Today,  at the grocery store, I spotted a pump.

On a woman at the deli, a black Deltec Cozmo.  

Seeing a pump like that, I can’t help but ask about it.  

Once, on a train, I saw a woman dosing herself, with what was obviously a pump.  When I asked her about it, flashing her my own portable pancreas, she looked shocked and said “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  I felt terribly for asking about something that clearly made her uncomfortable.  

Fortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.  Most of the time, seeing another diabetic with an outward sign of their illness is like being in a foreign land and hearing someone speaking your language.  It’s like finding someone who you know understands intimately at least some of your struggle navigating a world of unique challenges.  It’s very difficult for me to not acknowledge that shared knowledge.  Not saying anything, for me, would be like hearing that person speaking my language in a strange land, and letting the voice that reminds of home stay distant and just as foreign as the land I’m visiting.  

Today, I walked up and said, “Hey, that’s your insulin pump, huh?”  

She responded “Yes, it is, it’s a Cozmo.”

“I have one too,” I said.

And we launched into conversation about the types of pumps we have, how long we’ve had diabetes, how different things are now than they were back in the 80s.  She also lifted her shirt a bit to show me her CGM and expressed her relief at how much better control she’s gotten.  We talked a little about her nephew, a diabetic who’s always worn a pump and a little about her two children.  At the close of the conversation, I handed her my card and requested she send me an email.  She seemed like someone I’d like to get to know better.  Not so much because of her diabetes, that was just the introduction, more so because she seemed cool and collected and nice.  

This isn’t the first time of late that I’ve run into a diabetic in the wild.  At an outward bound-ish excursion recently, I spotted a t-shirt that said “Clara Barton Camp.”  It was on a little girl, maybe about ten.  More than the diabetes connection, in this case, I felt an instant need to let this child know that I was a Barton Girl myself.  

Anyone who’s been to summer camp of any kind knows the sort of friendships one develops while staying for weeks on end with kids who have similar interest – music, acting, soccer, and yeah, diabetes.  The Barton Camp is a place for young women with diabetes to realize that the difficulties of living with their disease are shared by so many other young women just like them.  It’s a place to grow and learn and a place that changes lives.  It changed mine.  Just knowing that I wasn’t alone helped me to release so much of the anger and bitterness and sadness diabetes had planted in my eight year old heart.  

This young girl, with her dad at her side, was climbing and having a great time.  Standing nearby, I said “are you a Barton girl?”  And the smile that spread across her face was amazing.  

“Me too.”  I said, pulling out my insulin pump so she could see the only physical proof of my Bartonhood I had available.

“How long have you been going?”  I asked, as she lifted the lower edge of her t-shirt to show me her Omni-Pod site.

“This was my first summer.”  She said, still smiling.  

“Wow, did you have a great time?”

“I did,” and the smile and enthusiasm pouring from her didn’t subside for a second.

I showed her the tattoo on my back that honors and remembers my Barton days.  And we posed for  the photo above.   She told me her name and asked how long I’d gone.  She was excited to learn that I’d been a double Bartonian (ten summers of camp!), and she just looked so happy talking about this place that means so very much to me.  It made me feel as happy as a person can feel, to know that this young woman, whose life is filled with challenges, had experienced the same kind of camaraderie, joy, and peace I’d found in those summer days at the Barton Camp.  

So no, when you see a fellow diabetic, there’s no secret handshake, no “two cupcakes up”, or club, but there is a familiarity which can be somewhat astounding.

It makes me wonder about the lives of other people and the difficulties that have less physical presence in the world.  It makes me wonder, and feel sad about those people whose difficulties have no voice.  It makes me wonder about people who wander through a foreign land all day, every day, never hearing another person speaking their language.

I think of my mother, who struggles still with the challenges of my diabetes, with her worry and her love, and how it’s impossible for others to see the stone she carries around in her heart.  I know she thinks constantly of the dangers of low and high bloodsugar, the specter of complications, the day to day stress of balancing a heavy load without letting it overwhelm.  Yet, she never gets the red flag of an insulin pump or a camp t-shirt to signal to her that there are real, live, living breathing people who get it.  Who are walking through the grocery store, or New England outward-bound woods, or Target, right in her presence, also carrying the burden of a parent of a child with a chronic disease.   Even online support isn’t the same as looking into another face and seeing, written there, the words “I understand.”

It makes me sad.  It makes me worry for her, and for so many others who don’t get those signals that they’re not alone.  

And it makes me extraordinarily grateful that I do have them.