I've been somewhat ambivalent about today's rally surrounding the United Nations Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases. The libertarian "party line" is that the United Nations does little more than abrogate nation-states' sovereignty and forcibly redistribute income from the wealthier nations to the less-wealthy, dampening incentives for innovation and destroying private charity efforts which would otherwise improve the lives of those in need. On the other hand, the prospect of spending time with friends I seldom see in-person is an opportunity not to be missed.

It's a dilemma I'd been wrestling with for a couple of months, and friendship was winning over politics. However, neither friendship nor politics had the choice to decide.

The deciding factor was money.

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Yesterday, I discussed how I'd like diabetes healthcare providers and the healthcare industry to better use existing tests and technologies, and how I believe our current crop of devices and programs might be developed in the near-term future. Today I'm going to discuss items that will take a bit longer to develop and get through FDA approval, or which may take technological and medical breakthroughs to bring to fruition.

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Over the past few posts, you've seen me comment about diabetes technology -- mostly hardware and supplies -- in the context of a particular issue (hot weather or availability), but nothing really in terms of what I would like to see healthcare providers do in terms of better using existing technology, as well as what I should like to see pharmaceutical companies, software companies, and device manufacturers develop going forward. Because of the length of my wish list, I'm going to break this up into two posts.

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Don't go swimming right after eating lest you drown. -- Advice to schoolchildren, circa 1970.

When our gradeschool teachers started teaching us the basics of physiology, they taught us that blood brought oxygen and nutrients to our brains, our digestive systems (simplified to "stomachs"), and our limbs, and that these three systems were constantly battling for better allocation of resources.

According to our teachers, our brains always won out because they had to control the rest of our bodies.

Our legs came second, for survival reasons. The concepts of "adrenaline rush" and "fight or flight" were simplified to our grade level.

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Last week I wrote about how I had decided to go back to using my CGMS. Not long after I placed my order I received an email from the medical supply company that I use that I needed to contact them about my order.

I was sort of used to this; last year and the year before I had trouble either with insurance or with the medical supply company getting the order processed. I was on a first-name basis with my customer service rep. I wouldn't even talk to anyone else since J knew exactly what I needed and what we were dealing with.

So when I got the email the other day I assumed it had something to do with the issues I had before, especially since I hadn't renewed the prescription in quite some time. I figured I'd just need to call my insurance or call the doctor's office or something pretty easy.

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I usually listen when The Universe talks and lately I've been feeling that The Universe has been whispering in my ear.

At least once a month I get a call from the medical supply company where I used to get my Dexcom sensors. Usually it's about "an order you recently made." Which I didn't because I haven't used Dex in a very long time. In fact, I can't remember the last time I used it. Pretty sure I haven't used it at all this year.

I always ignore the phone message since I didn't place an order. 

Yesterday I got an email from Dexcom about tips for caring for Dexcom during the summer. I figured The Universe was speaking to me again, but now in a louder voice.

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