I must have PTSD. That sentence caused a very uncomfortable flash back.
Lemme see, time the peak again or die…That’s a toss up.
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Didn’t seem like that big a deal back then. I chose to stay alive.
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Does anyone know what the storage conditions are for Affrezza? I mean presumably it’s a dry powder that you mix in with something, so perhaps that might be more durable than a liquid solution?
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It’s label says keep in fridge… once outbof fridge open within 10 days and use within 3 after opening. The internet has been full of chatter about how durable it is in high heat though – hard to tell how much of its chatter though.
@mattbendall has done some cool experiments with it @mattbendall
Maybe I should just recategorize this thread into the main forum since it’s turning into a good discussion on its own?
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Recategorized just to make public. We have way too many categories.
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@Eric You don’t understand. For me the absolute most difficult time as a PWD was figuring out and learning how to time the peaks of Regular and Lente.
The times I messed up were real doozies. I not only visited death’s door step on numerous occasions, there were times I almost took others with me.
Actually, you probably do understand very well.
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Well doc we’re talking about disaster preparedness… life and death situations… although it should be noted that an awful lot of diabetics out there are still using R and NPH… although for some analogs were a godsend, some seem to do just fine with R amd NPH…
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I also had a really hard time with NPH. Maybe it’s because I was a kid and teenager. It would be better than nothing if it came to that, but for me it caused the most severe lows I’ve ever had. If other people hadn’t been around to help when I went so low, I’m not sure what may have happened. I was very strict about food and timing, too. I think being that strict and consistent would be difficult in an emergency. But, yeah, if it were NPH or nothing, I’d use it.
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I do agree with @Eric’s comment that water is the most important resource. Since there isn’t any natural water resources close to our house, we are looking to buys some 55 gallon water containers that look good to stash in the backyard. something like these:
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I have a 2000 gallon water tank in my garage that I try to keep at least half full… but I do depend on the water company to come refil it— it would last for quite a while if rationed on an emergency though
not sure where the nearest drinkable ground water would be… it is a good idea to have some large containers (but not so large you can’t transport them) that you can take to good water sources to fill
Your roof and gutter downspouts are also an excellent source of clean water… I owned a home in SE Alaska that’s entire water source was rain water off the roof— very common there… I had a 10,000 gallon tank there and it was absolutely overflowing all the time.
On a smaller scale a downspout diverter like this Oatey 14209 Mystic Rainwater Collection System https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003E1RJVU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_82eQzbGHWMD1B can provide for fresh water into barrels, etc
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I was definitely not part of that group.
Obviously, I survived for that 25 or so years, but I can’t say I was really living.
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I recall seeing the Ted Talk video a few years ago about How to Make Filthy Water Drinkable:https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pritchard_invents_a_water_filter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeSaver_bottle It addresses viruses, bacteria, and heavy metals.
Has anyone had any first hand or peripheral experience with the above item?
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I have tremendous experience with providing drinking water from nature
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No first hand experience, but while it is a great idea, it appears that the functionality of it is a little lacking. I will be sticking with my pump which works fine.
Here is an excerpt from a relevent review from amazon from G. Stankovic
Filter usability and performance: (-2 stars): At the time when I purchased this filter, they were virtually non existent in the US…none of the outdoors equipment stores accessible to me (REI, EMS, Campmore, etc) carried it so it was not possible to see one of these in person before ordering it online. The filter is big and heavy - imagine one of those old school blenders, together with the base…now imagine packing that into your backpack - I have a pretty large daypack, but the filter barely fits in, and takes up most of the pack’s volume - so in short, it is too bulky. This may not be as big of a problem if you plan on keeping the filter in your car/camper but the size, weight, and volume make it almost unusable in the outdoors, which was my primary intention.It is very fragile too - so even if you intend to keep it in your camper - make sure it is stored with a lot of care.
Moving beyond size and weight…in order to fill it up with water, you basically have to submerge it in a body of water. During this time, the nipple is protected with the water tight cap but if you want to gain access to the drinkable water you have to remove the water tight cap, once the bottle is filled up with water. Since your bottle was submerged in contaminated body of water just seconds ago, drops of contaminated water now flow down the bottle and and mix in with the clean water coming out of the nipple - so drinking directly out of the bottle is out of the question. Even if the cross contamination was not an issue, there is no good way to use nipple to drink directly out of the bottle - bottle is pressurized, and squirt of water is coming out too hard and split into two or three - impossible to make a clean contact with the nipple. Getting some water on your face is not an issue in the summer, but during the cold months when the temperatures are in the thirties - getting water on your face and clothes, especially when in the outdoors, is something you want to try to avoid. If you stop pumping and wait for the pressure to come down, then the flow of water stops within a second or two. Good luck pulling the nipple out with your teeth! Hope you have a good dental.
So, basically,in order to avoid cross contamination, you have to pump the water out of the filter and position the bottle close to the horizontal position, to allow drops of contaminated water to drip down before mixing in with the clean water from the nipple. Under this scenario, the squirt of water is coming out sideways, and you need another person (or a stable dish) with a wide mouth bottle to try to catch the squirting water and collect as much as possible…you’ll have to keep pumping the filter during the process, so the intensity and the direction of the squirt is constantly changing, making collection of clean water a game of good dexterity.
Although the capacity of the bottle is apparently 750 ml, I was never able to get more than 500 ml (16 oz) from one refill. Additionally, when the bottle is filled up, and you start pumping the flow is good but as the water level drops, so does the number of filter pores accessible to the water, so the flow dramatically drops with the level- once you reach a certain level (15-20%), the remaining water falls below the level of all filter openings (regardless of the position of the bottle), so you can’t really do anything with the remaining - you have to refill the bottle.
As for the filtering quality - I did get to test it out a dozen of times over the past year, and a couple of time I filtered water out of standing, and nasty looking bodies of water - and I am still alive to tell about it, so it works (on the other hand, I did drink water directly out of streams/cracks in rocks while in the nature before, without using any filters and I survived that as well). It definitely does not work as well as in the demo video. It will not completely remove the color, smell or taste. On some occasions I had to re-filter the water 2 or 3 times to get satisfactory color/taste/smell results.
To recap - great idea but falls short of successful implementation. Not sure what the intended purpose of this product is - it’s too big/heavy/bulky for an individual use in the outdoors, and does not have a big enough capacity for emergency preparedness, disaster relief (they have a big, family sized version of the filter for that purpose).
While operating the pump may be easy (which is not the case on some other filters) getting the clean water out of the filter and into your water container without cross contamination is a serious task…and due to it’s small capacity and inability to filter all the water inside of the bottle (only about 4/5),m you’ll have to make a couple of trips to the river to get one 1L bottle filed up…when I was buying this filter a year ago, I believed I was buying a cutting edge, thoughtfully designed product that will change my experience in the outdoors, and lighten up my pack as I won’t have to bring as much water (just filter it wherever I find it) so I didn’t mind the high price tag…instead, I bought the dead weight that I barely bring on trips with me, even on car camping trips…if I could go back, I would not buy it again!
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I just bought this off Amazon, so thanks for the recommendation! Very small and light. I’ll have to practice using it before there’s an actual emergency. I also checked the water purification tablets I have, and it says they remove bacteria, viruses, and giardia. So I feel pretty covered for water. Now just need to update the food in there (I have lots of “expired” granola bars!).
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Revived this stream to respond to @panda’s GETTING BACK INTO THE POOL (after 2 years away) - #473 by panda. I grew up in San Diego/Coronado/Chula Vista (you know, Northern Tijuana!). Earthquakes were so common, they didn’t really phase us all that much. We’d challenge the other kids at school after an earthquake (or having had one while already there) and bet whether it was a 3.2, 4.7, or whatever! Some friends had a pool and lost about a 1/4 of their water with one. My brother and I were at Boy Scout camp at Cuyamaca and out with a group at a tree house once when we heard the oak leaves start to rattle in the distance and move close real quick; the ground started shaking and one of the boys took off running. My brother yelled at him “Where you goin?!” The response, “I don’t know, but I’m getting out of here!” My brother yelled back, “Yeah, but where you goin’ to go?!” The boy stopped dead in his tracks…
Glad the damage was relatively lite and few serious injuries.
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@TomH thanks for directing me to this thread! I have done more than my fair share of major disaster scenarios but… all were many years pre-diagnosis for me. I have never navigated a major catastrophe with diabetes. I have been doing some thinking about how I would handle those situations with my new variable (stick shift pancreas), and some of it is really daunting to think about.
Like I know how to survive these situations just straight up, but doing it with diabetes might be more complicated. If it might be useful to others I can certainly map out some guidelines from what I’ve done before. My disaster experience is mostly large earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear disasters, wildfires, floods, severe tropical storms, ice storms, and violent political/civil unrest. The countries I have experience managing emergencies in are mostly USA (primary), Japan, Thailand, Korea, and Cambodia. Situation management and response obviously varies a bit by disaster type and location, but there will be some conceptual constants. If there would be interest, I can spend the time to sit down and work out a deep dive - I can take past experiences and model them out by adding insulin-dependent diabetes as a factor if people would like! It is all of course based just off me, so a single data point, but there’s also a limited supply of people with diabetes who have experience living through and doing recovery work in these scenarios so I may be able to offer relevant insights. Let me know if there would be interest! You will probably have to read a lot of my anecdotes in the process, fair warning.
Edit to add: I don’t know what collective crisis experiences dwell in the shared consciousness here, so I don’t mean to be dismissive or rude! I only know my own experiences and don’t mean at all to imply they’re the only wisdom here on the matter. I’m just really disaster-prone so have a lot of personal experience!
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I would totally be interested in that! My anxiety makes it difficult to research some of this stuff deeply on my own, but avoidance is certainly not a good strategy.
I’ve only experienced one set of quakes (5.7) – but Utah has been waiting for “the big one” (7.0+) for the last 50 years, so there wasn’t much damage. Wildfires in the West are also getting more frequent and serious, so someday I may be in an evacuation zone. I definitely should write out a real plan!
I’d be curious how you’d factor Mara, or other animals, into your disaster preparedness as well.
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Absolutely. I was a firefighter/EMT in a former life, so I can map fire stuff in particular out for you with perspective from both sides (person caught in it, person responding to it). I worked at a hybrid department so we handled both urban as well as wildland calls and larger fire and disaster mobilizations. There are actionable things you can do to prepare for, mitigate, and navigate these hazards, which can hopefully allay some anxieties by offering actionable ideas. I always account for pets or mobility-limited humans. Coming right up! Well, coming up shortly, it will take a little while to write 
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No rush at all! Your insights will be awesome when you get a chance! 
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