When prepping to go on a trip, be it a short jaunt or an extended holiday, packing just the right things is an important part of a successful trip. There must be appropriate clothes and footwear, necessary toiletries, and perhaps some entertainment in the form of a book or electronic device. Packing to travel with diabetes requires a additional amount of prep and thought into packing. Insulin, extra infusion sets and reservoirs, syringes in case of a pump malfunction, pump batteries, a spare meter and meter batteries, glucagon, juice boxes, and lots of dextrose tabs, made up our travel kit last weekend before we headed off on a 4 day train trip to Japser and back. (Can you spot the major oversight? I forgot one VERY critical item in my packing...)
Our train left at 8:30pm on Sunday night, and I started packing at 5:30pm that evening (yes, a bit last minute to say the least). The kids each packed their own bags, while I packed my own stuff, and Dyl's D-supplies. Everything went into a big resealable freezer bag (my favorite D-supply travel bag because everything is visible at a glance...very handy in times of lows), which then went into a duffel bag that would remain in the train car with us at all times.
5:45pm and we appeared to be all set. The station was only a 20 minute drive from our house, so we were planning to leave around 7:30pm. (Translation: we were ready early!) I grabbed Dylan's kit to toss into his backpack and did a quick check on its supplies. Lots of lancets, 4 strips. Wow, good thing I checked! I opened the cupboard to grab another bottle of strips, only to discover that there weren't any! (Read: answer to oversight above). Crap. We absolutely NEED strips before we go because there are no stops on the way to Jasper, not to mention Jasper is a tiny little ski-town and its pharmacy (assuming it has one...) may not have Dyl's strips in stock.
A quick call to our pharmacy, which thankfully is located only 3 blocks from our house and always has Dyl's test strips in stock, and more strips were being prepared for us. Then just as I am about to hang up the phone with the pharmacist, she says, "and you know we close at 6:00pm tonight, right?" It's 5:52pm. Another call, this time to my husband, who is out running last minute errands, to beg him to drop whatever he's doing and RACE over to the pharmacy before 6:00pm. Bless his heart for making it on time.
The trip was fabulous, and most of the supplies I packed were totally unneeded, as usual, but when traveling with D, you can never be too prepared.
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