Different Every Time

Airport security experiences are like snowflakes- they're different every time. Fortunately this week's travel was different in a good way.

Our journey began at a huge, busy international airport.

My daughter's boarding pass was marked pre-check. The procedure was shoes on, metal detector only. She approached metal detector and said to the TSA agent, "I'm wearing an insulin pump which could set this off."

"Try it," the agent replied.

My kid walked through metal detector, and did not set it off. She looked at the agent who gave a friendly wave. "Have a good trip!"

On the way home, at a smaller airport, the procedure was different:

Our boarding passes were, once again,  marked pre-check. Upon arrival at the first security checkpoint we were informed that because the boarding passes were printed at the hotel and not on site at the airport, the authorization was not valid and would not scan in their system. We were ushered to the full security, shoes-off, body scanner line.

My kid approached the body scanner with her disconnected insulin pump in hand. "This is my insulin pump. It can't go through the luggage x-ray or the body scanner. It needs to be visually inspected."

She was instructed to hand it to the agent behind the luggage scanner. As she did so, she reiterated that it could not go through the luggage scanner. He smiled and nodded, and seemed familiar with the issue. "Yup- I'll meet you on the other side."


The agent walked away with the pump (a little unsettling) and my daughter went through the scanner. The pump was handed back on the other side, as promised, and we continued on our way.

A couple of notes on our experience:

-On past trips I've been the person to speak to the TSA people, but I asked my daughter before we left if she'd be willing to be her own spokesperson through security. Eventually an opportunity may come for her to fly without me and I want her to be comfortable with the process. We talked quite a bit ahead of time about what could happen and how she would respond. She handled both experiences well.

-We're often tempted not to mention the insulin pump and just go through the metal detector hoping for the best. We certainly do that at museums and other more minor security checkpoints. But for some reason the pump occasionally does set off the metal detector. Also, because my daughter is on the smaller side, the pump is always visible in her pocket or on her waist band so it's immediately obvious that she hasn't followed the instructions to empty her pockets. For those reasons, when we're at TSA security or touring a highly secure location like a government building, we've always mentioned the pump first with the goal of heading off suspicion before it can begin.

-People make a variety of choices about going through the full body scanners and about putting their pumps through the luggage scanners. Some leave the pump on and opt for a pat-down, after telling the TSA agent that they want to avoid the body scanner altogether. Some send the pump through the luggage scanner and hope for the best despite many pump manufacturers' recommendations to the contrary. Some wear pumps through the body scanner, which is also not recommended for my daughter's brand of pump. To us the option of asking for it to be visually inspected seemed like the safest, easiest, least intrusive, and most efficient solution.

We don't fly often, but thus far we've had no two TSA experiences which were alike diabetes-wise. Sometimes the carry-on's contents have been called into question. Sometimes she's patted down despite the insulin pump being the obvious reason for the metal detector alarm. This week's TSA experiences were our smoothest ever. Maybe we've finally hit the sweet spot on the security learning curve. Maybe the voices, including my own, of people who've been reaching out to the TSA requesting common-sense security measures for people with diabetes are finally being heard. Or maybe the TSA is finally realizing there are more important things to worry about than a 15 year old girl with an insulin pump.

The Airport

We arrived at the airport two and a half hours before our flight to Las Vegas.  When we received our boarding passes, they indicated we were headed to the TSA prescreened line.  I do not know how this happened, perhaps it had to do with having a child and a senior citizen in our traveling group, but I'm very happy about it.  The line was short, we kept our shoes on and we didn't have to remove our quart sized ziplocs from our bags.

I informed the person at the head of the line that my child was wearing an insulin pump and that the backpack I had placed on the belt to go through the x-ray machine had diabetes supplies in it including juice boxes.

Danger!  Danger!

We've flown twice before with diabetes, and every time my daughter and her pump have been thoroughly examined for explosives while the backpack full of juice boxes and sharp objects has glided through security without a second glance.

When the insulin pump had been visually examined but not swabbed for explosives, and my daughter had not been subjected to a wanding or a pat down, I thought this was going to go down as our easiest TSA experience yet. Until the backpack was taken aside for inspection.

"There are juice boxes in there for diabetes management," I quickly repeated in hopes of quelling any concerns.  "I mentioned that as we entered the line."

"You're allowed to have these items in here, but you should tell the bag screener they're there," the bag checker admonished us.

When I repeated that I told the person at the head of the line, the bag checker pointed to a man behind the 8 foot high bag x-ray machine, and said I should also have told him.  Which seemed challenging in any circumstance, but particularly since I would have had to speak with him at the same time I had to explain to the metal detector screener that my child was wearing an insulin pump and stay with my child while it was examined.

In the end, the Clifford juice boxes were carefully scrutinized and swabbed. They did not contain any liquid explosives, so we were permitted to continue on to begin our vacation.

On the way home (which is invariably, no matter where we go, a better TSA experience than our local airport), people were nicer. The juice boxes were not swabbed for explosives but the water bottle was. Instead of being scolded we received a helpful piece of advice.  The agent suggested that even if we're TSA prescreened, we should remove the juice and water from the backpack and send it through separately, which will make it clearer that we're not trying to smuggle anything suspect onto the plane.

We'll keep that in mind, of course, but I'm guessing that by the next time we fly they'll be questioning the syringes and lancets instead...just to keep us on our toes.