It was warm and sunny this afternoon in Paris. After the kids’ music classes, we scooted to a nearby park to take advantage of the spring weather. There was climbing, sliding, jumping, balancing and running. And snacks – well, they had snacks, I had glucose tablets just to keep up with their energy level.

Then, just as I watched my younger daughter run around from the bottom of a slide to go back up the climbing wall, a woman walked up to me a said Hi, in English. This isn’t all that surprising for the neighbourhood, but I’m always happy to meet other anglophones around town. But she didn’t stop there – she continued with a “I’m sorry but I couldn’t help but notice…” and then she pointed to my pump on the waistband of my jeans and then pointed to her own pocket, where I saw a purple Medtronic pump poking out.

The conversation took off right away. She’s had type 1 for 40+ years and been on a pump for 3. She said her only regret is not getting on a pump earlier. When we had talked diabetes for a couple minutes, we switched to life stories. Each picking up on our respective North-American-but-not-quite-American accents, we had a second “wow, cool” moment realising we are both Canadian, me from Toronto and her from Nova Scotia. Beyond the visible pump tubing we also both had Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) backpacks. Secret Diabetes flags and secret Canadian flags.

Since we were both running after children (Mummy, come play tag – you’re IT!), we didn’t get to chat for long, but how fun it was to be able to say “Me too!” with a total stranger. She’s only in Paris for a few months and neither of us were at our regular local parks so I don’t know if we’ll meet again. But it was nice to make a connection with a fellow Canadian with diabetes.