it, and as soon as a thought or memory related to it enters my head, I force myself to think of something else.

One of those gigantic mistakes I don't want to face up to. Not just because the degree was worthless and a waste of all of my HECS money (ohhhh, the HECS money).

But because I hadn't really become 'me' yet when I did that degree. I was miles away from the woman I am today when I did that degree. I hadn't learnt to stick up for myself yet. I hadn't found my passions in life yet. I was just this in this awkward 'post-teen' phase where you don't really know how to be a person and you're kind of testing out what things are like in the adult world. You don't realise that you have the ability to fully control your own future. I would take my emo teen years a million times over reliving that stage of my life. Actually I really liked my emo teen years. MCR and The Used for life. 

Not being me presented a problem. These days I would call myself an over-opinionated, strong willed (yet caring), childish and yet mature woman. Before diabetes and during my degree I was weak. I didn't stand up for myself.

So I cringe when I think of my degree because I inevitably remember all those moments when I should have been stronger. When I think of some of the lecturers and tutors who took their own bitter feelings about an industry that doesn't really exist in Australia out on students. When I got the most awful email I have ever recieved in my life from a lecturer and was told by the administration staff to apologise to that lecturer when I raised it. And I did. Because by that stage I was so close to then end, that I didn't want to jeopardise the freedom from that awful degree that I could almost grasp. Then I found out later that he had acted the same way towards other students and I felt ashamed that I didn't stop it earlier.

I cringe when I think of the lecturer who acted almost openly hostile. It was unfortunate that he was basically the principle lecturer. Someone who offered help and advice only if you pandered to him. And if you didn't pander, made it obvious that he didn't have the time of day for you.

He used to live down the road from me when I was in my final year of university. I ran into him once when I was collecting a parcel from the post office. It was my last semester at uni and I had definitely realised by then how much I hated my degree. He said 'Hello' in an uninterested manner. I replied with "this is awkward" and walked out as quickly as I could. The next time my lease was up for renewal I moved out of that suburb.

I saw him again when I was shopping the other day. He didn't see me. I didn't know if I wanted him to notice me or not. Inevitably, when you see someone after a while, they ask what you're doing. I don't think he would like my answer, but I really want to tell it to him.

I'm doing nothing with my degree. As best as I can pinpoint, I blame my degree for my Type 1 Diabetes. The degree caused me such severe stress that I was regularly passing out from the sheer pressure of completing it. For the last year of my degree I was visiting the PA Hospital for CBT to help with my anxiety. Funnily enough, I never needed to again after I left uni. And Funnily enough, I was diagnosed with diabetes less than 3 months after leaving uni. When I had pressure put on me again to go back and help further with sending out our final grad project to film festivals across the world.

I wanted to tell him that he was part of the reason why I will spend my entire life fighting to keep my blood glucose under control. That if I lose a leg, or go blind, he played a part in that.

At the same time, I didn't want to say that to him. Because I don't hate my life with diabetes. I've accepted that it is part of my life, for all my life. And telling him what an awful person he was isn't going to change anything. It would just dredge up horrible memories of diagnosis, which I am past.

I made the best choice, and I walked away quickly, before he could see me. And really, he's probably been so rude to so many other students since, that he wouldn't have remembered who I was.

New year Cranks

My diabetes plan for 2016 is pretty simple: Try, try, and try again. Educate people, because I became very lax about this last year. 

No sooner had the New Year rung in when ,yep, another crackpot cure pops up in the mainstream media. Please guys, leave these so called 'cures' in the dark ages of 2015 where they belong. There is a reason that we no longer use medieval medicinal techniques. 

So today's farce of a cure? I'm just going to say one word. Herbal.

Teucrium (or Golden Germander), to be exact. The one that happens to be banned for herbal use in several European countries because of it's toxicity...causing heart disease and liver failure among many other pleasant side effects. But never mind that! Because media wants you to know that some herbologist thinks that it might have glucose lowering properties. So we obviously NEED to have a news story, entirely about its use in Type 1 Diabetes. The sad thing is, it was picked up by a lot of Type 1 Diabetics, some of whom I know. People who can usually smell bullpoop a mile away when the word cure is used loosely with the generalised term 'diabetes'...but haven't this time because the entire story was focused on use in Type 1. Friends actually shared this story with me. It was very awkward. There's no polite way to tell people that, even though you know it comes from a place of caring, that they should probably just ask your opinion instead so they can understand why you don't particularly support ideas like this.

News stations should really look at implementing some sort of New Years Resolution to actually do some research and think about who their stories are hurting before they cast them out to the masses. Masses aren't typically very smart. Herd mentality just leads them around in circles, bleating the same useless pseudo-science at each other, until someone becomes convinced and they die.

So the basic gist of it is: Channel 9 picked up on some research going on at Curtin University (note to self: my children will not be allowed to attend this university) that looks at using an extract of Teucrium in pill form as a glucose lowering agent. The researcher basically describes insulin as the devil.  "Unfortunately, insulin injections are not only invasive but can be very dangerous for the user as the exact amount to be injected varies depending on the individual and the meal they consume (not set amount each time)." Yes. Exactly. The amount that needs to be taken is quite variable person to person. Please explain how a pill hopes to keep up with this, I'm very keen to know. You CANNOT vary a pill when you are sick, or stressed, or have exercised more, or your cold or hot or if you wore an itchy orange sweater vest.

Needles aren't the funnest of things, that is true. They do however, keep me alive. You know what's more dangerous than injecting insulin? Not injecting it. I hear being dead can be quite dangerous if you want to continue living. 

Insulin is not the enemy, so stop demonizing it for doing its job and allowing your body to absorb sugar. I am gosh-darn grateful that I have the privilege of sticking a a needle into myself so that I can live. It also happens to be insulin that my body is no longer creating. Not herbs (maybe I missed this in biology). So it just makes sense to me that I continue to replace lost insulin with well...insulin. 

So they plan to extract parts of this herb to pop in a pill. The issues presented so far are: that the solution they have come up with lasts for only half and hour. I like sleep. Blissful, unbroken sleep. I don't even think new parents get up every half an hour. 24 hour insulin with extra shots at mealtimes win hands down. 

The next issue is that the herb works by enhancing insulin production. Type 1 diabetes = no insulin production. No matter how many times you do the maths, 8 x 0 always equals 0. You can't enhance something that doesn't exist.  

At this stage they don't know how the extract works. They don't know the active chemicals. They've done some rudimentary tests on rats who were given diabetes by engineering. It's not the same thing. 

From now on, I'd like to see media attention given to actual accomplishments. When you run 5 minute slots on pseudo-science and crazy hippies who think herbs are going to save the world from Diabetes, you are holding back real research. From real scientists. Who have evidence. And have made stuff that actually helps people with diabetes to live long, happy and healthy lives.  (CGM <3, Pumps <3, insulin! <3 <3 <3). 

Next Departure: Sensitivity

I think there's a lot to be said for proper training in the work place and certain jobs regarding people with Chronic Illnesses. If there's a possibility that you are going to have a conversation with someone about their chronic illness, then you should probably know how to actually have that conversation.

Whether it be that you work in chronic illness, work at a hospital, doctors surgery, medicare, pharmacy, manufacture goods relating to chronic illness, police officer, bus driver or security guard.

For some of these the training required might be less intensive. A bus driver just needs to know that he can bend the rules of the company if the need arises or how to accommodate someone with a chronic illness or disability. They do make allowances for the disabled on a daily basis, and I have smashed a popper down more times than I can count despite the blaringly obvious 'No food, no drink' rule. Thankfully, I have never had to explain why I've decided to chug one down mid-trip. I can only assume that the drivers have received proper training. Or that they've given up completely and are just driving in a mundane stupor waiting eagerly for the end of their trip.

For some, the training is obviously not intensive enough.

I travel quite a lot for work and family matters. My work sees me running patient education days in every state of Australia throughout the year, and my husbands family are settled at seemingly random areas of the country.

I catch a lot of planes. I've got diabetes down pat when I catch a plane. I've got my entire plane routine down pat, from the way I pack my bag to the clothes delegated as travel only comfy clothes.

My travel only comfy clothes, through no particular care or thought, cover my pump. It's not on display. Somehow last week my shirt had gotten all bundled up and tucked in to my pants and my pump was on display as I walked through airport security.

My bag full of syringes, needles, cannulas, insulin and other diabetes paraphanelia got through just fine. I don't think the guy staring at the screen even looked twice.

I did not get through just fine.

I've never been held up for diabetes before.

I walked through the metal detector. It of course, did not go off and I walked forward to collect my bag.

"Is that an insulin pump?" one of the many security guards inquired.

"Yes" I nodded, feeling relieved that he knew what it was, and thinking there wouldn't be questions about why I hadn't taken it off for screening.

"Right. In here." His manner had changed. I was pointed in the direction of a cordoned off area.

"Sorry, why?"

"Just stand in there." I had no idea why I was all of a sudden being asked to move to a different area, away from my husband and belongings.

"Ok. But can you explain what's going on?"

No answer, just a more pronounced motion for me to walk where he wanted me to walk.

I'm used to the 'random' drug swipes that I 'randomly' get selected for everytime (I think they do have a private signal to select you for this when they spot needles/syringes in your bag because it has happened for every one of the 20+ flights I have been on since being diagnosed). I wasn't being told to go to the random drug test guy. I was being told to go away from him.

So I stood in this little cordoned off area, with this security guy glaring at me. I felt like he was sizing me up. I didn't know why. All I knew was that there were no problems until he saw my insulin pump. Which I had a doctors note for. Sitting in my bag that I wasn't allowed to get.

"Ok. Go back through the metal scanner."

"I still don't understand what's going on"

"Just go back through the scanner."

I didn't want to miss my flight, so I didn't argue. So I walked back through the metal scanner. Again, nothing happened, Nothing ever happens.

The guard held up his hands for me to stop before I collected my bags again.

I could see random drug swab guy staring at me and ignoring everyone else who walked past him.

"Ok. Get your bags and walk forward."

I was immediately directed to random drug swab guy. No surprise there. It was obvious by this stage that I was being treated like a criminal because I have diabetes.

My pump was the only thing he swabbed. Nothing came up and I was reluctantly let go.

Without any explanation about why I was treated like I had done something wrong. Without the process of what they were doing ever being explained to me, despite repeatedly asking them. There were 5 security guards in the area. None of them had the bright idea to explain to someone why they were being singled out for having accidentally displayed their chronic illness.

My husband didn't understand why I was upset, because they were just doing their job. I'm fine with them doing their job, which is to stop drugs and weapons and stuff going through the airport. I wasn't fine with the way they acted when doing their job. Clearly, part of their job needs to include some sensitivity training. Airports make me nervous enough without being led away without explanation and asked to stand separately from everyone else. If they had bothered to explain, it would have been a completely different experience for me.

For someone with diabetes, these experiences can have follow on effects in terms of glycaemic control.

Lesson learnt. I will make sure to hide my pump every time I go through an airport now.



_________________________________________________________________________________
Today's reason why I'm hypo:

3 days without incidence. Would it be obvious if I told you the last place I hypoed was at the aiport for my return journey? Because I had anxiety going through security given my previous interaction with them.