Boat Outing

Over this past weekend, I went out on Cayuga Lake on a boat of some friends of mine. This outing was a bit of a surprise. I'd had plans to meet up with these friends, but until I called to confirm the plans I didn't know it was the plan to be out on the lake. They told me to meet them at 6:00, we'd grab some pizza, then go out on the boat.

Now all of this probably sounds easy enough; however, as a diabetic it becomes more complicated. Pizza is high in carbohydrates, which means it's a food that requires a lot of insulin to break it down. I'm fortunate in that four years ago I got an insulin pump, which allows a person to match carbs to insulin units, freeing up a person to eat, well, pretty much anything, and the pump permits a person to have more flexibility when he or she eats. If I'd still been on needles, this trip would have been that much tougher. With needles, one has to eat at pretty specified times, and what a person takes into his or her body is more limited, because the needle delivery system is less precise in how it covers foods, making high carbohydrate items much harder to handle.

Once we got out on the boat, I learned they were bringing an innertube with them that could be pulled behind the boat. Again, sounds like fun; but, now the pump was a problem. If I were on needles, I could have gone on the tube easily enough (as long as I had a sense of where my blood sugar levels were). The pump, though, is not water resistant. It was a hot day, and I wanted to cool down by getting wet, and the tube is fun, as well. After seeing my friends' kids get pulled around the lake, and the fun they were having, I really wanted to go. I finally decided I'd just remove the pump from my body and leave the pump on the boat, so I could get in the water and get pulled around on the tube.

Well, this presented another dilemma. I had to deliver (guessing) enough insulin to cover how long I'd be on the tube; not only that, but I had to guess how much insulin I needed to deliver in order to have enough insulin in my system until I could make it back home to re-install the pump (which takes about 10 - 15 ). I delivered two units of insulin, and hoped for the best. The remaining time, though, in the back of my head I was nervous as to if I'd over delivered, which could cause my sugar to drop, which can lead to nefarious things, like passing out.

Everything worked out. I had a good time on the tube, and made it back in time, and re-installed my pump, and then walked over to my friends' house to talk with them some more.

I write about this event for a couple of reasons. To show, hopefully, that with diabetes one never gets any times off. Even if a diabetic looks and sounds fine, most likely somewhere in the back of his/her head the person is thinking about the diabetes. The other reason I mention it is because I am fortunate these friends are very patient and understanding about my diabetes. They wanted to make sure I was ok, and after I removed the pump, they gave me a spin around the lake, but also made sure I got back home in time to get reconnected to the pump.

As I've written here before, people with chronic situations are just that - people, but people who have a lot on their mind, and even simple outings take planning and a step by step approach, and the ailment also becomes more tolerable with friends who include a person, making sure he or she feels openly accommodated and welcomed.