Surely in this day and age, it shouldn't be questioned if we have them with us.
Open question - how many of us, outside of diabetes-related interactions, have ever come in contact with someone with T1 actively using a glucose meter? Because in 16 years of having this condition, it hasn't happened to me once. Maybe it's me, but I think we do live in a bit of a bubble at times where because we are highly familiar with all of the paraphernalia and what it does, we tend to assume that everyone else has this sort of exposure. When frequently they don't. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that 95% of people out there, on seeing a glucose meter, have no idea that people with diabetes even use them and would assume it's some sort of mobile phone.
So then you've got some lowly paid public servant running a testing centre who reads the rules 'no personal devices as it could allow you to cheat', sees something they don't understand...they're going to err on the side of caution aren't they? They don't want to lose their job over something they don't understand.
I agree it's disappointing, and I completely agree that we shouldn't have to justify ourselves and it's unfortunate people out there don't get it...but that's the reality. And we can either see ourselves as victims, or we can be pragmatic about it. I bet there's plenty of other people out there with serious medical conditions with other gadgets or needs and we wouldn't recognise them either.
I can understand the concern if it was someone with an insulin pump or even a pen or glucose tablets being excluded but comparing a BG meter to an inhaler or a colostomy bag is stretching a point. If you can't go for an hour without needing access to your blood sugar meter then you shouldn't be driving. We don't know when this girl has been hospitalised through low blood sugar but the way her and her mother talk about it, it doesn't exactly sound like a couple of one-offs a decade ago.
If she's genuinely that worried about 'having a fit' from low blood sugar because she hasn't got her meter, she's either hypo unaware, or these things are still happening. This might not chime with the prevailing thought but you don't need a meter to know you're having a hypo, or to treat one. A hypo can act as confirmation but isn't it far safer, if you feel you're having a hypo, to immediately treat it instead of faffing around with a meter for a minute to confirm what you already know?
Of course, society must make reasonable accommodations for us and our needs. But it is a quid pro quo. Stress raises blood sugar levels. Does that mean our bosses aren't allowed to tell us off? We can't expect the world to revolve around us and that means learning to manage our condition in the real world. Not having access to a meter for 57 minutes is not a big deal and most people will probably do the test in less than 25 minutes. I bet almost all of us can go for an hour without testing without something catastrophic happening.
Let's pick our battles. The last thing any of us need is news stories relating diabetes, fitting and driving and making it sound like not having access to a meter could make us drop dead in less than an hour.
