Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Bikini Bottoms

Carrying an insulin pump around all day can be irritating, but even more so when you're wearing a bathing suit.  Just before my trip I was contemplating switching to pens for the eight days, but the more I thought about having to give myself multiple needles every single day, the more I convinced myself that I didn't want to switch.  Vince was also worried about the switch, seeing he has never seen me give multiple injections before.

Upon getting there, Vince said he realized why I wanted to switch, but I still stood by my choice to continue on with the insulin pump, despite it's irritating pull on my bikini bottoms.  There was no real issue with doing this, I took it off and threw it in the beach bag when I jumped in the water, checked when I got out, and re-hooked myself up. Most of the time I was lying down on a beach chair, so it wasn't an issue to have it sitting beside me (until that moment you forget it isn't clipped on your person and you get up and it goes swinging!)

I didn't notice too may looks as I walked around the resort with my pump on my hip - a few here in there, but I knew it was all curious eyes looking.  Like mentioned before, only two people asked me about it, and they had only seen the site at the time.  I managed to keep it dry, even though Vince was paranoid every time I jumped into the water - "WAIT! Did you take your pump off!"  

When we went on the excursion, I had to trust to leave my insulin pump in the beach bag under the hut.  I wasn't worried about it getting stolen, I knew that if I worried, it would ruin my trip and I wasn't going to let diabetes ruin my trip!   It was nice having periodic breaks from wearing it, as much as I understand the benefit of a waterproof pump, I rather take it off for playing around in the pool or ocean.

For anyone travelling with the insulin pump, I would tell you that it is totally up to you whether or not you think you can handle wearing the pump during your vacation, hooking and unhooking and maximum bolusing (haha!)   Just don't let diabetes take over your vacation, as much as we wish we could leave it at the airport, it has to come along with all its baggage.

Kayla

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