I am happy that diabetes is in the news almost every day. We are getting more exposure and understanding from the general public. And I am sad it’s in the news every day because the reasons that is so are unforgivable.

In the past few days I’ve read three articles that make me ill. Literally, they turn my stomach. The first was in the New York Post about a young man who died because he could no longer afford his insulin. When a doctor recommended a cheap, over-the-counter brand, he took it thinking the cost savings would also help his pay for his upcoming wedding, “Diabetic groom-to-be dies after taking cheaper insulin to pay for wedding.”  

When the never-to-be-groom’s body was found he had suffered multiple strokes, was in a diabetic coma and his blood sugar was 17 times what’s considered normal.

Then I read in the Washington Post, “A Detroit diabetic was deported to Iraq, where he’d never lived. He died from lack of insulin, family says.” Jimmy Aldaoud, who was born in Greece and lived in America his whole life was, under Trump’s ramp up to get rid of immigrants, rounded up by Detroit’s ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and deported to Iraq – a country of his heritage that he’d never been in.  He died for lack of insulin in Iraq.

I want to puke.

Then today I read on facebook an article a fellow T1D posted that CVS Pharmacy has decided they will not fulfill scripts for blood sugar testing strips beyond three a day. While this is a Medicare guideline, Medicare allows people with a written note from their doctor to get as many strips as their doctor prescribes. CVS has decided they will not. They say if you want more, go somewhere else.

I want to know what world I am living in. I want to know how safe I am, an average, educated, fairly healthy, fairly financially secure 65 year old woman  with type 1 diabetes? In my 47 years of living with diabetes I have never feared my condition would threaten my life – not in this way. To not be able to get the medication I need. And will my Dutch-Indonesian husband be rounded up one day walking to the grocery store and deported somewhere?

I can no longer say I am safe. I don’t recognize this country anymore. I don’t understand how people can do this to other human beings. And I feel a deep sense of dread.When articles like this come out every day I can only say do the best to keep yourself safe, we are all at risk.