The Neurodivergent Diabetic

CONTENT WARNING: The following post discusses the death of a loved one and the grieving process associated with it. While I think the lessons from my experiences could be useful for my fellow neurodivergent folk, feel free to skip this post if you feel either uncomfortable or unprepared. I miss my dog a lot. His name is--was--Tiger. Early in 2022, he had come down with Cushing Syndrome, and due to his age, his condition was so severe that recovery was impossible. We resisted putting him to sleep for a while until the 5 th of October. I requested to take that week off from my volunteer job, to truly steel myself for what was to come. We'd known something like this was coming for a while, but the months leading up to it weren’t enough… and neither was that extra time. The night before that fated day, I was giving Tiger some hugs, when he suddenly rolled onto his back for belly rubs. It was the first time he had done that in weeks, and he even managed to do it twice before he tired...

Like many contemporary Type 1 diabetics, I treat my disability with an insulin pump. Specifically, it is a Medtronic MiniMed 670g that, though very outdated, has served me quite well across the years I’ve had it since 2018. I chose it because it was similar in functionality to the one it succeeded, so it took little to adjust to the new system. Medtronic MiniMed 670g Insulin Pump (With CGM) Many fresh additions to this pump elevated it above its predecessor. The accompanying Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM for short) was at the forefront of these changes; it allowed users to monitor blood sugars with a far less hands-on approach. But the other change that caught my attention was how its insulin reservoirs carry double that of its predecessor’s. At the time, I assumed this meant I would have to change the cartridge far less frequently than ever before. Nothing seemed to be amiss; its design followed the same logic as the CGM: less maintenance for a high-maintenance condition, and who ...