What it Takes

Ever wonder what it takes to be gone for a week with a diabetic child?


Here's what it takes....


Here's what you see:





* insulin cartridges (what you put the insulin in - it goes into the pump)


* adhesive remover (gets off the old site easily)


* alcohol wipes (to keep things clean)


* insets (the pink things - contains the tubing, the catheter that goes under the skin, the new site sticker thing and the needle that inserts it all)


* magic cream ( numbing cream to numb the new site)


* extra plugs (to plug the site when we unhook the pump - for baths, swimming, etc)


* extra battery cover for the pump


* Tegaderm (like a bandaid - covers the magic cream while it works it's magic)


* hand sanitizer


* extra batteries for the pump and the remote


* extra lancets (what pricks her finger - we use and LOVE the accu-check multiclix)


* bg test strips (we need a LOT)


* syringes (just in case the pump quits working - we use a very small pediatric syringe)


* rubber gloves (to apply the magic cream)


* blood ketone tester (gives an immediate ketone level - very important if sick or when ketones appear)


* meter/remote, bg test strips, and clicker (we carry this with us EVERYWHERE! We use the meter to check Avery's bg - but it is also a remote and we can bolus her (give her insulin) with the meter instead of getting out her pump. Again, we LOVE the multi-clicks lancet device (clicker) to prick her finger.)


* a bag of extra supplies (inset, glove, cream, tegaderm, adhesive remover, alcohol wipes.... it goes everywhere with us just in case...)


* insulin - aka Liquid Gold (we carry a vial around with us all the time)


* syringes (we carry a few with us at all times - just in case)


* syringe magnifier (we need itty, bitty doses of insulin and found the magnifier to be a life saver when we were doing MDI (multiple daily injections) and giving a bolus of .25u)


* juice, smarties, and m&m's to treat lows (the juicy juice box has 13g carbs - perfect! However, we found at Wal-Mart in Florida smaller boxes of ORGANIC apple juice with 13g carbs - they had Big Bird on them... Nature's Best??? I like these better! Have yet to find organic smarties.... ha ha ha)


* Glucagon (the life saving medicine in a syringe that we use in case she ever passes out and can not swallow juice)

All of this....





Just to keep my child alive for 7 days.



Humbling? Oh, yes.


Stressful? Oh, yes!


We had no problems flying with our supplies. We packed everything into one bag along with the travel we got from our endocrinologist. It basically said that we needed to take certain things on the plane and they better not say anything about it or my sleep-starved, stressed-out, self could very possibly go off the deep end! Ok, so it didn't exactly say those exact words. But it was close!


Airport securing in both cities were totally cool about it. They didn't even look at the letter. Supplies were fine - no questions asked. Last summer, they took everything out and looked at it, inspected the juice, etc... Not this time.


We decided to go ahead and take the pump off before we went thru the machines. If you travel with a pump, keep in mind that the airport security folks don't really know anything about pumps. They wanted to put it thru the x-ray machine! NO WAY! We had to make sure that they knew that it could NOT go thru the machine and they needed to hand check it. Both places did that with no problems. You just have to stay on your toes!


We also decided to suspend the pump when taking off and landing. You don't have to do this but we had heard that altitude can affect insulin delivery. Again, no big deal.


So, the biggest challenge in traveling with an insulin pump and supplies was the packing and remembering of everything! You sure need a LOT of stuff to live with diabetes! But how wonderful that we have all of this technology and supplies that makes living and traveling with D so much easier than it used to be! It might have taken an entire bag of it's own, but I'd take that any day over the old glass syringe that needs boiled and the needles that need hand sharpened!