Hello again.

As you may be able to tell from the fact that I’m writing this post, I have made it back from SE Asia intact and there were no major dramas with my diabetes or the pump while I was away which was nice because I was a little nervous this being the first time that I’d be overseas with one. In fact, the pump turned out to be one of the easiest things about being away when I compare it to being attacked (properly not superficially) by a monkey, getting pooped on by bats and getting stuck in a Tuk-Tuk that was in a massive puddle which had a live power cable in it.

I’m sure that Nic will agree when I say that the pump is a million times better than MDI when you are overseas for ease of use and descreetness but personally, the best thing that I found was the timezone adjustments. While my levels weren’t perfect, compared to the last time I was away this was brilliant because normally, there is quite a rigmarole getting used to the new food (minus CHO labelling), the temperatures and all the exercise walking around without having to worry about long-acting insulin. This time around then, rather than figuring out what time to take your long acting and slowy re-adjusting the time you take in at destination you can just change the clock on the pump and you’re done. It’s seriously that easy! Because the insulin isn’t in your system for anything more than 4 hours it just isn’t an issue and even if it makes things go haywire a little, you don’t have to put up with 12-24 hours of madness because you can adjust the basal rates straight away. Ace.

The more I use this thing the more I realise that the investment is TOTALLY worth every last cent and the more I wish the government would look at funding the pump or at least the consumables.

P.S. My apologies for the sheen on my all too white legs and I must also confess that this is from my last trip to Thailand – the post needed a photo and I didn’t have another one.

- Aaron