Will get you stared down, accused of cancer, and make otherwise interesting tan lines that can't be explained by anyone but yourself.
I'm not even kidding about the cancer thing. Apparently when you have something taped to your side and another thing stuck on your side with a tube running out of it to a pager...people really start making all sorts of wild guesses to comfort their children/own curiosity. But i don't mind the stares or the accusations, i'm a diabetic with my shirt off. If it wasn't for the chronic disease i'm annoyed with on a daily basis (don't ever let any diabetic tell you it's anything above annoying, they are liars and just want your sympathy) I would have people at the beach just making jokes at the expense of my rather scrawny frame (or my otherwise "pale" self, what do you want. I'm an IT guy. I sit with computers all days, indoors). Then again, i'd still be fine with that. THANKS TO THAT GENOME THING I DID, i know my body type is not going to change no matter what I do.
But I'll tell you one damn cool thing, that one thing stuck to my side in the picture with no tube running out of it is relaying my blood glucose levels to my pump wirelessly. Which equates to less fingersticks...because apart from how annoying that is several times during a day...the last thing I want to do is do that at a beach. I'm with friends, i'm not at work, and above all else - I just want to relax and do ABSOLUTELY nothing. What's more, disconnecting my insulin pump...leaving it in my backpack going out into the water and this thing still relay glucose levels. I don't even know what the range is of this device but whatever it is - it was enough to capture most of my sugars. So yes, it missed a few readings (does one every five minutes) but for the most part got them. Enough to see a trend and really that's all I care about.
So what's the point/moral of this post? Not much. Just being diabetic with electronic control at the beach...you know...a place with water. Whichever the case, I kept the pump on the beach and the sensor on myself in the water. No problems. So either Medtronic (the company that makes these devices) builds them really damn well or this is just a luck occurance. I'll go with luck as a minor splash on my pump last summer resulted in a free new replacement.
In my next post, I'm already feeling like explaining this disease for what it really is. An annoying, perfectly managable disease that if controlled will not have a single adverse effect on you...and how to do it and eat like you weren't diabetic AND for no healthcare profession to question it. Maybe I should dispell some diabetes myths and also make sure this doesn't turn into a diabetes blog. That'd just be stupid.
