Diabetes Blog Week 2015 Day Four: Changes (Where No D Has Gone Before)

Today's topic is Changes.

Today let's talk about changes, in one of two ways.  Either tell us what you'd most like to see change about diabetes, in any way.  This can be management tools, devices, medications, people's perceptions, your own feelings – anything at all that you feel could use changing.  OR reflect back on some changes you or your loved one has seen or been through since being diagnosed with diabetes.  Were they expected or did they surprise you? (Read all posts here)

I have been watching a lot of Star Trek: TNG with my husband lately (it’s my first run through the series), and though it appears that they’ve cured a lot of things in the 24^th century or what have you, when it comes to changes, I’ve really got my eye on that replicator, and how useful it could be with diabetes as it is now. There's a reason they call it the Enterprise D, right?

The food replicator could create anything you needed, with whatever nutrition you needed (I’m assuming it makes food that tastes the way you want it to with only the requisite survival calories, as otherwise it would be very difficult for the entirety of the future population not to weigh 600 pounds apiece). Chocolate sundae, 20 calories, five carbs please! Or, if it couldn’t do that, at very least it would be able to tell you exactly how many carbs there were in your food. No more SWAG-ing.

I got this, don't worry

Or, you could be, like, “hey, replicator…replicate some insulin into my pancreas” and the replicator would be like, “hey, man, what do you think this is, kindergarten? I just whipped you up a brand new pancreas.”

And Bev would be like, “who cares about all that? I’m an awesome space doctor and will just wave a buzzing thing over you and you’ll just be fine. Don’t worry about vision complications. You won’t get them, but in any case, we have sweet visors now.”

Anyway, yes, the replicator. Changes for now, right? You could make instant Dex tablets and Glucagon, and expiry dates would be a thing of the past. You could replicate medications and replicate out the side effects, and you wouldn’t have to pay half your salary to do so -

And Bev would be like, “why are you bothering with Glucagon? If Picard can have an artificial heart, you can sure have a perfect artificial pancreas. Or, here, let me just wave this buzzing thing as you lie under a silver lamé blanket for a few minutes and you are totes fine! Enjoy your space adventure.”

(I know it's really called a "medical tricorder.")

But what I’m really talking about, of course, is the replicator! You could use it to make beautiful crystal blue circle jewelry, and signs for your diabetes walk. You could create petitions with hundreds of thousands of signatures for funding for research. Maybe you could even fund research with a replicator. You could create perfect footwear, which would never damage your sensitive feet. You could ask the computer, “Computer, what is the status of my blood sugar?” and Majel Barrett’s voice would always reply, “a perfect 5.0!” (this is the FUTURE and everyone uses METRIC like Canada, you know).

Then Bev would be like, “hey, I’ve cured you twice already. Stop worrying about this crap. Go to the Holodeck and beat the shit out of a personified version of your immune system for a while for some catharsis, or talk to Troi, I don’t know. Diabetes is OVER. Did you not see the buzzing thing?”

And you’d be like, “Working pancreas! ENGAGE!”

Sorry, I got sidetracked. I was talking about the replicator and all the cool things we could use it to make to solve most of our problems, but I guess we’d just be replicating a bunch of band-aids.

What we need is that buzzing thing, and the cure.

Make it so.

Damn straight.