Traveling With Diabetes

April 21, 2014

[Disclaimer: Like I have said time and time again, diabetes varies for every single person. Not everything I say and experience is the same that other diabetics feel or experience. When I write every blog post it is purely from my own experience, thoughts, and feelings.]


I recently took a trip to California to visit my sister, her husband, and my new nephew. The last actual trip I took that was long distance and more than 3 days was last year, before I was diagnosed. That was a very hard trip for me. I was sick the whole time, I had to stop every couple of hours on the drive, I was always hungry, and dehydrated. My recent trip to California was not that difficult, but it was a challenge for me.

Now, don't get me wrong, it was a great trip and I had a wonderful host. My sister was amazing at asking me questions, finding out what I could eat, and always making sure I had enough food. I felt a lot of support because of her attentiveness to my disease. The reasons that my trip was a challenge were mostly brought on by my own feelings.

Since all of that is out of the way, let me dive in. Everyday I feel like I am packing to go on a small trip. I have to make sure that I have enough insulin, pen needles, alcohol swabs, sugar, my glucometer, enough test strips, and I usually keep my carb book on hand. Do you know how big of a purse I need?? It's outrageous! Now, with that in mind, think about how much I have to pack for a road trip and week vacation. I had a whole box of pen needles, alcohol swabs, 50+ test strips, and a ton of insulin. Going in to someone's house with all of that stuff I personally feel very awkward. I always worry that they wonder what I do with all of it. I worry that they are going to think that I'm just leaving it lying around. I am a very cleanly diabetic. I don't like to leave anything anywhere that someone could have access to it. I always dispose of my needle tips and test strips properly. I know that my hosts don't know that though. I feel as if I need to have a pamphlet explaining my diabetes everywhere I go to let everyone know what it is, how I treat it, and what they need to know just in case.

I worry that no matter how cautious I am with my supplies that some one might get their hands on them. My biggest fear with traveling is that my gracious hosts will be upset with me if an accident were to occur. If somehow, some way my supplies will get in the wrong hands, most likely little kid hands, that something will go terribly wrong. I also have a fear that my hosts will have the same fear I do; That they will worry when I check my blood sugar, or give myself insulin that I won't take care of it properly. I know that I take care of it properly and I am more than careful, so there should be no reason for them to worry. I know that it is just my illogical worries that make travelling hard for this reason.

Another thing that makes traveling difficult is that I don't feel comfortable doing any of this in front of my hosts. I don't know if they want to know anything about how I care for myself, or anything about the disease. I never do any of this in front of their children, because I don't want them to get the wrong idea and think they can do the same thing. I also don't want to explain it to the parents, because I have no idea how it will effect their children. Again, I know that this is all my thoughts, but I just don't want to overstep my boundaries.

It is hard to be a guest in someone's home especially because of meals. I find it very rude to not eat something that my host prepares. I also find it rude to not finish everything on my plate. The reason it is so difficult is because I have already had to change all of my eating habits. I measure all of my food, I count all of my carbohydrates and I try not to eat many of them. I have had to change  I can't very well take over their kitchen, measure their food, and only eat a few carbohydrates, now can I? I can't change their eating habits in such a short time, nor should I. I had such a hard time because it is so much harder to count carbohydrates just by looking at the plate, and not measuring. Again, luckily I had an amazing host, and she kept all of the labels and let me dirty her dishes to measure.

We road tripped to California from Utah, it was a fourteen hour drive. I had to stop frequently to check my blood sugar, and to eat. I've never had such a hard time driving a long distance as I did on this trip. I just didn't feel well the whole time, and I kept getting so tired. I wanted to be very careful keeping track of my blood sugar because it is very dangerous to drive if your blood sugar is off. It made the trip a lot longer, I was a lot more unpleasant, and it was very hard on me.

Also, I was reading the other day an article on tips for travelling with diabetes. It talks about when you are traveling you should always split up your supplies into different bags, just in case one of them gets lost you still have everything you need. It talks about taking a letter from your doctor to the airport with you to avoid going through such a long process to explain all of the medications you need, the disease you have, how you need to treat your disease and when. It states how you should move around a lot because with diabetes you can get blood clots a lot easier. Finally, it talks about how your pump can malfunction when you are flying because of the cabin pressure changing. {If you want to read the full article here is the link: www.battlediabetes.com/articles/diabetes/travel-tips-for-people-with-diabetes]

I want to travel more than anything in the world. I want to see all of the beauty  in the world, and experience all of the different cultures I can. I know it is very possible to be a traveling diabetic, it just takes a lot of practice to become better at it. Isn't that how everything is though? It's not even as bad as it was for me on this trip, it's just because of my personality and my worries. I don't want to feel like my disease is a problem for anyone else than me. It shouldn't be.