Beauty Queen Wears Insulin Pump During Swimsuit Parade

I love Miss Idaho.

This is awesome, and this girl is beautiful!!!

She won the Miss Idaho contest proudly wearing an insulin pump, hitching it to her bikini during the swimsuit parade.

Now aged 20, she was diagnosed with the condition in February 2012. In her own words, Sierra’s world was flipped upside down.

“For a while, I pretended that I didn’t have diabetes, hoping it would go away. That led to crazy blood sugars, of course, and a very sick, grumpy, and discouraged Sierra.”

But when a friend suggested she compete in a local beauty pageant, Sierra decided to make diabetes her cause.

Her first foray into beauty pageants was unsuccessful, but second time round she won the title of Miss Magic Valley.

Up to this point Sierra was using injections to give her the insulin she needed.

“I didn’t want people to see a weird-tubey-machine-thing attached to me all the time, and could not wrap my head around having a medical device on my body for the rest of my life.”

She changed her mind when discovering that Nicole Johnson, Miss America in 1999, was a diabetic who wore – albeit discreetly – an insulin pump.

Sierra went further making sure that the pump was clearly visible, hitching it to her bikini, and putting a picture on her Facebook page.