MacGyvering the Diabetes Bag

First of all, let's start off with 'MacGyvering,' a term I love. I MacGyver a lot of things in life, but I really love to MacGuver make-up bags into diabetes supply bags.




I look for make-up bags that have zippered compartments. They are a rectangular shape, zip all the way around, and have inserted compartments that often snap in place. I have found them at Sephora, Ulta and most often, Target. I wrote about one on this blog way back in 2011. I titled it 'Bag of My Dreams' because up until then, Grace was relegated to drab, boring, always always always black diabetes bags. Who wants any of that? Not an 8 year old girl back then and certainly not a 15 year old young woman onow.

Grace has stylish ways of carrying her supplies when she goes places too. She has the perfectly named Cherise bag from Myabetic. It's wonderful. It looks great and the inside holds all that she needs.

Back to the make-up bag. Here is what I do to convert it to a diabetes bag for Grace.

I found this Sophia Joy make-up bag at Target, in the make-up section. In fact, they have it online too for $24.99!

See the two zippered compartments? You will love them for supplies. They hold everything perfectly. They snap in place, so they can easily be taken out too. Grace sometimes put her BG tester and her test strips into the colored zippered compartment and unsnaps it and throws it into her purse, if she is short on time or space for the entire kit. In the colored compartment is where Grace stores her extra Pods, Unisolve, SkinTac and Flexifix.

Here is the back section with the small spaces for make-up brushes. This is what I need to MacGyver in order for Grace's PDM to fit into this space. The space on the far left perfectly fits a vial of Novolog and the space next to it perfectly fits her BG tester and a vial of test strips. It's the two compartments on the right that I need to make into one larger compartment.

Get a seam ripper tool and start. Take out the stitches that separate the last two sections. Just be careful and don't rip the actual fabric of the kit. It takes a few minutes but pretty soon you'll have one large compartment.

Voila! One large compartment for a PDM.

Here it is, full, as she carries it each day. She can survive anything, for days, with this complete kit. In her clear pouch she has needles (in case of pump failure or high BG), Neosporin for cuts, scrapes and sometimes her insertion site which can become irritated, glucose tabs, another BG tester (clicker), and some meds.

MacGyvered.