Vials of Life

Vials of Life in a Box

The only way to sustain my boys’ lives is to inject extrinsic insulin into their bodies.  Without it, they would perish over time.  It would be a long, drawn out and painful death.  100 years ago, this would’ve been their fate.  Fortunately, medical advances have lead to the development of life-sustaining injectable insulin thus they can live an imperfectly “normal” life.  Frederick Banting (and researchers since then) probably saved this Mommy from sitting in a corner, rocking, plucking her hairs out one by one.

This is the current box of insulin in our refrigerator.  Each blue-topped box is one vial that has 1000 units of insulin.  On a low average, each boy uses about 100 units every 3 days.  Two boys using 100 units each means 200 units used every three days. Thus, one vial will last us approximately 15 days….if we’re lucky.  There are 13 vials of insulin in the refrigerator that must be kept at a specified temperature.  13 vials of 15 days each means I have 195 days of life sitting in this box.  A power failure or cracked vial can damage the insulin, and in theory, shave days off their lives.

That may sound like a lot..until you put it into terms of a child’s life.  195 days isn’t nearly enough.  A child's days should not be numbered, should not be finite. I want more.  I need more.  Looking at it like that is very humbling.  I guess I need to go to the Pharmacy. When you look at a vial of insulin in terms of days of life it provides, I guess one can understand why we D-parents suddenly turn into Hoarders.  We want to secure as many days as possible.  

Humbling…. May you never have to look at a medication (or anything else) and think of it in terms of how long it will sustain your baby's life.

Rhonda