What Do You Do....

...when the power goes off and you have 12 vials of insulin in the fridge?

I may have mentioned before that insulin needs to be kept cold otherwise it will degrade and become less effective, becoming altogether useless. Jerry and I were a little arrogant when preparing for Hurriance Sandy, in that we didn't really prepare at all. Sure, we filled up a few water bottles, had plenty of food, knew we had flashlights somewhere in the apartment, but I think we assumed that we would maintain power and go on our merry ways. I'm sure that's what most people assume....up until the moment the lights go out.

I was hopeful naive in thinking that the power would be out only for a short time. Five days later, we're still sitting in the dark.

My first thought when the lights went out was "What do I do with all my insulin?" Actually, my first though was "Shit, I just made pumpkin mousse and now it's going to go bad." Priorities, people.

I had just received a three month shipment of insulin which means that every single vial I will need for the next three months was in a slowly warming fridge. You think that in all of our "extensive" planning, I would have thought through what to do with these extremely valuable, life-saving vials.

Luckily, Jerry's brother maintained power and has been able to baby-sit my insulin until we can give them a good home again. I'm worried that they still have become too warm in the 24 hours without power, but I guess I'll have to wait and see.