A Security Story

As we arrived at the airport security gate on our way to Florida, my daughter disconnected her pump. "This needs to be visually inspected. It can't go through any of the scanners," she informed the TSA agent.

"That's what you'd like to do?" was the reply.

"Yes, please."

We walked through the body scanner and met the agent on the other side. We stood near him as he swabbed the pump to check for explosives and then returned it to my daughter.

Meanwhile I watched our toiletries and my carry-on bag slide into the 'to be inspected' holding area instead of continuing along the conveyor belt to be retrieved.

The first thing I was asked about was the Frio insulin cooling case.

 

 

"It's a gel cooler for insulin," I explained. "It has a vial of insulin and an insulin pen in it." The TSA agent handed it back, satisfied with the answer.

He still had my large backpack. "Anything in here you can think of that would have caused this to be pulled aside?"

"Um- it's got lots of diabetes supplies...syringes, insulin pump infusion sets, glucometers...I'm not sure what might have caused the concern."

So the TSA agent, who was very nice, rummaged through the bag, pulling out every make-up case and Ziploc bag, methodically opening and examining them one at a time. When those were all on the metal table and the only things left in the bag were books and a few other obviously safe items, he sent the backpack through the x-ray machine again.

"Okay- you're good to go," he said upon his return.

I observed the collection of items spread around the metal table, all of which needed to be fit back into the backpack in a way that would enable us to access the important ones during our flight, and stifled a laugh.

"Easy for me to say," the TSA agent said with a friendly smile as we started to repack.

It's November...Diabetes Awareness Month! My plan for this month involves stories. Simple, everyday, real-life stories about living with diabetes. I plan to tell them here as narratives, like this one, just snippets of a day with diabetes, and I plan to tell them, or stories like them, more often in the 'real world' this month when friends ask, 'How's it going,' or relatives ask what I've been up to.