Every time I drive into Hipsterville, I see this woman sitting at the end of the exit ramp. She's panhandling. She looks put together, although she does have a lot of stuff with her. I'm assuming she's homeless. I don't give money to panhandlers for a lot of reasons, but this woman's sign has caught my eye more than once.

Her sign says that she has diabetes.

Of course, now I want to stop and see what she needs. Does she really have diabetes? Does she need a meter? We have tons. Does she need test strips or insulin or does she have type two and needs pills? Or, and it sucks that this thought went thru my head, but it did - is she merely looking for clean syringes to resell?

Do I really want to get involved in this? Should I stop next time and ask? Or am I opening myself up to a scam?

I can't help but wonder about this woman. I want to help - the thought of someone with type 1 being homeless makes me shudder. I can't imagine trying to manage that disease when you don't even have the resources to put a roof over your head. And I know that that could be anyone of us in the diabetes community, especially given the shaky economic state of our country right now. Any one of us could wind up on the side of the road, desperate for supplies for ourselves or our children. That thought scares the crap out of me

And so I think of this woman and ponder her situation and worry about her from time to time.

She haunts me a little.