It wasn’t the first time I met someone with a diabetes connection while in line to get a latte, probably won’t be the last.

Last weekend the daughter and I were in target. After checking out we stopped by the Starbucks located inside Target. (How ingenious is it to have Starbucks inside Target? If only movie theaters would follow suit.) While in line I placed a call to husband to ask him to have Sugarboy check his blood sugar because he had been in the 400s twice that day. The second time because he didn’t correct the first 400. I did not use the word diabetes.

I ended the call (funny how the phrase ‘hung up’ isn’t really in our vocab any more – curious if there are teens across the country saying ‘no you end. No you end. I’m not ending first, ok lets end together’)  <<(blame my ADD) and asked daughter if she wanted a beverage. Just then I made eye contact with another mom ahead of me. She smiled and simply said “type 1?”

We chatted for a few minutes while the sweet barista waited patiently to take my order. Sneaking a peak at the two children with her I asked if she also had a child with Type 1. She answered in the affirmative but her cwd wasn’t with her. Her cwd is a 14-year-old daughter and she shared that her daughter is currently having a ‘hard time of it’.

My daughter isn’t always excited to share with the general public that she has type 1 so before I made any mention of my daughters diabetes I stole a glance at her and she nodded her permission.

I told the other mom I had 3 with T1D. I waited the few seconds for that to process with the other mom. Often when I share ‘that’ with parents a couple of things happen – they sneak a peek at their non-T1D kids and their faces show a brief look of concern and I imagine they are thinking ‘what, how, why – really? could my other?’ I think it can be a scary thing to meet a family with multiples so I usually toss in a comment like ‘we are not the norm’ and watch as they relax a bit. I can’t recall if I added that tidbit during our brief encounter.

After sharing that I have 3 cwd I told the mom my daughter was also 14. Since my brain is mush lately – it being the last week of school – I can’t recall all we chatted about in our brief coffee line meeting. I do recall mentioning CGMs (Dexcome G4) and inviting my daughter to show off her TSlim pump which was greeted with the typical ‘oohh and ahhh’ (I mean lets face it Medtronic and Animas have nothing on TSlim when it comes to the initial WOW factor – it is sleek and sexy (I don’t use the word ‘sexy’ with my kids but if ever an insulin pump could be sexy the TSlim is) it is also very easy to use and IMHO a fabulous choice for teens and adults – my boys are still rock’n their Animas Pings and I do love them (the pumps and my boys of course) too) – how many parenthesis are in that run on sentence?

I also asked if the her child would be attending a sleep away diabetes camp this summer. She will be, the same week as my daughter. I saw the corner of my daughter’s mouth curl with a smile. My daughter isn’t nearly as excited about meeting other T1Ds or T1D families in the wild. She is happy to spot them, like some diabetes game of eye-spy but rarely wants to approach them. She tolerates my enthusiasm to a point. She was a good sport this day.

I gave my contact information to the other mom and wished her well.

Meanwhile a meet-up of families with kids attending various weeks of diabetes camp was coming together via a private Facebook group for the area. Thinking of the sweet family Sweetstuff and I had met I sent an email to the sleep away camp. I had nothing but the child’s name and HS she would be attending. The mom had introduced herself but alas my brain….

My contact at the camp was able to locate the family and shared the meet-up info with the family. I wasn’t trying to be weird or come off as stalking the other family, I just wanted to invite them to the meet-up. Thankfully when the mom emailed me she assured me she didn’t think it weird. Unfortunately they are out of town the day of the meet-up but we hope to get the girls together before camp.

My point to this post – I don’t really have one. I just thought it was fun to share.

well I guess I have a couple of points:

First – always be sure your kiddo is ok with you sharing diabetes stuffs – even if when they were younger they didn’t mind and actually participated in sharing – the silly thing about kids is they grow and they become these separate little people with their own thoughts and preferences. I am very cautious about what I share regarding my daughter now and almost always get her permission first – whether it be here on the blog, in a line at target or on other social media. There are many things I wish I could share because maybe something I share would help someone but the thing is this isn’t all my story it’s hers and she needs to own it. I guess that’s a bit off topic from a random diabetes encounter but since I had mentioned that she doesn’t always want to share I thought Id explain further.

Second – well there isn’t really a second but since I started with ‘first’ I think proper grammar/writing rules says there has to be a ‘second’ something like in an outline you need a ‘B’ if you have an ‘A’. I’m not always great with grammar which is why its unlikely I’ll ever write a book.

I do love random diabetes encounters.

The membership to our club is costly but I must say the members are priceless.