# Being unlimited in countries with poor medical infrastructure

**URL:** https://forum.fudiabetes.org/t/being-unlimited-in-countries-with-poor-medical-infrastructure/3592
**Category:** New T1/LADA
**Created:** [February 27, 2018, 5:08pm UTC](https://forum.fudiabetes.org/t/being-unlimited-in-countries-with-poor-medical-infrastructure/3592 "2018-02-27T17:08:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 25

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### Author: ![Michel](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/forum.fudiabetes.org/michel/32/387_2.png) [@Michel](https://forum.fudiabetes.org/u/Michel)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2018, 12:58am UTC](https://forum.fudiabetes.org/t/being-unlimited-in-countries-with-poor-medical-infrastructure/3592/25 "2018-03-03T00:58:59Z")

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OK, I don’t think this disagreement in approaches has anything to do with being #unlimited. I think it has to do with how each of us approaches life, and it is a question of temperament and personal decisions. We can all be unlimited as we want and need to be, in the way we think is right for us, and still in the full meaning of the word.

> [@cardamom](#):
>
> People have limits of all sorts, and that’s fine and important to acknowledge and respect. Diabetes can be part of someone’s limits, and that can be ok and important for that person’s wellbeing.

I agree with this statement. I have a full artificial joint from a free climbing accident in college. I am unable to run for more than a few hundred yards without having a knee twice the size of normal the next day. I will never be able to be a runner again. When my kids go running, I take a bike along 🙂 But, within the strict limitations imposed on me by my knee (such as no running), I want to live a life that I see as #unlimited.

In the same way, my son (as well as @Sam) is limited by the fact that, the rest of his life, he will need synthetic insulin to live, and he will die if he does not carry some with him. So, obviously, he will never be able to do things where, for instance, he cannot keep or carry synthetic insulin with him. This is a limitation. What I believe in is that, within his limitation, I would like him to live a life #unlimited by diabetes. It means, to me, that we will plan around this limitation that comes with the disease and make it possible for him to do whatever he wants to do by finding ways to carry insulin along in a safe manner whatever he does.

> [@kmichel](#):
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> but trying to limit ourselves and our children.

I don’t think we are. But I do think that we all have a different way to look both at risk, risk management, and being #unlimited — and there is nothing wrong with that!

> [@kmichel](#):
>
> I’ve lived and traveled in occupied lands, in the deserts of Arabia, and the frozen north of Siberia. I’ve had my daughter fall ill in foreign countries. I have lost my insulin pump falling into the rapids on canoe trips.

Kevin, I would LOVE to read more about your past 🙂 There are plenty of fascinating stories waiting to come out, I know!

> [@kmichel](#):
>
> Sometimes you have to know how to improvise.

I can’t agree more with that!

But I also think that the more you plan ahead, the less you need to improvise.

I spent more than 8 years of my life living as a professional sailboat sailor, among other things delivering other people’s boats in all oceans of the world except at the poles, many times single handed. I have saved my life and my boat several times by improvising. But I also spent a lot of my time, before my trips, planning for what might go wrong, and making sure that either it wouldn’t or that it would be possible to find a way around it. I have been saved many more times by the planning than by the improvising! Several of my friends died doing what I did during that time (or afterwards): this is not an activity without danger. For some of them, I am sure nothing could have been done. But, for some others, I thought it would only be a question of time: they relied too much, imho, on reacting rather than planning.

> [@kmichel](#):
>
> I agree with @Sam on this one. I think it is best to teach kids how to improvise in an emergency,

I agree with you and @Sam that it is important to do that. But I do not think that planning for eventualities means that

> [@kmichel](#):
>
> their diabetes is limiting them in life.

It simply means that we are more ready.

> [@kmichel](#):
>
> Part of a community ethos is not reading bad intentions into other people’s words.

I don’t think anyone was.

> [@kmichel](#):
>
> I don’t have limits from diabetes, and I prefer to teach my kids that they don’t.

I love your approach. But I don’t think I am teaching my kids they do. Planning for something does not mean being limited by it.

> [@Sam](#):
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> and it’s disappointing to see that some people don’t feel that way.

I don’t believe anyone here doesn’t feel that way. They may not understand #unlimited like you do, and their own conditions may not leave them #unlimited like yours do, but being #unlimited is in each one’s mind, not in another person’s view of it.

So I think we should all agree that each of us has his or her own understanding of it, and respect that! As for me, I think I survived my years as a sailor when others didn’t because I planned well, because I was able to improvise when I needed to, and because, in a fundamentally dangerous occupation, I took the risks that I thought worth taking and I refused to take the risks that I think I should not have taken—and also, let’s face it, because I was lucky. I think this is something each one of has to make his own call on. And I certainly don’t think that planning in order to be #unlimited means that you aren’t 🙂

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