LifeAfterDx--Diabetes Uncensored

A internet journal from one of the first T1 Diabetics to use continuous glucose monitoring. Copyright 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

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Location: New Mexico, United States

Hi! I’m William “Lee” Dubois (called either Wil or Lee, depending what part of the internet you’re on). I’m a diabetes columnist and the author of four books about diabetes that have collectively won 16 national and international book awards. (Hey, if you can’t brag about yourself on your own blog, where can you??) I have the great good fortune to pen the edgy Dear Abby-style advice column every Saturday at Diabetes Mine; write the Diabetes Simplified column for dLife; and am one of the ShareCare diabetes experts. My work also appears in Diabetic Living and Diabetes Self-Management magazines. In addition to writing, I’ve spent the last half-dozen years running the diabetes education program for a rural non-profit clinic in the mountains of New Mexico. Don’t worry, I’ll get some rest after the cure. LifeAfterDx is my personal home base, where I get to say what and how I feel about diabetes and… you know… life, free from the red pens of editors (all of whom I adore, of course!).

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Sign of the times


Check out this snazzy sharps container from the women’s bathroom at a rest stop near Trinidad, Colorado:


Being both diabetic and a healthcare worker, I’ve seen a lot of “sharps” containers—those trash cans for syringes—over the years. We had them in the ICU, of course, when I worked at the hospital. And we have them in every treatment room at the clinic. Hell, I even have one on my office wall.

But it’s only over the last few years that I’ve noticed them cropping up in public places.

I first noticed them at Indian Casinos. In the bathrooms. I don’t know about the rest of you, but a public restroom is pretty much the only place in the world where I will not take a shot.

Then I started seeing them in restaurants. Now at rest areas.

Huh. It’s not like there’s an diabetes epidemic, or anything.

Oh. Wait. That’s right. There is a diabetes epidemic. We should really do something about that.

Like buy stock in companies that make snazzy sharp’s containers.


What was I doing in the women’s room? Well, that’s a story for another day. But it’s neither as interesting or as kinky as you’re thinking it is…

3 Comments:

Blogger Jonah said...

I LOVE seeing sharps containers. It means, "Welcome, Jonah!" or at least tht's what they mean to me.
But personally I think they're aimed more at providing a way for IV drug users to dispose of needles and to discourage needle sharing/reuse, because apparently, especially in bathrooms, there's a public health issue that drug users leave their syringes around to be reused.

8:50 AM  
Blogger Penny said...

Interesting. There are none in the city where I live - Philadelphia - in any bathroom - and we visit lots of bathrooms in and around the city with 3 kids. I have noticed them, however, when we travel across the state - they are in every bathroom at every rest stop along the PA turnpike. Hmmm.

10:52 AM  
Blogger Scott K. Johnson said...

First thing I thought - did he say the women's bathroom? Haha! I hope to hear that story someday!

6:25 PM  

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