“To me, calling out the injustice is an obligation,” she says. “If Jesus was on earth today, what would He be doing? Helping those who need it the most. And our U.S. health care system is failing so many and so miserably that this has become a life or death situation.”
I opened up in a recent interview about my work with speaking out about insulin affordability and what negative affect that has had on my career (still wouldn’t change anything), why my faith draws me to this work, and why I choose to defy the law. Click on the link below to read the full article…
A few weeks ago, I was slogging through some clerical work in my home office. Tedious stuff. Needed a break. I logged into Twitter, scrolled through my feed, and came across this tweet from the US Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams, MD, MPH.
The tweet—from the US. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, MD—that started it all!
My visceral reaction was best summed up by the red-faced angry emoji. You see, I travel the country talking to groups about what life with diabetes is like. On multiple occasions, during events on the road, someone in attendance inevitably asks a question that infers that I was diagnosed with diabetes because I’m overweight.
This, of course, is a misnomer: I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes during my youth and I would’ve been diagnosed whether I’d been 90 pounds or 290 pounds. It was just a crappy genetic roll of the dice I was on the wrong end of.
Happens to many people. But—and I’m assuming here—most don’t have to navigate their plight while being told (from audience members, sure, but also friends, the media, and, of course, the Twittersphere) that, in essence, they were responsible for creating the disease.
Why the red-faced emoji reaction? Imagine if the public had the misconception that you get cancer because you don’t exercise enough. Imagine you’re diagnosed with cancer. Imagine, a week later, having lunch with a friend who says: “It just sucks that you didn’t exercise more. This could have been avoided.” You’re not looking for pity, but dang— you’re not wanting to defend yourself from an incorrect supposition either. What would you do in that situation? I’ll tell you what you’d do: You’d say nothing. You’d swallow it. Because it’s not worth risking your relationship by responding how that feeling in your gut wants you to respond.
I recently sat down to be interviewed for the podcast, DispatchCast, about life why I’m so passionate about being a diabetes advocate, and my experience as a woman running for public office in rural Minnesota.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m passionate about helping people with diabetes. My brother and I were diagnosed at ages five and 13 with type 1 diabetes. Growing up in Baxter, Minnesota, our pharmacist dad and our wonderful mom ensured we were on the right track with the correct medications and eating not just healthfully but in line with diabetes guidelines.
I went on to volunteer to help educate others about the disease, serve on the Governor’s Council on Disabilities, and to even speak nationally about my chronic condition. That’s why I’m so bothered by something I’ve heard repeatedly across the country. People are struggling to get the medicines they need because of insurance policies that place unreasonable delays in the process and jeopardize patient health.
In my home state of Minnesota, in addition to others, the big problem is step therapy. Thankfully, legislation is being introduced to change things before it gets worse.
Read the rest of my blogpost at On Track Diabetes…
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.
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.
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.
—————————————————————————————————————————
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.
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…
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…
some type-2 diabetics can reduce medication and/or get off completely if they have the disease because of obesity
some people are so ignorant about diabetes that they think they can use terminology like “reverse diabetes” when we all know that if you have type-2 and you no longer have to use medication (for whatever reason) you still have it, you’re just not taking medication
finally, for their type-1 comments…we know the less sugar you eat, the less insulin you would need to take. You’re not telling us anything new…other then making yourselves look uneducated.
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.
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.
With my involvement in the diabetes community I’m upset at my own people for not giving more support to Paula Dean. My personal opinion on it is that everyone goes through a different mourning period when they’re diagnosed with a chronic illness. Who are we to judge her on her timeline? Also, the diabetes community (and media) embraced Bret Michaels when he (after years of having type-1 diabetes) decided to start being more public about it on CelebrityApprentice. Is he the picture perfect diabetes lifestyle? No. But he was embraced because he at least was willing to come out in public and raise money and awareness. Why is our opinion of Paula Deen different?
Or take Halle Berry? The diabetes community (and the world) don’t even know what type of diabetes she has. “In a December 2005
Daily Mail article about Berry and her diabetes, the paper said she had Type 2. In a 2006 New York Times article, the Times said
she had Type 1.” She herself said, “I’ve managed to wean myself off insulin, so now I’d like to put myself in the Type 2 category.”
The American Diabetes Association had to come out with a statement saying, “We don’t want people with Type 1 to hear about this and stop taking their insulin,” said Diane Tuncer, the association’s director of communications.”After hearing one story about a celebrity, people shouldn’t begin questioning their treatment. No one should stop treatment without consulting their physician,” she said.
So for one she’s not even putting out correct information about the disease, and two she’s been unwilling to do any good for diabetes unless it concerns going to the celeb-filled Carousal of Hope Ball in Beverly Hills every other year for diabetes. That’s it. She’s the most beautiful woman in the world and one of the most well known. She could do so much for the cause and chooses not to.
My respect with Paula is she’s always been true to herself, she now has a chronic illness that unfortunately has some conflicts with the whole empire she’s created but at least she’s trying, and she came out when she was ready. Let’s applaud celebrities who are you using their celebrity to help out our cause of diabetes. And let’s remember that none of us are perfect. With 25 million Americans having diabetes and it costing the country hundreds of billions of healthcare dollars we need any diabetes advocate we can get.
“To me, calling out the injustice is an obligation,” she says. “If Jesus was on earth today, what would He be doing? Helping those who need it the most. And our U.S. health care system is failing so many and so miserably that this has become a life or death situation.”
dateline diabetes dish 