Feeling Alone in a Crowded Airport- And then Not.

In my first post on this blog, I touched on the different communities that I feel I am a part of and how that has affected my life. I closed with the comment that in the last 18 months the diabetes community has been the biggest factor in my life. I had a very first hand reminder of that as I was in Miami International Airport. I had just come from two days at the racetrack, a morning of jet-skiing with the team and was headed back to home in California and my friends. So I was very definitely leaving one or two sets of communities and heading back to a whole different set. And while at times I am a bigger part of one community or another, I am always a part of the diabetes community. Diabetes is with me every step of the way, every time I eat, every time I exercise, every time I enjoy any success or challenge; my diabetes is with me and not in an insignificant way. So there I was wandering through the airport, hungry for some lunch when I grabbed some orange chicken, beef with broccoli, and noodles. I sat down at a table to eat, checked my blood sugar (150mg/dl- still higher than normal from the snacks I had eaten at the lake) and injected insulin for the meal and to compensate for the slightly higher number. At that moment, as I finished my injection and put my diabetes supplies back into my backpack, I felt very alone. I seemed to be the only person in that diabetes community in the airport at that moment. And then a funny thing happened, the man across the aisle, with his wife and two kids, got up to head for their flight I noticed that he had an insulin pump on his belt. I spoke up and asked him if he liked his pump as I am always on the lookout for feedback about different technologies and treatment methods. He then proceeded to tell me how much he liked it and how it really helped his control. He said that he had recently upgraded the unit to integrate his continuous sensor. We talked about my using the DexCom Seven sensor and still using multiple daily injections. He commented again on how much the pump helped him and then he and his family were off to catch their flight. It was a completely random encounter, but it really made me feel a lot less alone. I went from being one random person in a very busy airport to one person who a strong connection to a complete stranger- all in the span of about 2 minutes.