Travel casualty…
When we were packing for this trip, I had to make some tough decisions on what to take and what to leave. Three months worth of diabetes gear takes up a LOT of room, and I definitely skimped on things like extra t-shirts or my favorite shampoo to make things fit. In an effort to save some space, I took my DexCom sensors out of their protective plastic packages. I knew right off the bat this was a risky move, since those bags keep them sanitary as well as protect the integrity of the sensors. I packed the opened sensors carefully in a clean ziploc bag, and arranged them delicately in a corner of my suitcase, thinking they’d be more or less protected through our journeys. I was very wrong:
Within a month of traveling, packing and repacking my crammed suitcase every other day resulted in many of the sensors getting mangled beyond use. By the time I realized how damaged they were getting, only about half were salvageable, and even those have all needed extra tape to help them adhere completely. The picture above shows the the ones where the adhesive was too tangled to use, or where the plunger of the insertion device had been pushed down and 1.) can’t be retracted and reused and 2.) Already exposed the needle to too much to be considered sanitary anymore.
Lesson learned: protective packaging is there for a reason, and in the future, I’ll give up one more t-shirt to save my supplies. With 31 days of travel left to go, I’ve got two more sensors I can use which should work if I can get two weeks out of each one. I’ll still be a few days short but I’d rather go without CGM on our last few days while we’re in Singapore and on planes. I’ll need to the constant monitoring when we have full day tours in Cambodia and Indonesia that involve lots of walking, bike riding, and brand new foods in brand new countries. Fingers crossed that I can get them to last!
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Comments
Haha Connor you captured that perfectly. Airplane seats and baseball game seats are my least favorite places to inject due to the close proximity of your neighbor. And though I’m often self conscious of injecting in those places, I too am shocked by how often people don’t notice!
I should be ok on sensors with the two I have left for at least three, if not four weeks depending on how good these sensors are. Such a stupid move I made though! Oh well, lesson learned.
I can only imagin how the sinking feeling I felt reading this was multiplied for you when you made the realization Alexis. I’m sure any Dex user will cringe….BUT your optimism is sound, and I’m confident this last month will be just another positive chapter in your epic journey!
I like your logic about being “Dex naked” towards the end of your trip. As long as you have plenty of strips, the cramped airplane bathroom is always fun for BG testing and insulin injecting (I have some fun pictures/experiences of that from the weekly LAX to ATL I’ll try and share some time). I also always enjoy blatantly bolus injecting in my seat in front of everyone. It’s amazing how absorbed people are in their own lives that most of the time the person you’re sitting next to doesn’t notice.