Extreme Responsibility: Diabetes Edition

One joy of the potty-trained child, bottle-weaned child is not having to carry a diaper bag around. You go from lugging a huge sack of crap on your shoulder every time you leave the house to, maybe, a spare change of clothes in the trunk. It is a glorious thing!

Diabetes, though, brings back the bag. We do not leave the house without her insulin pump controller, back-up batteries, blood sugar test strips, lancets, insulin, a back-up syringe, a back-up pump, alcohol wipes, a glucagon injection, a juice box, and glucose tablets. From place to place, location to location, we drag around a bag to hold all of these supplies. Granted the supplies are small, so unlike a diaper bag, the diabetes bag in small. However, unlike the diaper bag, there is a great sense of responsibility. Inside are over $1000 of medical supplies which quite literally keep C alive.

Also, because I am crazy, I don't carry around the bag ... I have the 5-year-old diabetic do it. I purposefully chose a messenger-style bag so it would be easy for her to carry. It may be an extreme lesson in responsibility, and perhaps a large weight for a 5-year-old to carry, but I can assure you of two things:

1. She doesn't feel the weight of responsibility like I do. To her it's just her diabetes bag, not all that other stressful money/life-line stuff.
2. It is something she has to get used to. She will have diabetes until there is a cure. And while that will happen in her lifetime, it won't happen tomorrow, so she needs to get used to caring and keeping up with her supplies.

I'd love to ditch the bag and let her be a kid who just has to keep up with her jacket, but this is the reality of diabetes - needing supplies on hand 24/7 no matter where you are. So I at least let her pick out her own fabric and had a friend help me make a bag that she is proud to carry - at least until she gets too old for Sprinkles and Sparkles.