No, not really. I take my PDM and glucose tabs with me when I leave the house, but I don’t carry spare insulin or pods. It would be easy to start worrying about a worst-case scenario, but I don’t live in an earthquake/tsunami/mudslide/hurricane zone (we had a hurricane in 1954, so the odds are slim), I live in a big city so a sugar source or pharmacy or hospital is never far away, I’m never in elevators in unoccupied buildings after hours, I’d always be able to get back into my condo because everyone knows me and I know who has the master keys and if they’re all kidnapped or dead I can smash in the doors, I don’t enter caves in Thailand or elsewhere, I don’t visit Vancouver , etc., etc. Plus I try to keep life simple, so I (perhaps naively) tend to think statistically this day is likely to be pretty much like the other roughly 21,000 days of my life. And in a worst-worse-case scenario, say a nuclear event, preparing with enough insulin, food, and water to get through that is immaterial since I wouldn’t want to survive anyway.
Of course if I’m away from home for more than 12 hours or I go camping or I were to go cave-exploring or worked in empty buildings after hours, I’d plan differently.
We did put together a Y2K kit, with huge jugs of water and plenty of food. It wasn’t exactly your sensible MREs. We lived off tins of foie gras pâté and cassoulet and panang curry sauce and chocolate-covered marzipan for years afterwards, it seemed. It made us sorry we didn’t face crises more often!
A related question - for those who do prepare for various scenarios, have you always been that prepared, or was it something you learned to be mindful of as years passed/you’ve gained more experience? Because I’m still honeymooning/not on basal and fairly stable most of the time (rarely any lows), I usually have a source of glucose in my purse OR my car (hardly ever both at the same time), I frequently forget my meter (have my Libre reader at all times though), only remember my insulin when I know I’m going somewhere to eat, etc. It’s just hard for me to remember things I need to consider now as a diabetic when leaving the house for errands or whatnot, and I feel like I might be forming bad habits that will hurt me down the road as things progress.
I’d say mine built up over the years, starting in high school to the present:
Refusing to carry low supplies in high school - resulting in a severe low at school one day
Forgetting pen tips when I went to a cabin with my friend in high school - resulting in her mom having to drive us around for three hours to find a pharmacy
Forgetting rapid acting insulin at home one day (I was on MDI at the time) - I ate very few carbs and ended up at “only” 15 mmol/L (270 mg/dl) when I got home
Feeling low with no warning and struggling to make it down the hall and up the stairs to my office (and meter and glucose tablets) to find my blood sugar had dropped to 1.8 mmol/L (32 mg/dl)
Forgetting backup supplies on a day I also forgot to reconnect my pump after my shower - resulted in blood sugar of 25 mmol/L (450 mg/dl) and feeling super sick within hours
Running out of glucose tablets with a BG of 2.1 mmol/L (37 mg/dl) while on a Greyhound bus stuck at the US-Canada border
Running out of test strips on a trip where my CGM was also dying while getting delayed for hours between flights - resulting in no way of knowing what my BG was for the 24 hours I was travelling
I think as you experience more of those, you realize how you could die in short order without access to insulin and glucose. For me, after a major disaster the last thing I want to be worrying about is my access to insulin and other diabetes supplies. (Though one thing I haven’t quite figured out is how to keep my insulin in my earthquake backpack, and also how to fit the months’ worth of medical supplies into that backpack - right now it’s a separate small bag.)
That makes sense. I guess I feel like because I have all this advance warning/time to prepare for the eventuality of full insulin dependence, I should be making the most of it. Really I’m just doing well to get through each day (overall life-wise, not d wise specifically), though, so I feel even less on top of things.
Oh, yeah. I’m in the same boat there. My health is so poor right now compared to my normal. I mean, forget about anything like exercising or any other extra activities on top of eating, sleeping, chores, and work. I’m doing well if I get through the work day without feeling sick and still have energy to cook a healthy dinner and pack lunch for the next day before going to bed…
Goodness, you do sound like you’re in the same boat, and it’s an awful ride. Sorry for your health struggles, and I hope they resolve (at least as much as we can hope for, right?) quickly!
@Pianoplayer7008, I am an organized person already, but my contingency planning is also the result of having had enough weird things happen to show me how quickly problems can crop up if I don’t have the right tools with me. I don’t need all of my back-up supplies all of the time, but when I need them, I need them.
There are only 3 things that are vital for survival:
insulin
a deployment mechanism
carbs
Anything else - like CGM or test strips or basal insulin or pumps - are just luxury items!
Since your pod only lasts 3 days, and you don’t know what day you will be on, always have syringes. Stash them in your car, your workplace, all over.
A couple of vials or insulin pens can also be stashed.
The last thing is carbs.
These Transcend gels are packaged in packs that are extremely durable. They won’t get moldy like the powdered glucose tabs can. They take up more space, but for longevity, they are great. https://www.transcendfoods.com/collections/frontpage
I would recommend having a small pack that contains the 3 vitals, and put a few packs in strategic locations. That just enables you to survive, and enables you to tackle the next goal - which is getting out of the emergency jam…
And it’s not that I’m not an organized person as much as it is a person who is very short on time… Having also found this to be true, what you stated so clearly up there, leaves me with the worst of both worlds… potentially needing it all with no time to organize it. Hence the diabetes luggage… with bonus 4 bags. Thank you for your words, @T1Allison. I needed some justification for my madness.
You say this… but somehow it doesn’t ring true when it’s not ringing true. And now I’m butchering @T1Allison’s comment. I needed skin tac the other day… and tegaderm. I HaVE those things in my emergency pack, but I had left that at home. My Libre fell off, and this was following a failed Guardian sensor—while I was at the hospital with my son and without sensor backup. I could live without these things, absolutely, but having them will mean making it through a challenging period with better success.
I know you’d hate my bag, @Eric, but I genuinely can’t take things out of it. Because as Alison said in far fewer words, I don’t need all of my back-up supplies all of the time, but when I need them, I need them.
I am onboard with all of that, @Nickyghaleb. @Eric, appreciate the “bare necessities” truth from you and that is great perspective for foundational preparedness.
I suppose I keep a Gucci Level of emergency preparedness bc I want to be able to deal with contingencies without derailing my plans for the day (i.e. not having to leave work to get pods when they fail, not having to pull my boys out of baseball practice bc of my own technology issue or bg issue). And glucagon is just required equipment in my purse after having so many screwy experiences post-partum.
DN, we are talking about two different things. I am talking about survival, not day-to-day things.
I promise you, if you were on a desert island, you could survive without skin tac.
Anyone can make their emergency pack as big as they want. If you want to put CGM and skin tac in there, do it.
But keep in mind, the bigger your pack gets, the less likely you are to have it with you when the disaster hits…
So consider a daily life pack, and a survival pack, as two different things. I promise you can indeed live with just insulin, a syringe, and carbs. It might suck, but you can survive with those 3 things.
This has been around for a long time. I actually did this in 5th grade. It was a great exercise for learning how to re-purpose things and prioritize things.
We are talking about survival, not day-to-day. You can look at a ballpoint pen and only see a way of writing something. Or you can look at a ballpoint pen and see a way of getting the last few drops of insulin out of a pen cartridge. If you are in an office environment and an earthquake hits and you get stuck, what can you do with a roll of scotch tape? Perhaps use it to secure your CGM or pump infusion. Need a lancet? How about the staples from the red Swingline stapler on Milton’s desk. Vending machine? The fire safety axe will open that for you and it will supply all the nourishment you will need. In normal settings, smashing the vending machine to grab snacks would be frowned on. But in a crisis situation, you can get away with that sort of thing. The rules change.
When I was in my early teens, I learned that at night you can use a lantern in the woods to attract moths, and you can eat them as a source of protein. I learned it from an army ranger who took me on a demonstration camping trip. We surveyed “enemies”, used camouflage, built a fire, ate, and survived the night without getting caught.
Since the word “survival” was in the title of the thread, I am responding to this with a different perspective.
Eric, I hope all of that was not in response to anything I said. I just thought she said it well. It’s Allison’s fault… if there’s blame to be assigned. Again.
There’s no doubt you have a system down, and there’s no doubt I have room for improvement. Like measuring in acreage. I was only being defensive because it’s what I do best. I absolutely 100% agree with much of what you said.
, etc., etc. Plus I try to keep life simple, so I (perhaps naively) tend to think statistically this day is likely to be pretty much like the other roughly 21,000 days of my life. And in a worst-worse-case scenario, say a nuclear event, preparing with enough insulin, food, and water to get through that is immaterial since I wouldn’t want to survive anyway.
I hope your issues resolve soon as well!
