Diabetes Technology and You

Aside from the panic of being told you're diabetic (when that first occurs), one of the other things that sends most of us into a tizzy at that point is all the new technology with which we're suddenly presented. Some of us can't figure out how to stop activating the mute button on the cell phone we've had for more than a year. And here we are, neck deep in glucometers and test strips and lances and, for some of us, needles or pumps. Overwhelming? It's mind-blowing. Especially since we're already scared we're going to do something wrong and die. Any minute.

But we didn't even have insulin until the 1920's (despite having identified diabetes 3500 years ago). And people who needed insulin as recently as 1970 were still boiling syringes on the stove. (Ugh!) So while diabetic technology may be daunting to us at first, being without it -- it seems to me -- would be much, much tougher.

I discuss my own struggles with embracing and mastering the technology related to my condition in my book, Your Life Isn't Over ~ It May Have Just Begun! And actor/comedian Jim Turner, who's been managing his diabetes for nearly fifty years, gives us his take on diabetes technology in this short and helpful dLife tv video. If you haven't visited the dLife website yet, now might be a great time!