On the day I was diagnosed with diabetes I was given a blood glucose meter. It was a nondescript cream colour, came in a dark blue padded bag and took 20 seconds to count down before giving me a reading, as was norm back in 1998. I can’t tell you much more about it. 

In 2001, I got my first insulin pump: a Medtronic 507C. I think it was black. That’s pretty much all I remember about it. 

Sometime in 2004, I upgraded to a Deltec Cozmo pump as soon as it was launched in Australia. It was a beauty – a charcoal grey, wonderfully organic design that felt sublime to hold. It was smart and cute, with a heap of features my first pump didn’t have. I loved the bolus wizard, and credit it a lot with the incredibly tight glucose management I maintained while pregnant with my daughter. That was the pump that was in the operating room with me when she was first handed to me, and it was nestled down my bra for the two years I breastfed her. She would hold onto the pump tubing in her tiny baby paws while she nestled into me for a feed. I was heartbroken when Deltec went out of business because I knew I’d need to change pump brands when the warranty was up. My old Cozmo is in a box in my diabetes supplies cupboard, too precious to throw away. To this day I think of that pump fondly and get all excited when someone else mentions how they used one, reminiscing about their love for it. 

Since then, there have been a couple more pumps and countless blood and continuous glucose meters. I have limited memories of any of them. Oh, except for maybe the pink MDT paradigm I rebooted when I started DIY looping and still use today. But my fondness for that particular device is mostly because it’s pink. There was the iBGStar – a fun little gimmick because it attached directly to the charging point at the bottom of an iPhone. Remember? It was around for all of about 15 minutes because the next gen iPhone used different chargers and iBGStars were relegated to the DTech museum.

Really, there has only been one piece of kit that stands there next to that Deltec Cozmo. And it’s this (slightly blurred) baby you see on my arm. My Fenix. 

I have been using this same transmitter pretty much continuously since June 2018. It’s a rechargeable Dexcom G5 and has worked like a dream. Other than a few months where I was gifted some Dexcom G6 products, I’ve exclusively had this Fenix attached to my arm. It has worked like a dream and has saved me a fortune. How much? 

The retail cost for Dexcom transmitters here in Australia is $540 (now available fully subsidised on the NDSS for people with type 1 diabetes). For the last four years, I’ve forked out exactly zero dollars. Had I been purchasing a new transmitter every 3 months, I would have paid $8,640. That’s a lot more than zero dollars. In fact, it’s about the price of a second-hand 2012 Fiat 500.

Where did I get this remarkable piece of kit? From a bloke called Simon who lives in rural Victoria and has been an absolute marvel in the way he has been providing affordable CGM kit for people with diabetes not just in Australia, but around the world, so they can use what they need at an affordable price. He re-batteries transmitters and forwards them on; answers questions about loopable pumps so that people can reap the rewards of DIYAPS. He is at the end of the phone or Facebook messenger to answer questions. He has also found a way to extend the use of G6 transmitters, with the Anubis.

My Fenix is one of the simplest, least fussy DTech devices I’ve used. It works the same way as any Dexcom transmitter, except that after about three months, instead of being thrown in the bin, it gets plugged into the wall for an hour to recharge. Simon created a super simple reset tool to override the factory-set cut-off timer built into Dexcom transmitters, so the ‘Transmitter expiring’ warning was just a reminder to reset it next senor change. 

I’ve done this for over four years. 

At diabetes conferences, after spying the slightly odd-looking device on my upper-arm, Dexcom reps have stopped me as I’ve been rushing by to ask about it. Most want to know if it’s ‘one of those rechargeable ones’ – they all knew about the mythical Fenix! – and were always interested to know just how it worked. I had dinner one night with a senior engineer from Dexcom who asked me dozens of questions and was delighted to hear about it. I only had one question: I wanted to know that if a bloke in Victoria’s High Country could make this happen and make this life saving tech cheaper for people with diabetes, why couldn’t a multi-million-dollar tech company do the same? I didn’t get an answer to my question. 

My Fenix is retiring because I’ve worked my way through my G5 sensor tash. Even though Dexcom G6 was launched into the Australian market over 12 months ago, I have happily continued to use the earlier generation with sensors either purchased or gifted from friends overseas who have been forced to upgrade. I haven’t minded that the sensors have been out of date (sometimes by years!) because it was never an issue. Plus, it meant that I could continue to use my Fenix. 

The ingenuity and generosity of people in the diabetes community will never stop to amaze me. I reckon Simon could charge a fortune for his inventions, but he doesn’t. He covers his own costs, (but only sometimes; he donates a lot to people who can’t afford to pay). He is another example of a remarkable person in our remarkable community trying to make diabetes a little less burdensome. And my Fenix has meant four years of that. 

When I talk about the diabetes kit I wear each and every day, I am at great pains to point out just how important it is that it does a lot more than just simply work. It needs to be simple, accurate, and not cause more stress. Skin in the game is literal and figurative when I stand up and speak about this, including how we literally and figuratively get attached to the devices that we love. I’d keep using my Fenix forever if that was the only CGM technology available to me because not once did it cause me any stress. It just made my life simpler; it reduced my diabetes burden, saved me money, and helped me hate diabetes a tiny bit less. My Fenix rose for the last time a couple of weeks ago, and now retired, lying in the same box as my Cozmo – reminders of how great DTech can be.