Grapity Purple

Waiting for the JDRF Walk to begin last Sunday morning, scoping out the resource booths (have I mentioned how much I love free D-related swag??), a flash of purple caught my eye.  There, just to my left, quivering in the morning breeze, was a collection of purple balloons, stamped with the words, “Animas Canada.”

“Purple?” I thought.  “Animas doesn’t make a purple pump…do they?”

But then, I saw the poster.  The poster with the picture.  The poster with the picture of the purple OneTouchUltraMini meter.  (And the pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle).  A purple meter?  How cool is that?! I was excited.  Excited like a kid in a candy store…but I was an adult at a diabetes resource fair.  Skipping over to the OneTouch booth, I asked if any purple meters were available.  And the answer was yes.  Yes! As the OneTouch representative set the date and time and coded the meter, I bounced and smiled like I was about to receive my most-desired Christmas present, the one I’d been hinting at for months.  Oh, the things that send my diabetes heart aflutter…like a brand spankin’ new, shiny ‘n snazzy purple blood glucose monitor!

Doing my first blood test on my new grapity fashionable diabetes management tool, I couldn’t help thinking about my first blood glucose monitor and how I would have loved a grapity purple meter when I was first diagnosed.  Instead, I was given a thick red and grey box of a monitor, encased in an old-man-esque pleather wallet with a magnetic clasp…clearly not designed with a nine year old girl in mind.  At the time though, I actually didn’t mind my old-man-esque meter.  In fact, I was quite fond of it.  I have a tendency to get quite attached to my blood glucose meters.  We do, after all, spend a lot of time together.  And, while I know the meter is simply the messenger, my monitors tend to bear the brunt of my blood glucose frustration…and contentment.  I know, I know, “don’t shoot the messenger,” but sometimes it just happens!  Yes, I have been known to throw my meter across the room when my sugars aren’t cooperating but we always make up in the end.

It may be superficial to get so excited about a new, purple meter but my diabetes management tools are part of my daily life.  And liking them, wanting to show them off and use them, is important.  I am definitely a fan of my colourful diabetes life and happy that the days of grey medical management are a thing of the past.  Green pump?  Purple meter?  Pink back-up meter?  You betcha!  I just wish my childhood-self could have experienced this rainbow age of diabetes management…she would have liked it.  Actually, she still does.