Has Your Diacrap Runneth Over?

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Reprinted from www.RADiabetes.com

My diabetes supply cabinet is not out of control? Ok, I will admit, it is out of control. It is so out of control that the cabinet I use barely holds all the diacrap I have accumulated. In short my diacrap runneth over.
Definitions

Definition of diacarp: All the stuff I accumulate related too and used in the treatment of diabetes and other aliments I might have. This especially includes all the stuff I do not use, but at some level gives me reassurance that I have enough stuff.

Definition of enough stuff: More than I had a month ago. Especially if I can brag to myself that I am ready for all emergencies.

Notice I do not say it is useless stuff. My diacrap includes medicines, reservoirs, lancets, sets, test strips, boxes, and manuals and many associated things. I have meters, bags for meters, and boxes for the bags for the meters. I have manuals about how to operate long past pumps, batteries for a long forgotten pump and battery covers for the batteries for the long forgotten pumps. Hey who knows when you might need a good battery cap for a long forgotten pump?
Growing collection

At any rate my diacrap is so diverse and my cabinet is so full it has spilled into the pantry in the kitchen, the undersized closet in the master bedroom and 2/3 of a wall cabinet in my office. I have a lot of diacrap. I have included a picture of some of my stash of diacrap (this is not all of it) and I can promise that my collection is so diverse that if it were sealed it would be worthy of a Smithsonian archeological dig in about 40 years.

My collection of diacrap is more than many of my fellow Persons with Diabetes (PWD) yet I still run out of stuff. which means there is an underlying truism about my collection of daicrap, the more my collection has grown, the more likely I am to run out of what I really need. Take sets for example. Recently I was in FL and I ran out of sets. So I did the logical thing, I panicked. I mean where the heck can I get sets for my pump in Florida?

Now I am a resourceful individual (an Eagle Scout for goodness sakes) so I took total stock of how to acquire these sets. I could have asked around, I know someone in south Florida has extra sets they would lend me? The problem was that doing that would have meant that I had to admit packing so lightly that I could not get a box of sets in my special diacrap bag I took on the trip. A man has standards and admitting a packing failure is not within the realm of possibility.

So instead of admitting it to my fellow pump users that I am a bad packer I called my pump manufacture and sure enough for a very reasonable fee they sent me more diacrap. Now that means that on my return home I had taken a trip and increased my diacrap collection because I got to use someone elseā€™s replacement supplies instead of my own diacrap. Wow my hoarder mentality took over and wham I was singing the look at me I have more diacrap song. All the while Sheryl was singing the hey buddy we live in a small home song, followed by playing that time honored tune, the rid yourself of the diacrap blues. Trust me harmony does not prevail when those three songs are playing.
Realization

In the midst of this less than harmonious beat, I concluded that maybe, just maybe I have too much diacrap? It was nothing like a light bulb going on, it was rather more like a stack collapse, (really it was a stack collapse) that made me reconsider my position. Which changed the tune I was singing to ā€˜Crumblin Downā€™ (C) 1983 by: John Mellencamp ā€” Island Records. Something about this song just sort of echoed in my mind. UUGH

You would think after this experience I would immediately set about cleaning up the stacks of diacrap? Yeah right. Not a chance. After all I may again buy a pump that needs 1.6V flat batteries and if I got rid of extras where might I be? So my internal hoarder refrain took over, so long as I have space for my diacrap, I need to build my collection. After all maybe I have room in the garage for another cabinet or a wall of cabinets? You know I am just thinking out loud, but if I boarded up some windows and add shelves to the sun room, I could call it a diacrap room. After all, who needs sun when you have four spare meters and three unused meter cases, right?

Or maybe I donā€™t need a master closet bedroom closet at all? Heck maybe a closet to put shoes is over ahh rated? Yeah no, I canā€™t go there. I have to remember some things are more revered than more diacrap. After all I prefer the peace and harmony song over the look at me I have more diacrap song any day. Whew that was a close call. Reason wins out once again. But come to think of it, I might need some extra pump caps after all man can never have enough battery caps around, right?

-30-

rick

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Nope, I purged it last year, donating what I could to a friend who sent boxes of things to the Phillipines. Some of the syringes were old enough that they were beyond the contractual statute of limitations (10 yearsā€¦) should my insurance company object. I just saved enough in case thereā€™s a tornado or flood or something.

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Oh yes yes yes, I totally get this. I did a purge about two 1/2 years ago when I finally changed from MDI to a pump, and I have two nice big drawers in my platform bed that are perfect for diacrap, so everything was neat and tidy. For a while. But slowly it has built up to the point where Iā€™ve got box loads of stuff crammed in there, much of it no longer useful. I recently switched from a Medtronic to an Asante Snap, so Iā€™ve got the Medtronic sets and reservoirs. Well, useful to have backup just in case. But then the Snap uses an extra element, the ā€œpump body,ā€ and Iā€™ve started to amass those because I had some problems with things early on and they seem to send you spares of everything at the drop of a hat. And then I changed to angled infusion sets, so Iā€™ve got boxes of the old ones, both Asante and Medtronic. Oh and two or three BG meters. Plus I just got on the Dexcom CGM, so several boxes and manuals and whatnot for that. Which I never consult but canā€™t throw away. PLUS we too just went on a trip, tooā€“overseas for usā€“so fear of running out of things in Paris or London had me laying in extra stores for that. Oh and then thereā€™s my old bedside table drawer, which has a box of BD pen needles left over from when I switched to my first pump, and several boxes of lancets because I hardly ever change those, lazy PWD that I am, and an almost full box of BD disposable syringes from all the way back before I went on MDI and injector pens, and god knows what all else.

In short, I agree that travel and changing of treatment regimes are primary drivers of this phenomenon, but the big one behind all of this hoarding is anxiety, rooted in experience of how scary it is when that all too familiar ā€œOh My God I Thought I Had A Whole 'Nother Box Of Those!ā€ moment strikes, partly due to the stinginess of health insurers around all this stuff (test strips??? they should be showering us with the damn things and praying we use 'em instead of doling out as few as they can get away with). One thing Iā€™ve learned is when youā€™re setting up a supplies account, ALWAYS go high in your estimates of how much you use because youā€™re going to feel safer having lots of diacrap in your cupboard than run into that OMGITIHAWNBOT! situation.

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LOL! I relate to what you all wrote about diabetes related ā€œstashesā€. I once had more than 15 boxes of the old MM sets and reservoirs (the ones used in pre-Paradigm pumps). I finally threw them out, just as I eventually threw out a ton of boxes of syringes. I canā€™t believe how much money I wasted over the years. Iā€™ve no idea how many meters Iā€™ve had. Iā€™ve paid for (my co-pay) countless boxes of strips that become outdated or unused because I switched from one meter to the next.

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I have a few extra meters I could probably donate but Iā€™m not sure. I keep thinking WHAT IF MY METER DIES? I also still have insulin from when I tried a pump last year that doesnā€™t expire for a few more months and a sample of humalog but Iā€™m reluctant to donate insulin when itā€™s heating up :confused: