Boxed in

Jess recently wrote a post on Wilson's blog about her favorite diabetes tools. We all have our favs, that's for sure. I'm partial to the Freestyle Flash meter - despite its reputation of being wildly inaccurate at higher numbers - because it takes such a teeny tiny amount of blood. In the early days I was lucky to get any blood from Isabella at all (though she had very little problem getting blood from me) so just needing a speck was a great advantage.

Besides the meter, diabetes requires all sorts of things for ongoing management. A couple weeks into my kitty diabetes adventure, what became important to me was corralling all of the stuff that seemed to be accumulating on my kitchen counter. A box of syringes. Test strips. The meter and lancets. Etc. etc. Isabella's diabetes is a long-term thing and the kitchen counter wasn't going to hack it for long-term "stuff storage." I needed a way to organize it all so my house didn't start looking like a pharmacy.

Ah, eBay.

Years ago I bought a little hand-made wooden box to hold kitty brushes and nail clippers. I wanted them to be handy, but not just laying around. This box was the solution:



It works great. Everything fits, it's cute, and I can keep it right near where I do the nail trimming without it screaming "cat stuff" to everyone who walks through my living room. I surveyed my collection of diabetes supplies and knew I needed another box. So back to eBay I went, where I found this:



I keep the testing supplies there, next to the testing spot (which is also the nail-trimming spot). Again, everything fits: the meter and lancet launcher, loose lancets, strips & control solution, and some tissue bits in case I hit a gusher, and yet no one else knows all that stuff is sitting right next to the couch. It's perfect.

Syringes are kept in a coffee cup in the cupboard next to the fridge, which (of course) is where in insulin lives. I preferred the packaging of the syringes I initially got from my vet: bags of 10. Open the bag, voila! 10 syringes. The GNP brand syringes I now use come individually wrapped - a pain in the arse when it's time to restock the coffee cup.

The wooden boxes and coffee cup handily hold the day-to-day supplies, but I still don't have a good system for my backstock: the full boxes of syringes, the spare test strips, the (ahem) extra meters. Those things are piled haphazardly next to my computer in the "office." So far that's not bothering me. No one coming into the house really sees it, and I can readily see what I have and what I need to order.

I can also admire my growing collection of meters. In pretty colors.