Truthfully, you need to decide yourself how you want to address. Most people I know don't realize I am a diabetic or forget that I am one. WHile I do not keep the pump hidden, I normally ignore the stupid questions. It is really up to you how you answer. IN the end it is a good time to teach people about the pump and also a little about what life is like being a diabetic.
The funniest thing for me with my pump was back in October I was home from school for something and helping my brother with something. Mind you it is about midnight and he sees the tubing hanging from under my shirt and asks about it. I tell him it is for my insuling pump and he just stares at me. Apparently, I neglected to hell him about it. In fact, I think most of my family forgets about the fact that I am one. Heck, my grandma is probably the only other person that knos I have a pump. Again, not that I am hiding, just that I tend to forget about it now and tend not to call attention to it.Everyone of us handles the situation differently. Anytime someone asks about it, depending on who it is, I either give them a straightforward answer or just distract them with a bright shiny object and move on.
oh man mine is this bethoven alarm, no seriously it's a classical piece that plays. i kinda want it to go off when im in classes when school starts back up so i can see what people do. i know i'm odd but hey hehe.
I love the battery joke! My family and friends are also very open to joking about my pump. I hope I'm not dating myself too bad here, but there used to be a skit on SNL with these guys who wore muscle suits. I believe they were "Austrian Body Builders" who were were trying to sell their exercise tapes. Their tag line was, "We're going to pump *CLAP* you up!" Sorry if I don't have the facts 100% correct...it's been a while.
Now, when I bolus after a meal, the runing joke with my family is that, "I'm pumping *CLAP* me up." LOL! It always good for a laugh.
I've never felt awkward. New Technology is GREAT!! When people ask who know I have Diabetes I LOVE showing it (not the tubing part, I'm on the MM 722)...it's a whole lot better than whipping out the needles and a vial of insulin. Most people think it's a beeper (if they notice it at all) if they don't know I am Diabetic.
I LOVE the Hans and Franz reference AND the Ipod reference....too funny! In my house my husband just asks if I've shot myself yet....We get a few looks about that one if he says it in public! It's a whole lot easier to "shoot myself" now by just pushing a few buttons. I've never really been all that found/comfortable around needles (even after 28 years).
hi, I am new here so I am probably replying to this wrong, but I don't have a problem showing mine off.
I usually joke and tell people it is my electric pancreas/my battery operated pancreas. Sometime I will joke around and when my cell phone rings, pick up my pump and start talking to it! That always gets a laugh. I proudly wear it while running around on the beach in a bikini....my mom says that people are probably wondering who I am and how fabulous I must be to be wearing a beeper on the beach.
The only time I get a little consciencious of it is when I have a really fancy outfit on and there isn't a good place to put it.....wearing it on my undies makes an unattractive lump underneath a black dress, and you can't really keep it in your bra because digging it out before dinner to do a bolus isn't good manners either if you are at a nice place.
I've always told people what it is, not going into much detail. I did have that pace counter question, because I keep my pump clipped on my pants, so it sort of looks like a pedometer. There's so many funny responses on this though!!
i always put my pump into my pocket so no one really see's it. so i haven't gotten questions about it. but when i get my wireless monitor out to do the bolus i get asked questions. my favorite was from my Endo. haha i don't think he was familiar with that style of pump. he was like are you texting? hahaha i looked at him like what? then i said oh no it's the BG wireless thing for my pump. so i had to educate my endo about what pump it was.
My college professor, who knows I'm diabetic, hates the beeping on my pump. it drives her UP THE WALL. Which I thought was hilarious.
But I never knew how bad it the beeping was getting to her until one morning when she walked into class and started telling me about her dream. that everyone in the class was on an insulin pump and they all suddenly started beeping! she said it was like an echo and everyone was reaching to their side and pressing buttons on there pump. Haha
As for explaining it I just say I'm a cyborg. This is normally funny enough that people don't ask any more questions.
i was *this* close to it singing to me in class the other day, but i didn't want it to disrupt the discussion that was going on. i was checking my BG in class then i noticed it was kinda high and i knew i had an XX amount of insulin left before it gave me the low cartridge warning. which it sang when i got into the hallway and i did a bolus.
I was serving mass yesterday morning, doing the reading from Genesis, when murph (my pump, don't ask) buzzed in my pocket. I had just started the reading and it was long... and without looking like a complete foo to mute him I started to panic as I knew it would only be a matter of time as I went from buzz to beep. So I started to speed my reading along praying that I would stay in buzz phase. If I started to beep while reading in a quiet chapel I would have been pretty embarassed. The most annoying thing was that I wasn't even low, I was on day 6 of my sensor and it was slowly dying and trending low... What a pain. my one friend commented on my speed and I just said it was either read fast or run out of the chapel when I started to beep...
Brian, your story reminded me of my medical school interviews! I
refused to mention my diabetes in any of my applications so a week
before my first interview, I practiced throughout the day trying to
turn off the alarm without anyone noticing, haha. Fortunately nothing happened
during my first interview, but on the second one my pump kept vibrating
every 20 minutes since I was low. It felt like the longest hour of my
life! That being said, I don't think they noticed.... and yes, there
were two interviewers (horrible!), and another student was sitting
right next to me. Anyway, it must be a challenge trying to turn off those alarms during mass with the vestments you have to wear....hopefully it doesn't happen again! :)
I mean people know and it's not like it's a secret, but I was not in the mood to be up at the ambo with the annoying your low noise coming from my pocket as I tried to finish reading the creation story. I mean any other day I can handle the silencing, but once the "oh sugar" panic comes on and I don't want people staring at me panic comes on, I was pretty much screwed. So I did the only thing I could do, which was read at a faster pace, ignore my sweaty palms, stop cursing at the top of my inside voice, and try to avoid stumbling. I mean the creation story happened in seven days... But reading it seemed like hours. We learn and move on. I told the Vice Rector afterwards, he was the priest presiding at the mass and he laughed and said I just figured that since you commented about how I have long homilies, that you were trying to make up for it by rushing the readings.
Heh...I always like to joke with people (especially when they gawk and ask me if my pump is a pager, thinking that I'm stuck in the stone ages or something) and tell them that my pump is the new high tech phone. So, when I bolus, I say I'm making a call and then tell 'em that I don't have to say anything out loud b/c the phone reads my mind by the "wiring" and then sends the message through to the other line. People stare at me at first in total awe, then they realize I'm pulling their chain (b/c I'm really bad at keeping a straight face, one reason why I can't ever play poker - lol) and most of the time they fill kind of stupid afterwards, but it always opens up the conversation, like a clean ice-breaker. That's when they get totally intrigued by my pump and start asking me better questions or just let me explain. One guy even went so far after I explained to him what it was and how it worked by saying, "You're the cutest diabetic I've ever met." That was truly one of the cheesiest lines I've ever gotten, but it was a pretty funny reaction to cover himself after he realized that he was the ignorant one. Or...I also like this one...I'll tell people that I'm part cyborg. That cracks them up most of the time. Technically, it's not far off b/c then I can explain that the pump is like a mechanical external pancreas since mine doesn't quite do its job.