27 units. That’s exactly how many units of Humalog were left in my pod, and I had no choice but to literally throw them away. My pod was expired – it had been for 8 hours – and to my knowledge, 8 hours after a pod expires, it will cease working entirely.

I kept the pod on those 8 extra hours because I couldn’t bear the thought of wasting insulin.

It’s a strange, messed up game that I played. I was taking a bit of a risk by wearing my pod for so long after it expired. After all, it’s just a piece of technology, and it can sometimes be difficult to know whether or not it’s working properly when it’s brand new, let alone within the window of expiration. But this is the game that I have to play, along with so many other people with diabetes, because insulin is precious.

Insulin keeps us alive.

Insulin is a need, not a want.

Insulin is exorbitantly expensive, so much so that it ranks #6 on a listing of the 10 most expensive liquids in the world.

With that in mind, tell me…would you feel comfortable throwing away even one single unit of it?

One could argue that maybe I could’ve tried to extract the 27 units from the old pod and reuse it in a new one – but to me, that’s an even more dangerous game to play. I have no clue whether that’s safe, or if there’s too much risk involved with germs and cross-contamination. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but when it comes to my health, I have to be.

So as much as it pained me to be unable to use every last drop of insulin, I made the only viable choice for me and disposed of 27 units of Humalog.

27 units, 16 units, 3 unit, 1 unit…no matter what the quantity is here, every last drop of insulin is invaluable.

When will we see change? Is it really too much to ask for insulin to be affordable to all?