Guest blog: Beautifying Diabetes Technology

As I begin a new job this week, I’m pleased to have several friends standing in so my website doesn’t go barren. It’s also a great way to share some other diabetic blogs you may have not seen before. Today’s blog is from Stacey who blogs over at The Girl with the Portable Pancreas. Stacey will be commemorating her 30th year with type 1 diabetes this December. She’s been using her portable pancreas (a.k.a. insulin pump) for more than four years and the Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitor for over two. She works as a financial officer in the investment banking business in New York. The things most dear to her include her husband, her identical twin sister, her nieces and nephew and her family & friends. She’s a tech junkie who loves laughter, good food and fitness. She lives by the words – “if life gives you 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1,000 reasons to smile.”

I have an addiction fondness not only to electronic devices, but also to the accessories that go with them. I have numerous cases for my iPhone, cameras and Kindle. When I had the first iPad, I had a few cases for that too. The selection for my current iPad 2 isn’t great so I only have one for it, but I won’t digress. With that being said, accessories for my diabetes devices are no different. If I have to use something multiple times per day, every single day of my life, I’d like to have it look nice. Or fun. Or pretty.

Take my glucose meters for example. There are so many wonderful carrying cases available to us now from the likes of Myabetic to Stick me Designs to Sugar Medical Supply. I own cases from all of these magnificent makers and love them all! But when I switched to the Freestyle Lite meter as my primary meter recently, I was sad that it’s little enough to not really fit into any of the lovely cases that I have. I knew of some D friends that have a silicone skin for their Lite meter so I set out in search of some. The thing is, I couldn’t find it anywhere on Abbott’s website. I sent an email to them inquiring where I could get some of these skins and they told me I can get them from my doctor’s office. Even though I found that a bit odd, I reached out to my Certified Diabetes Educator since we have a good relationship (and figuring silicone meter skins is probably the last thing on my endo’s mind) to see if she knew anything about this. She had never heard of it before either, but did reach out to the local rep from Abbott and was able to get me some skins. 🙂 So now every time I test my blood sugar, (which sometimes can feel like ALL the time) I have a little bit of pink that I can appreciate and slightly brightens up the mundane task of testing.

Thanks for guest blogging Stacey. And thanks for introducing me to another website where I can now spend money. 😉 Don’t forget to follow Stacey on Twitter @portblpancgrl.