Did you know that there are only eight countries that allow people with diabetes to be commercial airline pilots? Most countries find it to be too much of a liability. I recently got to interview two inspiring men who have type 1, are pilots, and recently beat the previously-set world flying record of landing in 23 states in 24 hours!
Read my interview with them for On Track Diabetes on how they’re breaking down stigmas in the aviation world.
Be still my heart. Another Valentine’s Day is here and I’m without a Valentine this year. I was dreading the corny Hallmark cards that I was having to pass in the Target aisles, the heart-shaped pizza ads that I was seeing at Papa Murphy’s, and most annoying the couple dinner deals at local restaurants. So when I got the call a couple of weeks ago from my editor at DiabeticLifestyle with the opportunity to interview Nick Jonas…I thought this was my chance for a Valentine’s date with a bonafide diabetes hunk! Though I had recently read the headlines of him romancing Kate Hudson…I thought, well, he must dig blondes. I asked him during the interview about what he looks for in a type-3 diabetic and what he stays away from. (For those who don’t know this term, a type-3 is an endearing term that people with diabetes use for their significant other who is very supportive of your diabetes) and what he stays away from.
Read his answer and the rest of my blog for DiabeticLifestyle here…
http://www.diabeticlifestyle.com/blogs/dateline-diabetes-dish/nick-jonas-will-you-be-my-valentine
I got the incredible opportunity to interview Nick Jonas a couple weeks ago about what he looks for in a type 3, the positives and negatives about living with diabetes, and those pesky questions that seems to be asked to people living with diabetes.
Read my exclusive interview with this incredible diabetes advocate!
http://www.diabeticlifestyle.com/live-well/celebrities-diabetes/nick-jonas-flying-diabetes-flag-high
Read my latest blog for DiabeticLifestyle.com on the top 6 things that you should never say to someone with diabetes…
J.D.was in a Bible study of mine when I was living in Minneapolis last year. He had told me his love and passion for telling other people’s story through the eye of a camera lens. Because I was looking to have a new speaker’s video created…he shot me some ideas. As a lot of you know, the final product was a video that now has had almost 8,000 views in just a few short weeks. In a recent conversation with JD I asked him if he would guest post on my blog about what he learned about someone living with type-1 diabetes from filming this short project with me. Here are his fascinating responses below…..
By: J.D. O’Brien
I’m a documentary filmmaker because I love to tell stories, and I believe that everyone has a story worth hearing. This job allows me to hear people’s stories, and then help shape and craft them so those stories can be shared with lots of people.
J.D. O’Brien
For each video I produce, I look for a scene that the subject and I can create together that will create a break from seeing a talking head for the duration of the video, but also show the audience another angle of the subject’s character and personality. For Quinn, figure skating was a natural fit. She had competed into her teen years, and so it’s something she’s been passionate about for a long time. From a filmmaking perspective, it’s a graceful, beautiful athletic skill that was easy to capture on video. But the setting of the pond also helped establish Quinn as a small town girl from Minnesota, and it also showed that she’s a very disciplined and determined woman, and that showed equally in the moves that she accomplished flawlessly as well as the ones where she ended up on her backside.
I actually learned a lot about type-1 diabetes from making this project. The biggest thing I learned was the lack of choices involved for those with the disease. While type-2 is often preventable, type-1 strikes completely at random. For most of us, if we have a similar lifestyle of discipline and determination like Quinn showed us in the video, it’s because we’ve chosen that lifestyle. We made conscious choices to eat healthier, or stop accumulating credit card debt, or a whole host of other things. For Quinn, and others with type-1 diabetes, they either needed to develop that determination and discipline as children, or they would die. There were no other options.
I hope that all of my films create an opportunity for the audience to walk a mile in the shoes of someone else. In this case, the shoes of someone living with type-1 diabetes. I hope that they walk away with a greater appreciation for the struggles of those living with type-1 diabetes. I also hope that for the portion of this audience that does live with type-1 diabetes that they can find empathy, hope and solidarity from Quinn’s story.
Here’s the final product:
Signing a copy of my book for a parent of a teenage girl living with diabetes.
For the last two years I’ve been blogging for another diabetes website. I decided to stop with that because it had started to not become as fun for me anymore. I wanted to get back to purely writing for myself on my little WordPress site. Unrestricted. Not influenced by what content or messaging they had on their homepage. I feel most centered when I’m speaking about my diabetes journey. I realize not one d-journey is the same…but I hope to be a voice to those who need one.
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The Video that got 7,500 hits in 48 hours
I was playing around with a new Facebook video feature last week and posted a year-old video that I had filmed by a guy friend of mine who I met through Bible study last January. Imagine my shock when I went back on my FB two days later to see the video had almost 7,500 views! The video is something that I’m really proud of and I wanted you all to know why filming that video helped me break aways chains to bring me freedom again….
Him and I worked on a concept and he suggested that I bring in my figure skating background to weave into the story. That didn’t sound like a good idea to me. Since beginning treatment (for bulimia), I had not laced up my skates. During my tough years of struggling with an eating disorder, it made me feel not good enough. The old things that I loved to do were not fun for me anymore. I hadn’t played a note on the piano since leaving the pageant scene in 2010 and hadn’t laced up skating boots since 2007.
I didn’t even have my pair of skates at my apartment in Minneapolis. He told me he wanted to show another aspect of my life, other then just living with diabetes. I bought a $25 pair of figure skates off of Craigslist and brought them to get sharpened the morning of the filming. He told me he had picked out a small pond that he thought would remind me of the days when I learned to figure skate in my parent’s backyard.
My book got published last January by River Place Press.
I had to get to the point that day that my history of being sick with an eating disorder did not have to dictate my destiny. If living with diabetes for 16 years has taught me anything…it’s that you may have tough days and fall, but the next day is a new one and you must find strength in the Lord and pick yourself back up.
Skating around that pond last February reminded me of my love of the sport. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t whip off jumps and spins anymore. What mattered was that I laced those boots up after years of fearing of not being good enough on that ice.
Publishing my book last January about my journey living with diabetes has fueled my desire to want to continue to speak out about my personal story. Tomorrow I head to Washington, D.C. to speak to over 100 Novo Nordisk employees about being an effective diabetes advocate and on Wednesday we will march the Hill. Send prayers my way!
Please take a moment to watch the video and let me know of a time where you overcame a fear….
To learn more about the work I do for diabetes, or to see if I’m speaking in a town near you, check out my website….www.QuinnNystrom.com.
Next week’s blog post – JD will write on what it was like for him to shoot a video and learn more about diabetes from another angle.
Last month I was chosen to represent Minnesota at the 2013 American Diabetes Association (ADA) Call to Congress event. Advocacy is 
something that is near and dear to my heart. I first attended this event when I was 16 years old and had just been chosen as National Youth Advocate for the ADA. Over 200 diabetes advocates flew in to Washington, DC from around the country to be trained on what 
issues are imperative on Capitol Hill for people living with diabetes. On the 2nd day of the conference we stormed the hill and met with our US Senators & Congressmen. Our Members of Congress want to hear from their constituents about issues that are important to them (we do vote if they’re in or out). My goal is to try to put a face and a name with the cause. The statistics can get overwhelming for anyone. I want them to know how diabetes has personally affected my life and my brothers.
It was a successful 3-day conference! It was fun to see fellow friends and past National Youth Advocates that I’ve served with…it was
Maddie Dodge & I – past National Youth Advocates
kind of like Homecoming!
Jim McGowan put together a wonderful video where he wrote and performed the songs on it about stopping diabetes. Check it out…song and montage of advocate visits to Capitol Hill and their inspirations to STOP DIABETES…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYY75Yr5qgw
ACTION STEP: Become an advocate! It’s quick & easy. Click here to be brought to the American Diabetes Association’s page on where you can sign up to be an advocate (you will see a red sign-up box on the right hand side of the page). They will email you when there is an important diabetes piece of legislation that is going to be voted on. They make it quick and easy for you to send a form letter to your Member of Congress. I promise you it takes 3 minutes to do and you only get 1 e-mail from them every other month (you will not be spammed). Will you join with me in helping STOP DIABETES!?!
Join me in STOPPING DIABETES!
I know that I haven’t blogged for several months. Not because a lack of ideas. Instead I chose to take the last couple months off (from social media) and immerse myself into some special work projects.
At the end of May, Twin’s Baseball called me and asked if I would do the honors of singing “Take me out to the Ballgame” for the 7th 
inning stretch for the diabetes awareness game. I said yes right away, but then thought to myself, “they never asked me if I could sing?” I was never much of a singer, let alone with any decent tone. They let me have some friends and family sing with me and all in all it was a great game with a lot of money and awareness raised for diabetes.
In the fall I was asked to film a patient testimonial for Medtronic Diabetes. I’ve worn their pump & continuous Glucose Monitor for the last 10 years..so it was an honor to be asked to share my experiences as a pump devotee. I’ll let you know when they post it on their site.
Then in December I got a call from an Entertainment Company to shoot a short video for Delta Airlines & MSN. It was a whirlwind trip to California. They chose people to tell a crazy, outrageous travel story that had happened to them. Mine involved diabetes(of course, right?). In my next blog post I’ll tell you the harrowing story of getting trapped in a white-out blizzard in Iowa and being stuck at a gas station for 24 hours without my diabetes supplies. I was told that the project is set to debut in March. I’ll be sure to keep you all in the loop.
This last summer I lost my dear Grandfather. He taught me so much about life and how to treat other people. I miss him greatly. Now each day I will move forward with doing things that honor his memory.
With the New Year comes talk of the list of “Resolutions” that are bound to be made. As a “recovering perfectionist” I easily can get down on myself for not hitting each resolution perfectly…no slip ups, no mistakes. This year I want to make general things to strive for. Be kinder and gentler to myself. Enjoying the little things. Appreciate friends and family. Continue to do the work that I’m so passionate about doing…diabetes awareness. Give thanks to God.
What are you striving for in 2013?
I have lived with type-1 diabetes for over 13 years. I’ve cried and I’ve laughed. I’ve watched my younger brother Will for 15 years go through trials and tribulations with diabetes. I can’t count the number of times I’ve met people and they’ve poured their diabetes story out to me. There is one main thing in common with all those people and their loved ones…we would do anything to have a cure for diabetes. Point blank.
When someone recently sent me a link to a site telling me that someone has found a cure for diabetes I knew right away that’s impossible. It’s impossible because there is no cure for diabetes (type-1 or type-2). Why? Because a cure means, “a means of healing or restoring to health”. Over the years people will come up to me and send me information on promises of a cure for the disease. I’m sick of places capitalizing on the diabetes epidemic. It gets people’s hopes up when they hear about something like this, when it’s not the truth. Please stop. Please stop your “creative leniency” on advertising materials.
Here is the link so that you can see for yourself the claim that I’m talking about…
http://www.rawfor30days.com/themovie.html
I think the VERY SMALL PRINT at the bottom of the page says it all, “The program featured in the film at the Tree of Life Rejuvination Center is most effective with diabetes type 2 but is also very effective at increasing quality of life and reducing insulin levels for diabetes type 1.” Decreasing insulin CANNOT be termed a cure.
So they’re telling us stuff that we already know…
And to think that they have over 18,000 likes on their Facebook page for “reversing diabetes” makes me sad. Switch your banner headline to “a solution to help you treat your diabetes better” and then we can talk about me clicking that button.
To all of you who are even clicking “LIKE” on these people’s page is tough for me to swallow. In the preview of the movie on their website they immediately discredit the American Diabetes Association’s statement on how there is no cure for diabetes. As a volunteer for the ADA I’m sickened that people would question their statements. The work they do to unite people so we can actually find a “real cure” and to fund programs to help with your quality of life have personally saved me.
SIMPLY RAW: You don’t think I would pay $29.95 for a cure for this deadly, chronic illness that I’ve lived with for 4,805 days of my life? You don’t think I would pay $29.95 to take away the pain that my brother has had to go through to just be able to be healthy enough to play in a high school varsity game? You want to make this claim to the world (with some small print at the bottom) and confuse more people about diabetes?
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Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days
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Yes, if I ate raw foods every day I would decrease some of my insulin doses. If a type-2 were to do this, they may be able to get off their medication. But NEITHER of us are cured. Please stop your misleading headlines.
I hope that the diabetes community bands together to not support companies who make these claims, but we stand together to educate people properly on diabetes.
To learn more information about the different types of diabetes click here.
If you would like to learn about ways that you can get involved in the diabetes community please feel free to reach out to me and I would be happy to match you up with an opportunity.
dateline diabetes dish 