Category: Diabetes & Body Image

What (Not) to Wear: Medical Device Edition

mollyt1d1 Comment

I’m going to two weddings this spring and summer and rather than stressing about which dress I’ll wear to each, I’m finding myself more focused on where I’ll wear my insulin pump and my CGM.

It might sound like I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but truly, I’m having a hard time deciding whether or not I want to make an effort to hide my devices or don them proudly along with my formalwear. Now when I say “hide”, I don’t mean that I want them out of sight because I’m ashamed of them or anything negative like that. It couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m proud of and grateful for my pump and CGM, but that doesn’t mean that I want them to be front and center on a special occasion. I’d rather let my style – my dress, my make-up, and my jewelry – shine because they’re more reflective of who I am as a person. My diabetes is also a part of my identity, but I don’t want to showcase it if it can be avoided. I also don’t want to attract stares, because whether I like it or not, people will always look and wonder what my pod and CGM are and why I have to wear them.

At a family wedding a few years ago, I was proud to showcase my cute pod sticker…but these days, I’m not so sure that I want to go about advertising my diabetes so boldly at a couple of upcoming weddings!

So based on that logic alone, I’m leaning towards wearing my pod and CGM on sites around my abdomen or legs, keeping them neatly tucked away underneath my wedding attire. But I also need to take into account my site change days. My pod is changed every 3 days, and my CGM sensor is replaced every 10 days. I could plan backwards from the wedding dates and figure out where I need to place my pod and sensor according to that, but let’s be real here: I don’t always have the mental bandwidth to plan that far in advance. Pod and sensor site changes are so routine to me at this point that I just kind of go through the motions every time that I change them, and don’t give much thought to their particular placement beyond making sure that I’m properly rotating my sites. Maybe I’m just being lazy by claiming it’s too much extra work, but honestly, there’s so much work that already goes into diabetes on a daily basis that I just don’t want to give in and plan out a site change timeline that guarantees covered-up diabetes devices.

We’ll see what happens, but one thing is for sure: Whether I showcase my sensor and pod in visible spots or if I choose to keep them covered up, I won’t let my diabetes spoil any aspect of having a great time celebrating at both weddings.

Advertisement

A Bit Bumpy

mollyt1d1 Comment

I spent way too long trying to come up with a good title for this blog post.

Let’s be real, here. It’s hard to think of compelling, descriptive titles that will make people want to read a piece of content. This post was particularly challenging for me because of the subject matter: bumps.

Before you jump to any conclusions, I’m not talking about baby bumps or any sort of metaphorical or literal bumps in the road. The bumps that I’m referring to are physical manifestations on my skin of my diabetes that I find unsightly, which is why I had a difficult time figuring out how to talk about them in a blog post.

I don’t understand why the bumps only appear on my thighs, but…c’est la vie.

Let me elaborate on the exact nature of these bumps. They only show up when I remove a pod that had been on my thigh. No other site experiences this blemish, and no other diabetes device (e.g., my CGM) causes a raised bump to appear on my skin’s surface. The bumps themselves are relatively small – they look a little bit like mosquito bites. You can always tell the exact location that the pod’s cannula was in because the skin looks slightly more irritated and raised there, whereas the skin around that site has a pink tinge to it. These bumps don’t hurt me, aren’t typically itchy, and usually fade in a week or so.

In the grand scheme of things, the bumps probably don’t sound like that big of a deal. But I can’t help but feel self-conscious about them because to me, they’re stark reminders of the physical marks that diabetes leaves on my body. I made peace with having to wear two different gadgets (my pod and my CGM) years ago and having those stuck on my being, but these ugly little bumps? I didn’t exactly consent to having those on my body, too.

I suppose I could solve the problem by avoiding using my thighs as sites for my pods, but to me, that’s just giving in to my diabetes and giving up an extra bit of real estate on my body that I need so I can properly rotate my pod and CGM sites. I’m a little too stubborn to just accept that I shouldn’t wear pods on my legs if I want the bumps to stop appearing. That doesn’t mean that I have to be okay with them, though.

Sharing about the bumps in a blog post is me being vulnerable about a component of my diabetes that embarrasses me. I’m hoping that it results in that shame evolving into a sense of acceptance, or maybe even pride, over my bumps. Because even though they’re far from cute, they do add visibility to my diabetes and represent the strength that my body and mind have developed in order to coexist with it on a daily basis.

Maybe writing this post is the launching point for me to think of these bumps not as blemishes, but as diabadass beauty marks, instead.

Swimsuit Season is Here and My Diabetes Gadgets and I are Not Ready

mollyt1d2 Comments

A “yay”: Summer is here!!! Hooray for warm weather, beach trips, and backyard BBQs! (Not to mention VACCINES!)

A “nay”: My pods and my CGM sensors are about to bare themselves for the world to see and we are NOT READY for it.

My confidence in my appearance is rarely, if ever, high. But I like to fake it ’til I make it and act like I’m rocking my summer wardrobe instead of stressing about how my legs or arms look in the staples of the season that are designed to show more skin.

Usually, I have a lot more success in feeling good about how my medical devices appear on my body. Whether they’re hidden under my clothes or out for the world to see, I typically don’t care because these gadgets are keeping me alive!!! And that’s a lot more important than any negative body image connotations they may create.

A picture from a time during which I was very okay with PDA (public displays of my arms).

But something about this year feels different to me. I am so not looking forward to the extra stares that my diabetes technology attracts. I’m not sure if it has to do with being sheltered in the last year and a half because of the pandemic, but whatever the cause may be, this is something I’m grappling with as the temps creep up and the temptation to hit the beach grows stronger.

I know I’m not the only one dealing with this. In fact, I was in Maine for a couple of days with my parents and I was wearing my pod on my leg, whereas my mom had hers on her arm. And we had multiple people approach us about our pods! They weren’t necessarily rude in their approaches – curiosity drove them to speak with us and that’s innocent enough – but it’s still weird to know that people are looking closely enough at our bodies to see our devices and feel comfortable enough to ask us about them. Plus, I felt extra self-conscious about it because in typical Molly fashion, I had a sunburn all around my pod thigh site…when applying sunscreen, I almost always miss the area directly around my pods because I’m afraid of the sunscreen making my adhesive weaker or interfering with the pod’s functionality. So not only did I have this big chunk of plastic sitting on my leg, it was also red all around the site, drawing even more attention to it. It was a relief when I was able to put shorts on over my swimsuit and cover up both the burn and the pod.

So while I’m not loving how wary I’ve felt lately about baring my diabetes devices, I’m also coming to terms that it’s just a sort of phase that I’m going through right now. And that’s okay. I’m also trying to remind myself that I don’t have to feel obligated to go into detailed explanations when people ask me about my pod or CGM. It’s a natural tendency that I have to use it as a teaching moment and be a good diabetes advocate, but sometimes I just don’t have the energy for it. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that as the summer season goes on, my comfortability with my diabetes devices increases and I worry less about the looks they tend to draw.

My Speckled Fingertips

mollyt1d1 Comment

A lesser-known fact about me: I used to love writing poetry. I wrote tons of it when I was a middle schooler and sometimes used it to explore the emotions I associated with my diabetes. I even won a prize in a poetry competition once for a poem that was about my journey to accepting my diabetes. Today, I revisit my poetry roots in this short piece about the scars that years of fingerstick checks have left on my fingertips.

If you squint reeeeeeeal hard, then you can see the careful placement of fingertip scars that I put onto this graphic hand. (I tried to take a picture of my own with less-than-satisfactory results, so a cartoon representation will have to do.)

Tiny black dots
Littered across my fingertips
These fingertip freckles are
Constant reminders of
Decades of life with type 1 diabetes
My speckled fingertips
Rough from the scars
Worn from thousands of pricks
Poked and prodded and pinched
Countless times
As part of the process to
Help keep me alive
Blood droplets
Flood scarlet, startlingly red
In contrast to my fair skin
Temporarily masking the marks
When wiped clean
They reveal themselves
Unashamedly
Loudly
Proudly
Maybe I should be
Proud of them, too.


Navigating New Insulin Pump Sites and Nerves

mollyt1d2 Comments

Am I the only T1D out there who feels incredibly nervous about trying new insulin infusion sites?

I’ve been this way as long as I can remember, now that I’m thinking about it. Throughout my childhood, I stubbornly stuck to injecting in my arms, legs, and upper buttocks (tee-hee) because those were the areas I felt comfortable with. I don’t think I even considered jabbing myself in my stomach until I was in my teens, and it was only after I realized the importance of site rotation and reducing scar tissue.

So it’s kind of funny that when I went on the OmniPod just over five years ago, I only used my stomach and my lower back (just above the upper buttocks region, tee-hee) for pod placements. It was partly because my guinea pig – I mean, my mom – used those areas for her pods with success, and also because I was hesitant in the beginning to wear my pods on my arms or legs because of their increased visibility.

It went that way for a couple of year – four basic sites ’round my abdomen – when it occurred to me yet again that site rotation was also important for insulin pumpers, not just MDI-ers (multiple daily injection…ers). So I added my upper arms into the mix, and soon after, my upper thighs followed.

Navigating New Insulin Pump Sites and Nerves
The little diagram (courtesy of Insulet/OmniPod) above only shows a few of the sites that people with diabetes use…over the years, we’ve gotten a lot more creative!

But lately, I’ve shied away from wearing pods on my thighs because the area isn’t overly comfortable. When I roll over in my sleep at night, my pod presses up against my leg and the resulting pressure is just enough to disrupt my sleep and make it difficult for me to find a more restful position to sleep in.

As a result, I’ve started contemplating potential new pod sites, and one of the first places I went to for advice was…Instagram! Because…duh.

The DOC (diabetes online community) on Insta is a natural resource for this sort of thing because many people tend to share photos of their sites. It’s kind of a thing. One simple scroll through my feed taught me that people can get very inventive when it comes to finding new locations to place their CGMs and insulin pump infusion sites.

I saw people wearing Dexcoms on their forearms and calves. I saw pods on backs, calves, and even the upper chest area, the latter of which I found most intriguing. For men, it seems like a very accessible spot that causes little irritation, but for women? How the heck did the T1D ladies I saw with pods on their chest deal with it?

The general consensus, it seemed, was that women wearing pods on the upper chest agreed it was a site with great absorption and minimal discomfort.

I was still skeptical, though. I was worried about how it would look if I was wearing a v-neck tank with my pod poking out of, well, my bra! Then it hit me that my pod garners questions from strangers regardless of where it’s located. Furthermore, people will (probably?) be less likely to ask about it if it’s located on my chest because, um, that’s really awkward. My eyes are up here, people!!!

Then I remembered: I could give the site a try without wasting a pod because I have a demo pack that I got from a diabetes conference awhile back! The demo pack comes with a dummy pod that looks and feels just like a regular pod, but there’s no reservoir built into it, so insulin can’t be injected into it.

So right now, as I’m writing this, I’m wearing two pods: one on my upper arm that’s actually giving me insulin, and a fake one on my chest just to see how I like it. I must admit, so far, so good! I slept comfortably with it on last night and I haven’t had any issues wearing clothing or undergarments with it. I even went for a jog with it on and got pretty sweaty, but it stayed secure/I didn’t feel it bouncing around at all (thought the adhesive got a bit too damp for my liking…it stayed on but if I wasn’t careful I totally could’ve knocked it off).

While I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around an actual cannula piercing my skin at this location (eeeek), now that I know I can handle the pod itself living there, I’m one step closer to trying (and liking) a site that’s more intimidating to me – a win in my book.

Four Signs of Diabetes in the Summertime

mollyt1d3 Comments

Sun’s out, guns pumps out, amirite guys?

The summertime season is in full swing, and now that it’s here I’m thinking of the various ways my diabetes is more pronounced in the warmer weather. It’s much more visible, leading to many more questions, but what are the cues that give it away to others? I thought of four…

Visible sites. Shorts-and-t-shirts weather makes it much harder to place pods or CGM sensors in discrete locations. And if I’m going to the beach? There’s no way that I can even attempt to hide my devices. That’s probably why I make them even more obvious with…

…Pump and sensor art. I’ve written about Pump Peelz and GrifGrips in the past – they make adhesives and skins that are specially designed to fit pods, PDMs, pumps, meters, and more. The products they make are truly little works of art for diabetes devices, and I like to make sure all of mine are decked out in the summer months so I can show off tech that’s not only functional, but also stylish.

Four Signs of Diabetes in the Summertime
I’m looking forward to donning my best beach-y Pump Peelz on what I hope will be many trips to the beach this summer.

Gadget tan lines. Or if you’re like me, it’s more like sunburn lines. That’s because each summer, without fail, I somehow manage to neglect the space around my pod or my sensor, so when it’s time to remove it, there’s a huge red circle around the perimeter of where the device was situated. Maybe this year I’ll actually learn my lesson and take the time to apply sunscreen properly so I can avoid the very not-cute sunburn circles.

Travel coolers. This is probably the least obvious sign of diabetes in the summertime, but to those in the know, coolers meant to protect insulin are pretty recognizable compared to regular coolers. Whether it’s a Frio cooling pouch or another brand of insulin cooler, people with diabetes tend to carry these throughout the summer months in order to prevent insulin from spoiling due to heat exposure.

 

A Device-Free Shower

mollyt1dLeave a comment

For the first time in *literally* years, I took a device-free shower the other day.

AND IT WAS AMAZING.

6B17A57D-C50C-497D-9FC5-B24C6F6405EF
Ta-ta for now, little friends.

Let me clarify that by device-free, I mean that I wasn’t wearing a pump or a CGM on my body. Both were due to be changed that evening, so with what can only be described as unadulterated glee, I peeled my Dexcom followed by my pod off my body before practically leaping into the shower.

It probably sounds funny, and perhaps a little dramatic or flat-out fucking weird, but those 15 minutes without a single medical device stuck to me were glorious. I wasn’t worried about accidentally knocking something off. I was free to scrub off the adhesive that had kept the devices stuck to my skin, and I felt oddly empowered – carefree, even – that I could enjoy one of the most mundane daily routines without needing to worry about my diabetes. Sure, for the duration of my shower, I wasn’t receiving my basal rate of insulin, but I really didn’t care because 1) I took a small bolus to compensate for it before I removed my pod and 2) I was more focused on doing this one little thing for myself to reclaim my body from diabetes devices, even if it was for a short window of time.

So you might argue that I had my first truly nekkid shower for the first time in forever. And it made me happy. A brief reprieve from diabetes is always welcome, and I’ll take it in whatever silly form I can get it in.