syringes – Hugging the Cactus

When taking stock of my diabetes supplies, I realized there was something pretty important missing from my heaps of test strips, stacks of pods, and (seemingly) thousands upon thousands of lancets…

…syringes. I didn’t have any syringes in sight, save for the ones that come with pods and that are designed exclusively to be used for pod changes. (I only call that out because those syringes are made to hold 3 days’ worth of insulin and should not ever be used for self-injection.)

In fact, I’m not sure that I’ve ever even had syringes in my possession since moving out of my parents’ house.

Luckily, I’ve never really had a reason to need them – I’ve never had a desire to stop using my insulin pump since I went on it almost 10 years ago – but that doesn’t mean that it’s wise for me to not have a back-up supply on hand. So I decided to do something about it. I told my doctor that I’d like to have some in my reserves, just in case, and she wholeheartedly agreed. I picked them up at no cost and they’ve remained among my supply stash ever since.

Knowing that they’re there and available to me, should I need them, makes me feel that much more equipped to handle any possible diabetes scenario. It’s kind of funny to find comfort in having syringes, of all things, under my roof – but to me and to anyone else with diabetes, it just makes sense to have the most basic of back-ups around.

It’s Valentine’s Day in a couple of days. Whether you celebrate the holiday or not, I’d like to make you think about something that represents the day well: a bouquet of a dozen roses.

A dozen roses is a classic Valentine’s gift, right? But what if you received 11 roses in your bouquet, instead of 12? What if you knew that a rose was spared because the value of that flower helped support a child living with diabetes in a less-resourced country?

I bet you wouldn’t mind getting one less rose in that case.

SquareTag — Who knew that the value of a dozen roses could pay for a child with diabetes to live another year of life?

This Valentine’s Day, please consider sparing a rose. Life for a Child is a nonprofit charity that created the Spare a Rose campaign. They’re able to support nearly 20,000 young people living with diabetes by using donations to buy them insulin, syringes, clinical care, diabetes education, and more. Anyone who’s familiar with diabetes realizes that access to care, education, and resources is critical to living a healthy and normal life. No one would want to deny another, especially a child, from having to forgo these resources because of the financial burden associated with them.

I’ve written about the Spare a Rose campaign for the last few years because I think it’s a beautiful way to celebrate a day that makes some swoon and others sick to their stomachs. A common complaint among people in this day and age is that too many holidays are all about raking in the dough for companies like Hallmark; in other words, most holidays have lost their original meaning and have become too commercialized.

So here’s your chance to bring back some significance to Valentine’s Day, whether you’re single, partnered, or married.

Spare a rose and save child this Valentine’s Day.