I
AM NOT A LIGHT PACKER, but I am an efficient one:
I can fit a week’s worth of clothes, diabetes supplies, elec-
tronics, and sundries into a carry-on bag. I loathe check-
ing luggage because I prefer to keep things close by, a
preference honed by decades of living with type 1 diabetes. But
when a 10-day trip to Paris in 2015 involved both a conference
and then a week of vacation, I had to ditch my regular packing plan
and check a bag. I needed conference attire, but also a bathing suit!
And sneakers. And maybe a big camera or two to photograph the
Eiffel Tower a dozen different times.
Checking a bag felt weird. I was already nervous about being
so far from home for what felt like a long time, and being sepa-
rated from my stuff made me a little uneasy. What if my bag was
lost? What if the airline sent it to the wrong city for a few days?
(I suddenly worried about my inability to say “socks” in French.)
“Move on,” I told myself, as I was packing the night before my
departure. I put all my essentials in my carry-on roller bag to pro-
tect my diabetes supplies (and my laptop) from the cold of the
plane’s cargo hold and the possibil-
ity of being lost. Responsible! Albeit
paranoid: in all my years of traveling,
I’d never had a lost or damaged bag.
The flight from Boston to Paris
was long but easy, and the confer-
ence was amazing (nothing like con-
necting with my fellow PWDs from
around the world). When it came
time to move from the conference
hotel to the apartment my husband and I had rented for the week,
I felt a strange sense of security. Maybe it was going to be just fine
with all these giant suitcases.
Oh, silly me for getting all comfortable. Just as my husband,
Chris, and I were putting in the code to enter the building of our
rental flat, a box truck rolled by at the same time as a guy on a
bicycle, causing a tight squeeze in the narrow Parisian lane. In this
bustling moment, my carry-on bag pitched into the street and was
run over by the truck.
“Oh,” I said, kind of casually, watching as the truck’s first set of
wheels crunched over the handle of my bag, crushing the metal
and plastic into oblivion.
“Oh [expletive],” I said, far less casually, as the bag pivoted a
little bit and the second set of truck wheels further obliterated the
handle, smashing the bag.
“Bag got run over,” I said to Chris, half in disbelief and half
channeling a Neanderthal. We both stared at the mushed bag and
realized at the same time that my pump supplies, back-up bottles
of insulin (Humalog and Levemir), test strips, back-up meter, and
all of my insulin pens were in that bag. Along with my laptop.Rolling withthe PunchesEven with expert planning, traveling with
diabetes doesn’t always go as planned.BY KERRI SPARLING, PWD TYPE 1
Inspire
REAL LIFE
We brought the suitcase into the apartment to assess the dam-
age. Never one to calmly do anything, I ripped into what was left
of the bag and brought out my essentials for a frantic inspection.
Miraculously, the truck only de-
stroyed the elongated handle of the
bag and the very top of the suitcase,
leaving everything inside still at
peace. (Except my curling iron—
that thing was beyond repair.) My
diabetes travel supplies were safe.
It dawned on me that even the
best-laid plans can become a big,
fat mess. I‘m a planner. And having
type 1 diabetes in my mental laundry basket means I’m constantly
thinking about all the what-ifs, constantly planning for the worst
but hoping for the best. Yet, even though I had packed enough
supplies to account for a broken bottle of insulin, a gaffed-up
pump, or a lost meter, I hadn’t considered the possibility of my
bag being run over by a truck.
But you know what? I was grateful that my ever-planning
brain knew immediately what questions to ask to solve a po-
tential crisis, even if I didn’t know the answers yet. Diabetes has
created this almost-superpower of versatility in so many PWDs,
allowing us to walk the line between prepared and paranoid with
(what appears to be) ease.
The lesson learned? Next time, I’m splitting up my supplies.
And hanging on to both bags with an army of hands.KERRI SPARLING was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the
age of 7. She is the creator of the diabetes blog SixUntilMe.com
and is a writer and speaker on patient storytelling. Her first
book, Balancing Diabetes: Conversations About Finding
Happiness and Living Well, is available through her website.Sparling
traveling with
her (new)
suitcase“Diabetes has created this
... superpower of versatility
in so many PWDs.”