Saturday, 11 August 2012

Video - This or That a response to Danica

I just uploaded a video to YouTube as a response to DiabeticDanica's original video so here it is:

Monday, 6 August 2012

Germany

I recently went to Munich in Germany... ON MY OWN!

A small sample of diabetes
paraphernalia I took with me. 
Well technically not on my own but it was a pretty big step as I flew without my parents.

I left the UK through Heathrow's new terminal 5 with a friend who has recently moved to Munich and had come back for a visit.

It was the first part of my trip that worried me the most, going through security at the airport. Even though I had done my research online to find out other peoples experiences of travelling with a pump, I was nervous! This may have been due to reading some experiences of those from the USA and their extremely strict controls on anything and everything even if its clearly medical stuff. However despite my worries everything was fine, on the way out I took the clip off my pump and no questions were asked of it. I did the same on the way home when with another friend and the woman just asked me to take my phone out of my pocket, I told her it was an insulin pump, she was fine about it and just notified the people the other side of the metal detector gate!
So the part I was most worried about went absolutely fine and I can tell anyone who hasn't yet flown with a pump and is due to go to the EU soon that it would be fine, there is no need to worry about flying and security!
This shows where I
clipped my pump.

Whilst I was in Germany we did quite a few things including bus tours around the city and swimming in lakes, a water park and a normal pool (We like swimming ALOT!). With all this swimming I had to figure out what to do with this brand new insulin pump. Well when I went to the lakes and the swimming pool, as my animas pump is waterproof I kept my it on and just reduced my basal by around 30% - 40% for a while. However, going to the water park was a different story, I didn't want to break it by forcing the water around it on the rough slides, I also didn't want it to get in the way, so I took it off whilst I was there. This mean't every hour I had to get out, do a test and bolus a little using the ezBG bolus feature on the pump. This worked fairly well with just one low as I was doing exercise and being the first time I had done this it was a bit of an experiment and I thought it went well and I can learn from the bits that didn't go so well!

Lederhosen and Dirndl
So generally Germany was AWSOME and was also well handled diabetes wise. Went spent a whole day at the BEST zoo I have ever been to! (Don't judge you are NEVER to old for going to the zoo!) We also saw some typical German things, such as actual people wearing lederhosen and dirndls which I am kicking myself for not getting a photo of but I can compensate with this one I found on the internet.

I am now planning to go back in February to go skiing which will be only the second time I go and obviously the first time with my pump so we will see how that goes!