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2 g 8 g ry rH 5 Z 3 = FS g - j 2 z 3 insidehalton.com STANDARD STUDIOS STARTING FROM Medium-Large Suite shown above Suites up to 962 square feet Get more FOR LESS You want cosy and comfortable in a nice safe and quiet Neigh- bourhood with Oakville and Halton Region’s best value? V for Vistamere. You'll find us nestled in south Oakville. And you owe it to your- self to see our delightful standard studios that go for just $3,125 a month. You'll be impressed with the generous size of our suites. Complete with lots of closet space, a 4-piece private bathroom, fully-equipped kitchenette, broadloom throughout and a walkout patio. Perfect. Plus take advantage of our 60-day move-in timeline, it’s sure to be a stress reliever. Call 905.847.1413 to book a tour today. 380 Sherin Drive Oakville, Ontario L6L 4J3 905.8471413 vistamere.ca RETIREMENT RESIDENCE YOUR FIFTY-FIVE PLUS NEWS SOURCE — Opinion - It’s time to fund advanced diabetes treatment for everyone By Dylan MacKay It's been 101 years since discovery of insulin made survival as a person with Type 1 diabetes possible. It is also the best time in history to be a person with Type 1 diabetes -- but only if you can afford it. Few in Canada can or are covered for costs through public or private plans. I'm one of the lucky ones. The technology available to help man- age Type 1 diabetes is life changing. | use it every day. Even before | wake up, my blood sugar is being measured while | sleep, and the results are sent to my phone where soft- ware can warn me if my blood sugar is out of range. But even better than alarms, the software, which is called a closed loop pump algorithm, can make changes to the amount of insulin | am getting automati- cally from my insulin pump, to prevent my blood sugars from going out of range. The best part is | can sleep through the whole process and get up rested and well. The ability to have this type of technol- ogy is made possible by the development of continuous glucose monitors (CGM). CGM is a wearable device that tracks your blood sugar every few minutes, day and night. This technology has changed my life and the lives of countless other people with Type 1 diabetes and their caregivers. Before CGM, measuring blood sugar involved sticking your fingertips with a sharp piece of metal to get blood and putting the blood on a strip in a machine called a glucometer. It sucks, fingertips are sensitive, and you have sore fingertips all day, every day. Not to mention, you tend to only check your blood sugar before and/ or after meals, so you are only seeing you blood sugar levels a few times a day. Managing blood sugars for a person with Type 1 diabetes is a little like steering a big ship -- you need to make changes in direc- tion before they need to happen otherwise you crash into lots of things. Glucometers are like steering the ship with your eyes closed; CGM opens your eyes. Knowing your blood sugar level and where it is going is very important, because while insulin is a wonder drug that keeps me alive, it is also incredibly dangerous. Every time you take insulin, you put your- self at risk of low blood sugar, also known as hypoglycemia, which is a common cause of emergency room visits for people with Type 1 diabetes. If untreated, it can kill. CGM use has been shown to be very effective at reducing time with low blood sugar. The flip side of low blood sugar is high blood sugar, which long-term is asso- ciated with poor outcomes such a heart attacks and kidney disease. The use of CGM helps with this as well, increasing the time that people with Type 1 diabetes have their blood sugars in a safe range. Unfortunately, CGM costs between §3,000 to $6,000 dollars a year. Most provin- cial and territorial health and drug plans do not cover the expense. Many private insur- ance plans also do not cover CGM. | work full-time as a University professor and CGM is not covered by our plan. Fortunately, lam able to afford the out-of-pocket costs. Without coverage CGM simply costs too much for most Canadians with Type 1 diabetes. Yukon is the only place in Canada that gets it right. CGM is covered for everyone with Type 1 diabetes, and | bet they will be rewarded for this with fewer emer- gency room visits, lower long-term costs related to Type 1 diabetes care, and happier, healthier and more productive people with Type 1 diabetes and their families. The federal government's long promised pharmacare plan has so far amounted to words, words and more words, no action = and no guarantee CGM will be included should it ever materialize. In the meantime, the other jurisdictions in Canada need to follow Yukon’ lead. If the provinces and territories all worked togeth- er, the costs for CGM would come down and everyone in Canada would benefit. Dylan MacKay is person who lives with Type 1 diabetes and an Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Chronic Disease in the Department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences and the Department of Internal Medicine Section Endocrinology at the University of Manitoba.