International ‘betes.
Packing for any trip with diabetes is always an amazing exercise in the art of “did I forget that?” and “how much of this should I bring of this?” But when you add “traveling out of the country” to the pile of monkey wrenches you’re planning for, things get real complicated, real quick.
On Thursday, my boyfriend and I head south of the border for a dear friend’s wedding in Cabo San Lucas. We’re so stoked they picked an amazing destination for their wedding, because it makes it a vacation for us too. But the fact that we’ll be traveling internationally ups the ante for diabetes planning. Things you don’t worry about in America start cropping up: will there be a 24 hour pharmacy near where we’re staying? Do they sell the kind of batteries my meter needs there? What exactly does one bolus for fresh caught Mexican coastal lobster AND wedding cake in the same meal? These are questions you can’t always know the answer to, but you can try to be as prepared for as humanly possible.
Which inevitably means a bigger suitcase. Any time I’m traveling internationally, I do my best to pack for “worst case scenario” so that I’m not struggling to find supplies abroad. This doesn’t just mean packing extras of everything in the case that every diabetes item you have fails (which has never happened, by the way…knock on wood), it also means packing for the really crappy stuff like theft or inclement weather. When traveling far from home, I split diabetes supplies between my purse and carry-on or checked suitcase, making sure I have Humalog in both locations. If one bag gets stolen, I have rapid-acting stashed in another spot. And my prescriptions and doctor’s notes get treated with the same value as my passport -depending on where I’m traveling, those go in either a secret pouch worn on the inside of my clothes, or in the most secure location of the most secure bag that I have (usually my purse which is kept close to my body).
Speaking of doctor’s notes, I can’t tell you how important it is to have a note written in the language of the country you are visiting explaining you have diabetes and what all your devices are. Case in point, I traveled to Istanbul in 2008 for the Christmas and New Year holidays. I had no trouble at security on the way there, but during our travels, a terrorist now known as “The Underwear Bomber” attempted to blow up an US bound plane. You can imagine that security was stepped up a wee bit on our travels back. And by a “wee bit” I mean we went through eight security checkpoints to board our NYC-bound plane from Istanbul. And unfortunately, my OmniPod pump pods looked a little suspicious. The Turkish security guards immediately held up a pod with confused - and suspecting-looks on their faces. Thank goodness I had a doctor’s note translated into Turkish with me explaining what an “insulin pompassi” was. As soon as I showed the note, I was let through security, no questions asked.
I’m pretty well traveled, and I feel confident on how to pack for international trips these days when it comes to my diabetes. What still makes me worry though is the event that “something medical” happens while I’m abroad - diabetes related or not, and I might be forced to seek treatment at a local hospital. Yes, I know that people all over the world have diabetes and are treated well for their condition in many places across the globe, but one of my biggest d-fears is being in a country where I don’t speak the language, laid up in a hospital with someone trying to treat me with metformin and NPH. *Shudder*
But what can you do? Worry that something might happen and never travel? That ain’t gonna happen for this girl - there’s too much world out there to see. So all I can do is prepare for the worst and hope for the best - which is pretty much every day with diabetes, right? And pack my doctor’s note explaining my “pompassi.”
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Comments
@Tim - I am just shocked at your B-I-L’s insensitivity. Does he have a no passing out policy in his van?!?!?! I hate to tell him what ELSE I might need to do every two hours on a long car trip. He better stop the van … or find a car wash that does interiors.
I’ve traveled international since diabetes as well, as while I haven’t needed it I have had the local translations for diabetes, insulin, and sugar ready for use! 🙂
I have yet to travel out of the country since developing diabetes, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t encountered a few travelling problems just going down to the beach. Over the weekend, I went down to the Oregon Coast (I live in the Seattle area) for my birthday (46!) and encountered the problem of not being able to eat anytime I wanted to. My brother-in-law has a strict no eating policy in his new van, which is generally not a problem, except when HE’s under time constraints. I need to eat about every two hours. I can manage two and a half, but three is bad, and that’s what I had to do on Sunday. I have to learn to say, “give me five minutes outside the van.” He has not really seen me have a low blood sugar episode and I have no desire to show him one. I have also never been so out of it that I couldn’t treat a low by myself, but it’s been close. I need to prepare for it NOW because it will be too late when I’m unconscious.