It might sound as if I'm really not taking care of myself here. Let me explain...or, as Inigo would say...
I hoard medical supplies.
Okay, maybe I'd better 'esplain.
There's a reason I hoard medical supplies, and it may be that I have seen way too many Science/Discovery/History Channel shows that speak of the apocalypse (each one tends to focus on a different kind of apocalypse...we're pretty screwed if cable tv is to be believed.) Even under normal circumstances the one thing you never want to do when you are a diabetic is run out of supplies. I mean, what if I let myself get down to only one bottle of insulin and ran out? What if I only had enough blood glucose testing strips for the day? What if I ran out of pump supplies? It would not only be bad for me, but it would make the umpteen thousand dollar "pancreas I wear on my outside" kind of pointless.
I guess I could cosplay as a 1990's teen with a way cool beeper...
Let's put it this way- there are whole weeks that have gone by where I haven't worn a sensor simply because the one I was using went belly up after only a couple days, and I was barely making it until my next shipment using one every six days. Trying to make those last any way I could was kind of a nightmare. So today, getting a shipment of sensors in when I still have an unopened box of them was like...I don't know. Insurance utopia? Liberating? Yeah. Liberating.
Because when this happens now I don't have to wait five days to try it again.
I'm pretty sure that some of the nearly 20 boxes of blood glucose testing strips I have will go bad (they do have expiration dates after all) but I'd rather a box or two go bad than have to go out and buy one to get me through a few more days until my shipment comes in. Plus, I use the Contour both at home and on the go, so it's not like I don't use them at all.
There are other reasons I'm a bit of a hoarder, too. Some of it is just bad planning on the part of myself and my pump trainer, who guestimated how many pump settings I'd go through a month and guestimated pretty high. Even after a few years of getting too many I ended up glad that I was stock piling them- I was sent a bunch that were recalled, and if I'd been more accurate in my monthly order I'd have been without supplies for at least a week or two while the supplier replaced them. And now, even though I get a smaller quantity closer to what I actually use per month, I still have a nice cushion in case things ever get recalled again...or in case I stop getting supplies because I have a balance on my account no one bothered to notify me about. #thatsanotherblog
Sometimes I'm just not on the ball. I once had to get my pharmacist to call for a refill from my doctor because my current 'script ran out, and if I hadn't have stored up a couple bottles I'd have had to pay for one out of pocket to get me through the weekend...if I'd even been able to get it without a prescription, which I'm pretty sure I can't. I really don't think I can have too much insulin stored in my butter tray. Egg tray? I guess it depends on how your fridge is configured...
What else would you keep here?
Long story short (too late), I kind of hoard medical supplies, which is why when they arrive it sometimes takes me a couple weeks to open them.
