Deborah opens this episode with a warm welcome and a heartfelt reflection on the importance of family, both biological and chosen, as they transition into the new year. The discussion takes a turn towards technology as she shares her excitement about repurposing computers in their studio, emphasizing the collaborative effort with her husband, Michael, an expert in hardware. This sets the stage for a deeper dive into a unique topic that blends entertainment with health awareness. Deborah recounts a recent binge-watching session of the show ‘Will Trent,’ where she notes an important scene featuring a diabetic character, Faith Mitchell. She expresses her appreciation for the show’s portrayal but critiques the accuracy of how diabetes is represented. Through her analysis, Deborah highlights the nuances of diabetes management, explaining the symptoms and responses to high and low blood sugar, and emphasizes the need for accurate representation of such conditions in media.
“Why are you giving insulin to someone who’s having low blood sugar? That wasn’t discussed in the scene.”
Deborah
As she analyzes the portrayal of the character, “Faith,” Deborah points out several inaccuracies, sharing her personal experiences with diabetes to provide a clearer picture of what it truly means to live with the condition. She discusses how the character’s symptoms in the show do not align with real-life experiences of diabetics. For instance, she explains that a diabetic experiencing low blood sugar would exhibit certain immediate behaviors that were not accurately depicted. This leads to a broader conversation about the responsibility of writers and producers to ensure they have medical advisors who can provide insights into the lived experiences of individuals with diabetes, fostering a more authentic representation that can educate viewers.
- Family is not just about blood relations but the people you choose to love.
- The representation of diabetes in media can often be inaccurate and misleading.
- It’s crucial for characters with diabetes to display realistic symptoms in shows.
- Medical advisors should be included in productions to ensure accurate portrayal of health conditions.
Deborah concludes with a call to action for the entertainment industry, advocating for the inclusion of medical professionals or individuals with firsthand experience in script development. She stresses the importance of accurate portrayals not just for entertainment’s sake, but for the potential impact they can have on public understanding and awareness of diabetes. With a blend of critique and encouragement, she wraps up the episode with a reminder to support the arts while advocating for accuracy in health representation, leaving listeners with a sense of community and purpose as they navigate the complexities of diabetes and media representation.
Chapters
- 03:03 Reflections on Family and Relationships
- 03:19 The Transition to Diabetes Discussion
- 04:09 Analyzing Will Trent Episode (My Stupid Detective Brain)
- 21:50 Rosanna Arquette: Law & Order (Wednesday’s Child)
- 24:30 Representation of Diabetes in Media
Episode Resources
Episode Credits
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Transcript
Welcome, everyone.
I hope you had a wonderful holiday, spent time with people you love and you realize that those people that we call family do not have to be the people that we're related to, but those are the people that we love, the people that you choose in your life. So I hope everyone had a wonderful time. Whether you spent time thinking about things that are dear and near to you by yourself or.
Or whether you spent time with those you love or whether you gave of your time to people that you want to share your time with and give of yourself. Now we're ready to start that new year. Can you believe it's a quarter of a century? Wow.
Well, Michael and I were a little bit late to the draw, I recognize that and I admit that. But we had quite a bit of switcheroo going on here in the studio. We actually, we didn't replace because we don't want to.
We don't throw away computers or anything like that. We would donate or do something like that.
But we repurposed some of our computers and we choose them according to what they're going to do and what the best choice is. So Michael, who is an expert, and Michael being my husband, he's an expert at hardware. We each have our talents as far as computers go.
So he selected Neuro computer. That's excellent for video. This one really screams when it comes to video. So I'm looking forward to putting out more videos.
But back on the topic of diabetes, I thought of an interesting topic because we were binge watching. You know how a lot of TV shows kind of go offline during the holidays?
And I'm all for that because our wonderful actors, producers, all of the entertainment industry, they need time with their loved ones too, right? So we were binge watching and my husband pulled up the show. Will Trent. And I really enjoy watching Will Trent.
And he just happened on the episode season one, or if you're in the uk, it's series one and episode four. And of course we'd watched it before, but we just happened on it and we were eating lunch and watching it.
One of our favorite pastimes to eat and watch. My husband groomed me for that a few decades ago when we married.
Anyway, we came up on a scene where Will Trent's partner, Faith Mitchell, she is diabetic. Now, I'm going to assume that she's type 1 diabetic. I think that is referenced in the episode.
But the reason I'm assuming is because she's taking insulin. Now, it is possible for type 2 to take insulin. But we're going to go with the easiest answer here. And I do think that she references that.
She says something about being diagnosed in her 30s, that it is possible to be diagnosed as needing insulin, as a type 1 diabetic needing insulin in the 30s. It's also possible to be diagnosed as a type 2 and needing insulin, but usually that's type 1.
It used to be that they thought adult onset that was a type and that that was always type 2. Fortunately, now they do not say juvenile onset and adult onset. They do not say insulin dependent and non insulin dependent.
Now they say type one and type two. We're going to just go with the assumption that she is type 1, even though she was diagnosed in her 30s. Referring to the character here.
Now shout out to the actors playing these parts. Iantha Richardson, superb job acting. And also to Ramon Rodriguez as Will Trent.
So the particular scene that I'm going to reference right now is season one, episode four. According to my timestamp, I'm at 24 minutes and four seconds. It's called My Stupid Detective Brain is the name of the episode. Now, Ms.
Richardson did an awesome job of acting, but we needed some coaching here on how to act like a diabetic. And I really don't want to criticize, I hate to criticize, but there are several things wrong with this scene.
Now, fortunately, Will Trent's part on acting like he didn't know anything about diabetes, that was pretty easy because it came off that he didn't know anything about diabetes. And so that was a pretty easy role. First of all, she's walking along pretty normal, and then she kind of like trips to the side.
Okay, I'll tell you, as a diabetic, it doesn't come on like that. The first thing is you have to know, is it a low blood sugar or high blood sugar?
And that is actually part of the scene because how the scene is treated is off. But if it's a high blood sugar, most diabetics are already acting uncomfortable because it's extremely painful. You're cranky. That's hard to.
Now, I tend to try to push that down and not act cranky with people. But again, I've had diabetes for many years.
I tend to, since I've had diabetes so long, I tend to try to push down those symptoms from the high blood sugar. But you are very uncomfortable. You're more likely to not want people to talk to you.
I mean, depending on your personality and who you are, you're going to want to pull back because you don't feel well at all. With high blood sugar, it's very slow coming on. So Faith would have known that she was high blood sugar. It would have come on very slow.
She would have known that it was coming on. She would have treated it with insulin before that, because she would have known it was coming on.
Now, if it's low blood sugar, it could easily have come on very quickly. And the way she's acting here, the way she tips over a little bit, that's the acting for low blood sugar. That's where you get tipsy.
Some people think a person's a diabetic, is drunk because they're unstable, they're tipping over. I sometimes get giggly when I'm low blood sugar. But the way that she acts on here, that's a low blood sugar. Even my husband and I are watching.
I mean, he may not have diabetes, but he's lived with me many decades. He saw that, and he's like, low blood sugar right away, low blood sugar. So you have a character that is acting low blood sugar as far as the acting.
Whereas with a high blood sugar, you would be able to sit down, you would know that a high blood sugar is coming on. You would be uncomfortable. You wouldn't want to be talking to people.
You would just deal with the high blood sugar, low blood sugar, you'd practically fall over. You'd be unsteady. You might actually fall in the ground. So her acting, wonderful for low blood sugar. So we keep going.
She sits down and again, presumably from a low blood sugar, because that's how she was acting. And Will Trent asks her, it's like, do you need orange juice or insulin? Well, that's another thing.
Okay, we're going to give him a pass because he's the character that supposedly doesn't know anything about diabetes. Now, he does reference how he knew a diabetic in the home where he grew up. And he should. He should, technically.
I mean, if he knew a diabetic and he learned about it, he should know that whatever situation she has, whether it's high blood sugar or low blood sugar, it's not going to be a case where you ask if you need orange juice or insulin, because those are two diametrically opposed. I mean, they're completely two different treatments. If you give somebody with low blood sugar insulin, you could kill them.
If you give somebody with high blood sugar orange juice, you're going to make them sicker, and you may make them have to go to the hospital. So that's not a flipping question at all. Now, from somebody who knows nothing about diabetes. Okay, yeah. All right.
But even if you have a passing relationship with somebody with diabetes, you should know that those two. I mean, I'm sorry, guys, the producers of Will Trent, Come on, this is a basic diabetes 101.
You should know that those two shouldn't be in the same sentence. Now, my husband brought up a really good point. He said the first question you should ask is, what is your blood sugar?
And anyone would be able to figure that out. If you know anything, if you've listened to even these podcasts, you could figure that out.
If your blood sugar is 29, well, you're headed towards death. But okay, if your blood sugar is like 50, you're low blood sugar. That's orange juice time. If your blood sugar is 300, don't give them orange juice.
That's insulin time. That's high blood sugar. So my husband had a really good point. What is your blood sugar? The next thing. And then he says, I can help you if you want.
And so she hands him a little bag. It's the needles, she says. And then she asks, how did you know? In other words, how did Will Trent know that she was diabetic?
And he said, the fainting gave it away. Which is interesting. I just got done saying the fainting is something you do from a low blood sugar, not a high blood sugar.
You don't faint from high blood sugar. If you do faint, and I've done this where I go completely unconscious where all my organs started to shut down, that wasn't fainting.
That was complete unconsciousness, and I did almost die. I think I told you guys about that. Or that will be coming up in a podcast if I haven't. But I'm pretty sure I told you guys about that.
That was when they had to fly in an endocrinologist from another city to save me. Yeah, that's called death. That wasn't fainting. That was ICU for three days. That was completely different.
And if I did that again at this age, I just simply would die. That was when the. The paramedics didn't believe that I lived through it because literally my body was already shutting down. That's not fainting.
That's something else. Her fainting quote, unquote. That's low blood sugar. So.
But the next thing he says, which really caught me, I mean, oh, the change of eating habits and the band AIDS on your fingers. I mean, bless their hearts when they wrote the script, but come on. Okay, I don't do the. As People like to call it.
I don't call this, but I've heard other people say the finger pokes, or sometimes I have finger sticks. Whatever you want to call it, checking your blood sugar, where you're poking your finger, and then checking the blood sugar with a meter.
I don't do that anymore. I know. Horrifying, horrifying. But that's because I have a continuous glucose monitoring system on my pump, my Medtronic pump, and it does it for me.
That doesn't mean I never check my blood sugar with a finger poke, as they call it, because I do do that to check how well the Medtronic pump is doing, or Minimed pump. Medtronic is the company. Minimed used to be the company, but it's bought out by Medtronic. Medtronic's the company. Minimed is the pump.
So now my blood sugar is measured through this continuous glucose monitoring system. But even when I was doing the finger pokes and testing it with a meter, I would be testing eight times a day.
Can you picture what I would look like, especially on these video live streams, if I used a band aid for every finger poke and I'm doing it eight times a day? Eight times seven is 56. I might have to take out stock in Band aid, the brand. 56 band aids a week. I would never want to show my hands.
I would be wearing gloves on these live streams because my hands would look hideous. I would have to stop playing the piano because I couldn't play with that many band aids.
I'd have to stop typing because I couldn't type with that many band aids. I'd have to stop using my iPhone to send messages because I couldn't do it with that many band aids on my finger.
I wouldn't be able to write anymore because I wouldn't be able to type with that many band aids on it. You see where I'm going with this? The idea of that many band aids.
y did in the hospital back in:I've told you, this is another episode. They stuck it right in the center, right where all the nerve endings are in my little bitty finger, and they poked it in deep.
And, man, that finger gushed. Bled and bled and bled. Yes, they had to stick a band Aid on that.
And I've had hospitals, I've had nurses come in and they've gone to do a finger poke, and they go for that tissue right dead center in a finger. And I've stopped them. I said, no, no, no, no. You don't need to hit where the nerve endings are or where it's going to bleed that much.
All you do is, is a light poke on the side of the finger. You'll get all the blood you need, but it won't continue to bleed forever. And it doesn't need a band aid.
You can take a little tissue, put it on the spot, maybe five, ten seconds, and it's done. You don't need a band aid. So, no, I don't even carry band aids with me because I never bleed that much. And it's not just me. This is.
If you look around, if this is true about the Band aids, you'd be able to spot the diabetics because they'd have 56 band aids or maybe only 28 if they're doing the four a day. The four a day pokes. That one. I had to laugh. That was really pretty unrealistic.
In all the decades I have had diabetes, other than the hospitalization, no, never had band aids on my fingers for it. And I checked my blood sugar pretty religiously. He's talking about cases. Oh, he said, piece of cake. And then he said, which you can never have.
Oh, you guys know my thoughts on this one. We've had episodes on this, even with the whole thought of Thanksgiving dinner.
And remember I talked about having the pie and that you can just dial in the insulin a couple episodes back. Yeah. Not having cake. No, not an issue. And this is where my husband also mentioned. We were watching this, guys, Come on.
k this was. Came out in what,:e been on insulin pumps since:Why is she not an insulin pump? Why is she out at crime scenes, Potentially very dirty crime scenes, carrying all this stuff around with her in a Ziploc, that's very dangerous.
And with her being diabetic, she could very easily become infected. She's prone to that as a diabetic. So that's very dangerous.
And so the next thing is she hands it to him to Will Trent to help her, and he pulls out a needle. Now, I tried to look at the screen. My husband said it's an insulin pen, which I've never used. I went from needles to using the insulin pump.
I'm not really sure why people do not want to use the pump. Again. Why are you giving insulin to someone who's having low blood sugar? That wasn't discussed in the scene.
Because she's acting like low blood sugar. Basically, if you're giving her insulin, you're going to kill her. But I guess they didn't quite figure that out. As far as the scene.
It's nice that Will Trent is offering to help. But me as a diabetic, I'm not saying I've never had help, but what I'm saying is I like to take care of myself.
Maybe I'm an odd person because I like to be self sufficient. I need to know that I am able to take care of myself so that if I'm ever alone, I can take care of myself.
And this is a shot in the belly or in the side. I can reach my belly in the side. I do. In fact, that's where I insert all the time. I. I've never had to have my husband do a pump insertion on my side.
I've never had to have anyone help me with a pump insertion on the side. Now when my doctor insisted that I was pushing insulin out of me, he said, I want to have other people do the shots. Whole nother topic.
But that was never a case where I could not give my own shots. I'm very much so in the diabetic helping themselves so that they can take care of themselves and then asking for help when they need help.
Maybe this is just Will Trent helping out his partner. Okay, all for it. But the comment about never having cake. No, that's not the case. There is glucagon.
Glucagon is something that you would give a diabetic when they're unconscious. My husband has given me that because I'm unconscious. That's what you give a diabetic when they're unconscious and needs sugar.
I've never actually given it to myself because if I'm awake, I can actually take the sugar. But again, we went back to the scene and looked at it. That was not glucagon. That looked to be an insulin pump or a shot of insulin.
And in the scene they did not take out the needle and draw up insulin. So it looked like a pre filled insulin pen.
And that's very dangerous with if anyone is watching this and taking care of a diabetic, it does not give the right message. I would dare say I'd send this podcast episode to the producers of Will Trent because it does not give the right message.
The acting that she did said low blood sugar and they turned around and gave her insulin that would kill her. So that scary. That is scary to me. Anyway, that one, another episode that was very interesting to me was one with Rosanna Arquette.
And I just realized the other day when I was looking up the dates that Rosanna actually, and I'm not one of these name droppers, I don't, in fact, I actually guard against name dropping. But I met Rosanna, very nice lady. And she married a friend of mine, Todd Morgan. In fact, he was my employer, very nice man.
They got married in:I don't want it coming back on any friends who are not guilty of the poisoning. But with my body, since my body is very in tune with, it's like a computer shutdown.
You crash a computer that a computer knows how to shut down and reboot, it's going to shut down and reboot. So my body knew how to shut down and reboot and do a seizure. And I had a seizure.
And it was actually when we were out of town doing a conference or not really conference. It was a special thing for the company. So Ms. Rosanna was there and I had actually visited with her at my friend Todd's house. Again, wonderful lady.
But it just so happened that about a year and a half or two years after that, there was an episode of Law and Order that came out. And let's see what episode that was. Episode number 14 of season 15 and it's called Wednesday's Child. And it just so happens that it's about a child.
Well, it's about several things. That's also where, that's also where Sargent at the time Olivia Benson met her future son, Noah.
So just a little, if you haven't watched Law and Order, this is, you know, spoiler alert here on this one. But one of the children there has diabetes. Ms.
Rosanna played the part of Alexa Pearson and the little boy that was given by his adoptive mother to this family. Again, it's a spoiler alert. Nikki was his name on the show, the character played by Nick Duncan Nicholson, and he was diabetic.
And I went back and watched this show. Now, I could go back with more of a critical eye on this one. But interestingly, that show did pretty well as far as representing a diabetic child.
And what the diabetic child would go through in feeling sick because he didn't have enough insulin and he was getting sicker and sicker. So in this case, the diabetic child who had Type one, his blood sugar was going up. It was going higher and higher.
And the concern they had about finding him now, he wasn't going to struggle as far as blood sugar going too low. He was going to struggle with the blood sugar going too high, and they needed to find him so they could give him insulin.
And I was thinking when I watched that, I thought that show actually did a really good job as far as representation of type 1 diabetes. It kind of made me wonder, because here I had gone over to Todd's house during breakfast after I'd gotten out of the hospital.
And again, the hospitalization, they treated it, of course they're going to treat it because I have diabetes. They're going to look at the diabetes aspect. They're going to look at the other, make sure that I'm healthy.
And they had marked down that they thought that I might have been poisoned. Not by Todd, by the way. Todd had nothing. Todd is a wonderful man, Mr. Morgan. No problem whatsoever. He did not have anything to do with it.
And neither did Ms. Rosanna anything there without blame, absolutely without blame on this.
But I wondered, when I watched this episode, I thought, I wonder if going into this that helped at all. Now, maybe Ms. Rosanna knows other people who are diabetic.
But I did notice that that storyline and the delivery of that was a lot closer to accurate and closer to accuracy as far as the type 1 diabetes and how it was represented. So this is not meant to be critical of the Will Trent Show. I love the Will Trent show. It's great.
I think it would really help in the entertainment industry if they actually had medical advisors specifically for the situation represented in this case on the Will Trent show, it was diabetes. So have a medical advisor, preferably someone who has type 1 diabetes, be there to help coach the actor in how to represent the diabetes.
A little tip to the entertainment industry. I think that would help.
If you're going to represent a diabetic, have a diabetic actually give tips on how to do so, because that scene was a bit off. But let's not stop watching tv.
Let's not stop supporting our actors and our producers and everyone that's involved in the entertainment industry, as some of us are also in the entertainment industry. And I love to support us all in whatever role we're in and love us all and hug us all.
And with that, I send out my hug and my loves to all of you and hope to see you in the next episode of Diabetic R. And with that, I'm signing off. Till then, this is Deborah signing off. Diabetic Rich.