Things that make you want to scream, part 1

I have a friend on Twitter who is a type 1 diabetic. We "met" by virtue of the fact that he is a friend in real life of one of my good real-life friends, with whom I communicate regularly on Twitter. He asked me a few questions about how I manage my son's diabetes and I learned, via the (non-public) discourse that followed, that he was extremely limited in his ability to manage his D due to financial constraints.

Like: he was allotted 1 test strip per day.

My jaw nearly hit the floor when I heard that. My second reaction was to send him Eric's spare meter — we'd recently had to change over due to the Medtronic upgrade — and the rather astonishing quantity of related strips I had hanging around, just so he had some additional testing supplies. He told me, several days after they arrived, that he'd never felt so good as he did after being able to test before each meal and dose accordingly.

This morning he mentioned he'd had a nasty low overnight. I said something about glucagon, and he said "Huh?"

No one, apparently, had told him that there exists a rapid-acting, potentially lifesaving "rescue kit" for catastrophic lows.

Oy.

See why I want to scream?

Yep, we should all be screaming.

That is so sad. We have such a lot for which to be thankful.

The state of diabetic education is a disgrace. (To be clear, I am not talking about education of the non-diabetic community; that's a different discussion for another time.) The number of newly diagnosed people who are handed a brochure about diet and (maybe) a bottle of pills or some pens and then turned loose with little or no training is HUGE.

Here we have an example.

It's an outrage, and there is no reason why it needs to be so. It's one of the reasons communities like this, where we can learn from each other, are not a luxury but an absolute necessity. For many, there is no equivalent source of good information anywhere else. And that is beyond sad.

It is also a bit disconcerting that people with really good insurance have an overabundance of everything including education and nutritionists because it is so profitable. I am glad they do but I wish that it could be that way for everyone.

ALL THIS MAKES ME SCREAM TOO, ON & ON & ON---------------& ON

I wanted to send him a spare glucagon kit just so he'd have one, but thought twice about sending a gigantic needle through the mail. Had to content myself with telling him about it and hoping he can get one prescribed.