The short attention span of the media has moved on from Hurricane Ike, but there are still millions of people without power in the Gulf Coast area, and predictions are that they will remain without power for weeks more.
I went through Hurricane Gloria in Connecticut (the week I was due to give birth to my second child) and waited a week to get our power back. But that was in the Northeast where September is the one month when you can get by quite happily without heat or air conditioning.
Texas is different. I've lived in Texas, and still remember the week in November when our air conditioning broke down and it quickly got up to 94 degrees in our apartment. I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to be in Texas in September without air conditioning or power for weeks. But I know it must be horrible.
And that's without having to deal with diabetes.
Insulin goes bad very quickly when kept at temperatures in the 90s. So, of course, does food. People with Type 1 diabetes who find themselves trapped in a disaster area like the Gulf Coast is now could very quickly find themselves in a life-threatening situation. People with severe Type 2 who rely on insulin aren't in much better shape. And poor people with diabetes who left the area and holed up in motels thinking they could go home in a few days and who have run out of money are in even direr shape.
I wish there were some way to reach out and help. Unfortunately, the ADA does not appear to provide any programs for people with diabetes trapped in disaster areas. I just checked their home page and the only thing new on it is their "Recipe of the day" which is for "Couscous"--a pasta that contains 46 grams of carbohydrate for an unrealistically small serving of 1/2 cup.
If someone does know of a way for us to reach out and help people with diabetes who are having a tough time on the Gulf Coast, please let me know!
Meanwhile, each of us should probably stop and take a moment to think about steps we could take now to help us get through disasters that might strike our region: Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earth quakes, terrorist attacks, or just plain old infrastructure failure (a.k.a. "power blackouts.")
What would happen to you if you were without power for a month? What kinds of foods could you eat if you did not have a working refrigerator? If you could not get any money from an ATM or electronic Point of Sale system?
How would you keep your insulin cold? How would you get insulin if local pharmacies were also without power or you couldn't get out of your home because it was under water and the road impassable?
What other meds or treatments do you have to have to stay alive?
One of the saddest things about the mess in Galveston is the number of elderly people who apparently did not evacuate because they were attached to dialysis machines. We saw them being airlifted to "safety" but have to wonder why they weren't on some kind of priority list at the time when the evacuation order was given.
Maybe you will never have to deal with any of this. I hope so. But maybe you will, and if there is anything that these recent mega-disasters has shown us, it is that we take a lot of things for granted that if they aren't there make it really really tough for us to stay alive.
I'm not quite ready to move to a bunker in Montana filled with canned goods, but a generator is starting to look like maybe it isn't a luxury (our water comes from a well and without power we have no water or toilets). And it might be a good idea to have some high protein canned goods on hand since just about all of what I can eat without insulin is perishable.
What kind of things are you going to do to prepare yourself to take care of your diabetes if you run into a disaster?
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