Things I learned on holiday

Lots of boats

I’m back. Sorry it’s been a while, there’s been a lot going on and I have shamefully neglected the blog. I did have a lovely holiday though, sailing on the Turkish coast. As ever, I learnt a few new (and not so new) pearls of wisdom about holidays with diabetes:

• Diabetes junk and I will never get along. No matter how many times I travel, I still get irritated by the amount of diabetes junk I have to carry. It seems doubly irritating when I realise not only is my hand luggage weighed down by diabetes junk, but I’m also carrying round a redundant organ in the shape of a pancreas that isn’t pulling it’s weight
• Insulin pumps survive a dunking in sea water perfectly well when you accidentally fall out of a dinghy whilst trying to get back onto your boat. A quick rinse in fresh water and it was good as new.
• I get a bit scared when a storm blows up, we’re still an hour away from where we want to get to and the waves are crashing over the boat. At this point, as you head downstairs to pull out the life jackets and harnesses, it’s not ideal for the boat to plunge down a wave and bounce you across the boat, catching your pump tubing as you fly and ripping out your infusion set.   Once the husband was securely harnessed to the wheel I decided an hour without insulin would be preferable to trying to change an infusion set at sea in a gale. And no, the super quick infusion set removal didn’t hurt at all, but the bruise from crashing into the side of the boat was very impressive.
• Sods law will always prevail. It’s 8am, we’re in a lovely little Turkish harbour. I’m in the cabin with my diabetes junk spread all over the place as I change my infusion set. The husband is on the loo. At that point I hear a lot of shouting as people try to tell us that some idiot has managed to pull up our anchor as they were leaving. Ten minutes later, all would have been fine. But no, all hell has to break loose when Captain Pugwash is on the loo and the crew is playing at being a pancreas.
• Other sailors will always think your pump is some interesting boat gadget they’ve not seen before and will be hugely disappointed to learn it’s a life support system for the pancreatically challenged rather than a super dooper at sea navigation aid.
• And finally, no matter how securely you clip the pump to your bikini bottoms, on a fortnight’s holiday on a boat you will catch the damn thing on a rope at least twice and kneecap yourself.

Other than that though, the diabetes was pretty plain sailing.