Cooking Insulin in the Microwave - For Real? #04
In this emotional and eye-opening episode of DiabeticReal, Deborah E shares a harrowing experience of being hospitalized due to a horrifying discovery. She delves into a chilling incident where her insulin was inadvertently cooked in the microwave, leading to a life-threatening situation. As she candidly recounts the shocking series of events, listeners uncover the gravity of the situation and the subsequent investigation involving law enforcement. Join us as Deborah E sheds light on the importance of vigilance and the unwavering support of loved ones in the face of adversity.
Chapters
- 00:00 Intro (and Disclaimer)
- 02:50 ICU: The Hospital Found an Issue with Insulin
- 06:48 Microwaving Insulin Can Damage It Without Exploding
- 11:43 FBI Suspects Insulin Tampering
- 15:14 Closing
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00:00 - Intro (and Disclaimer)
02:50 - ICU: The Hospital Found an Issue with Insulin
06:48 - Microwaving Insulin Can Damage It Without Exploding
11:43 - FBI Suspects Insulin Tampering
15:14 - Closing
I'm living inside of this perfectly wonderful world.
Deborah E:We're past the point of just simply ER.
Deborah E:It's ICU.
Deborah E:So I was, and I was going, by this point I was going in and out of consciousness.
Deborah E:It was not good.
Deborah E:I was very fortunate that I had a loving husband that was looking out for me.
Deborah E:I was no longer able to advocate for myself because I was in
Deborah E:and out of consciousness.
Michael Anderson:Join Deborah E, multi-award winning singer, podcaster, and
Michael Anderson:speaker, who proves that being diagnosed
Michael Anderson:with a life-changing illness
Michael Anderson:as a child, along with countless hospitalizations, and a
Michael Anderson:family who told everyone she'd be dead before she reached puberty does not have
Michael Anderson:to stand in the way of life well-lived.
Narrator:The DiabeticReal Podcast and the content of its websites are presented
Narrator:solely for educational purposes, and the views and opinions expressed by guests
Narrator:are there as all they do not necessarily reflect that of the host of the podcast,
Narrator:the content is not intended to substitute professional medical diagnosis, advice,
Narrator:or treatment ongoing or otherwise.
Narrator:Be sure to always seek advice of your physician or other qualified
Narrator:healthcare provider with any questions regarding your healthcare.
Deborah E:Okay, cooking insulin in the microwave, for real?
Deborah E:Yeah, I know.
Deborah E:I couldn't resist as far as the title of this podcast, but the title came to
Deborah E:me because, well, you know, it's a true story and, um, there's a lot of things
Deborah E:that a lot of stories and true stories I might have, uh, that I have to share
Deborah E:with you, but this one came to me today.
Deborah E:I was having my nails done and I was chatting with Tim and nice,
Deborah E:bright Barbie pink nails, by the way, we were sitting there.
Deborah E:He just looked at me.
Deborah E:He goes, seriously, for real.
Deborah E:And I said, well, I wasn't the one cooking my insulin.
Deborah E:I wouldn't be that crazy.
Deborah E:I mean, why?
Deborah E:Okay, I will say that when I was young, and I would carry my insulin
Deborah E:with me because, hey, wasn't when I wasn't feeling well, I wanted to take
Deborah E:insulin so that I would feel better.
Deborah E:And I realized that in the hot desert in California, the sun gets to the
Deborah E:insulin and it breaks down the insulin and then the insulin doesn't work.
Deborah E:Because, well, it gets cooked.
Deborah E:So I knew that it's better if you keep the insulin at a nice temperature.
Deborah E:Don't freeze it.
Deborah E:Don't have it too cold, but definitely don't have it out in the hot sun.
Deborah E:Don't have it in the desert.
Deborah E:And yeah, uh, no duh.
Deborah E:Don't cook it in the microwave.
Deborah E:Don't cook it in the oven.
Deborah E:Don't, I mean, come on, this is common sense.
Deborah E:Don't cook your insulin.
Deborah E:So, anyway.
Deborah E:So, of course, I wasn't cooking it in the microwave.
Deborah E:But, anyway.
Deborah E:So, it turns out that somebody did cook my insulin.
Deborah E:But I didn't know that.
Deborah E:Because I would have stopped them.
Deborah E:I ended up in ICU.
Deborah E:This was many years ago.
Deborah E:And I was getting sicker and sicker.
Deborah E:And I had, you know, this story for another time.
Deborah E:Forgive me, you'll get sick of hearing that.
Deborah E:But I will tell you the stories.
Deborah E:I will get there.
Deborah E:I have so many different stories to share with you, so I will
Deborah E:definitely share them with you.
Deborah E:And I knew what it was to have high blood sugar.
Deborah E:I knew what it was to almost die from high blood sugar.
Deborah E:And that is definitely a story that you'll want to hear.
Deborah E:Um, I knew what it was to be sick.
Deborah E:I knew what it was to ask for help when you're getting very close
Deborah E:to the end of your life because the blood sugar is too high.
Deborah E:You're in diabetic ketoacidosis.
Deborah E:And Insulin is not working.
Deborah E:For whatever reason, your body has gone too far, and you need
Deborah E:the help of medical professionals.
Deborah E:So, I went to the hospital.
Deborah E:They're looking at going, what on earth?
Deborah E:This is going wrong.
Deborah E:I mean, this, this is like, we need IV.
Deborah E:We need insulin going into this woman's body.
Deborah E:We're past the point of just simply ER.
Deborah E:It's ICU.
Deborah E:So I was, and I was going, by this point I was going in and out of consciousness.
Deborah E:It was not good.
Deborah E:I was very fortunate that I had a loving husband that was looking out for me.
Deborah E:I was no longer able to advocate for myself because I was in
Deborah E:and out of consciousness.
Deborah E:The The hospital had a lab, as most hospitals do.
Deborah E:It was a, it was a fair sized hospital in a fair sized city.
Deborah E:It was actually, um, this hospital was in the Phoenix area.
Deborah E:And, uh, the hospital thought this was so strange.
Deborah E:I mean, they said, hey, is she taking her insulin?
Deborah E:And my husband's like, of course she's taking her insulin.
Deborah E:She wasn't feeling well.
Deborah E:I mean, when, when her blood sugar is that high, of course she's taking her insulin.
Deborah E:They said, we gotta check this out.
Deborah E:And they said, when it wasn't working, did she take insulin from a fresh bottle?
Deborah E:And it's like, yes, she has had diabetes for decades.
Deborah E:And that's one of the things you do.
Deborah E:You know, if you take insulin and it's not working, go take insulin
Deborah E:from a fresh bottle of insulin.
Deborah E:Because it could be that the bottle you're using might have gone bad.
Deborah E:It might have somehow been exposed to the sun for some reason,
Deborah E:or have gotten hot somehow.
Deborah E:And so, Get a fresh bottle.
Deborah E:We'd done that.
Deborah E:And that wasn't working.
Deborah E:So the hospital said, you know what?
Deborah E:Bring in all of your bottles of insulin.
Deborah E:Well, at this point, I was already in ICU.
Deborah E:The doctors were taking care of me.
Deborah E:The nurses were taking care of me.
Deborah E:So, I was being taken care of.
Deborah E:So my husband went home, and he brought in all of the bottles of insulin that we had.
Deborah E:And I don't know, ten bottles, whatever it was.
Deborah E:You know, good chunk.
Deborah E:The bottles were from different lots.
Deborah E:So it's not like somehow in the manufacturing of the
Deborah E:bottles, there was a bad lot.
Deborah E:There wasn't anything that we could go after Eli Lilly and,
Deborah E:and say, hey, you messed up.
Deborah E:And they, they took it to the lab and they studied it and they said, you know what?
Deborah E:We know what's wrong.
Deborah E:My husband's what?
Deborah E:How do you know what's wrong?
Deborah E:I mean these are, you told me these bottles are from different,
Deborah E:lots are from different batches.
Deborah E:What's wrong?
Deborah E:And they said, see this little, now I can't remember because
Deborah E:of course I was unconscious.
Deborah E:So now at this point, I'm telling you what I understand from, from what
Deborah E:my husband told me, but there's some kind of little red dot or something
Deborah E:that, that pops when you put.
Deborah E:insulin in the microwave and cook it, it pops like this little red dot thing.
Deborah E:And it's, it's in there specifically so you can tell when
Deborah E:it's cooked in the microwave.
Deborah E:Because you see, if you cook it, if you cook a bottle of insulin in the microwave
Deborah E:too long, the thing basically blows up.
Deborah E:I mean, and that's what I had heard.
Deborah E:It's like, why would you put insulin in the microwave?
Deborah E:It's got metal in this bottle, and it's gonna cause a problem for the
Deborah E:microwave, let alone the bottle.
Deborah E:I mean that, that, oh, and of course the insulin.
Deborah E:I mean, that's just, that is three times not something that you want to do.
Deborah E:And you'd probably injure the human being putting it in there.
Deborah E:But, I guess it turns out you can put a bottle of insulin in the microwave
Deborah E:and cook it for a small amount of time.
Deborah E:And all it will do is damage the insulin, but the bottle won't blow
Deborah E:up and the microwave won't blow up.
Deborah E:And this is why they put this little mechanism in the bottle that will
Deborah E:turn it red so that people can tell that that bottle of insulin has
Deborah E:been tampered with so that they know that that insulin is bad.
Deborah E:It's an easy way to tell without having to take the insulin into the
Deborah E:lab and actually test the insulin.
Deborah E:It's an easy way to tell that the insulin has been tampered with and has
Deborah E:been put in the microwave and cooked.
Deborah E:And it's because there have been nefarious people out there that have tried to
Deborah E:harm diabetics by cooking insulin.
Deborah E:Go figure.
Deborah E:You have nefarious criminal minds out there that try to harm diabetics.
Deborah E:And so Eli Lilly and other companies have figured out a way to be able to
Deborah E:demonstrate whether or not a bottle of insulin has been tampered with or not.
Deborah E:Well, it turns out every single one of my bottles of insulin had been microwaved.
Deborah E:Now the question is, at that point, who had cooked my insulin?
Deborah E:Well, I mean, the other question is, who would want to, who wanted me dead?
Deborah E:Because, I mean, you, you don't cook insulin to get your jollies.
Deborah E:Well, it certainly wasn't my husband, because there's easier ways to kill me.
Deborah E:And besides that, we've been married another 20 years past that.
Deborah E:I'm still alive, and we love each other dearly.
Deborah E:But anyway, it wasn't my husband.
Deborah E:Um, it wasn't our kids, because it's not like a one-year-old.
Deborah E:I was gonna toddle over there.
Deborah E:She barely could walk, let alone, the microwave was above the stove,
Deborah E:and it's not like she could climb up there, or push the buttons on
Deborah E:one of those, you know, touchscreen kind of things on the microwave.
Deborah E:She couldn't open the door on the microwave.
Deborah E:I mean, how, how can a kid even use the microwave?
Deborah E:She'd never use the microwave.
Deborah E:Besides that, A child of one is going to end up blowing up the microwave
Deborah E:before she's able to figure out how many minutes to do it to tamper with
Deborah E:the insulin without blowing herself up.
Deborah E:So, it's not the child doing it.
Deborah E:It's not the husband doing it.
Deborah E:I'm certainly not going to cook my insulin.
Deborah E:Do you know how painful it is to die from diabetic ketoacidosis?
Deborah E:I'd been there before.
Deborah E:I'd be further ahead to ask somebody for a gun and shoot my head.
Deborah E:I mean, come on.
Deborah E:I'm not suicidal.
Deborah E:But still, that is a painful way to die.
Deborah E:To die from diabetic ketoacidosis.
Deborah E:I'm not going to sit there and cook my insulin.
Deborah E:But, there had been two people in her house.
Deborah E:Actually three, if you want to count my friend's baby.
Deborah E:But, we're talking toddler here.
Deborah E:And it's not like a toddler did it.
Deborah E:So, she's out of the running.
Deborah E:But, that was my trusted friend.
Deborah E:There was no reason that I had not to trust this friend or her husband.
Deborah E:I'm just telling the story as it is.
Deborah E:I certainly do not mean any ill harm against her, but it happens
Deborah E:to be that friend and her husband.
Deborah E:So this friend and her husband had been at our house, and it just so
Deborah E:happens we were headed out to church with our kids, and it was like, hey,
Deborah E:uh, are you going to church with us?
Deborah E:No?
Deborah E:Okay, well, what are we doing?
Deborah E:And they just wanted to hang around, and we were thinking,
Deborah E:you're acting a little bit peculiar.
Deborah E:We're not just gonna leave you.
Deborah E:At our house, we were trying to figure out what they were doing, and
Deborah E:they were being very, very strange.
Deborah E:So it was like, alright, either you go home, or you come to church
Deborah E:with us, but we're not leaving you in our house unattended.
Deborah E:We just knew that the vibe was off.
Deborah E:We weren't going to leave them in our house unattended.
Deborah E:Now normally, family, friends, people you trust, you can leave them in your house,
Deborah E:but we knew something was off, so we We didn't want to leave them unattended, but
Deborah E:we left them unattended enough to go pack our kids in the car and ready for church.
Deborah E:And that seems to be the window when the insulin was cooked.
Deborah E:Now that's just by process of elimination.
Deborah E:Those were the only adults in the house.
Deborah E:The FBI warranted that that's who cooked the insulin.
Deborah E:But, of course, as you know, the law I cannot just assume that that's who
Deborah E:did it, because maybe, you know, the neighbor snuck in the house in the middle
Deborah E:of the night and did it or something.
Deborah E:I mean, you can't prove that some other person didn't do it.
Deborah E:Of course, we know no one else was in her house, but
Deborah E:because we didn't actually see this person cook it, she wasn't put in jail.
Deborah E:But the FBI said stay away from her because that actually was not the
Deborah E:only time that that an attempt was made on my life The FBI came to me.
Deborah E:Oh, yeah.
Deborah E:Did I mention the FBI?
Deborah E:Oh, yeah the hospital actually run they ran the tests on the insulin and then they
Deborah E:called the FBI and the FBI came and talked to Us and they said yeah, by the way This
Deborah E:isn't the only time that an attempt has been made on your life and this friend of
Deborah E:yours is actually involved And all that.
Deborah E:And, uh, you should probably stay away.
Deborah E:Yeah, so, uh, it's a little tricky to absolutely prove unless we saw them, but
Deborah E:considering there were three attempts by, uh, this person on my life, and my
Deborah E:husband's, um, but mostly on my life.
Deborah E:The FBI just said, stay away from her, because we have evidence that
Deborah E:she has made attempts on your life.
Deborah E:So, they actually offered us WITSEC.
Deborah E:That was kind of interesting, but we didn't want WITSEC.
Deborah E:So, It was, uh, put to us to just simply make sure that we stayed away
Deborah E:from her and so that's what we did.
Deborah E:Yeah, I told you at the beginning of this series that we had some
Deborah E:interesting, uh, autobiographical stories, like five books worth each.
Deborah E:So anyway, um, yes, cooking insulin in the microwave
Deborah E:and, uh, fortunately, That hospital saw me through it, and I did not die
Deborah E:of diabetic ketoacidosis that day.
Deborah E:I lived through that one.
Deborah E:So, you never know, even though you think that somebody is your friend,
Deborah E:or you think that because someone is related to you, that you're safe.
Deborah E:Make sure you always keep a keen eye on your surroundings
Deborah E:to make sure you stay safe.
Deborah E:And keep those that love you, close.
Deborah E:Because they're pretty special.
Deborah E:This is Deborah E signing off on DiabeticReal.
Michael Anderson:Thank you for listening to this episode of DiabeticReal.
Michael Anderson:For more information about this podcast, as well as links and fun
Michael Anderson:stuff related to DiabeticReal, visit us on our website at diabeticreal.com.
Michael Anderson:com.
Michael Anderson:Now we'll listen as Deborah E herself sings one of her favorite songs.
Michael Anderson:The song is called Perfectly Wonderful World, written by Denny Martin
Michael Anderson:and Jaimee Paul, engineered by me, of course, your host, Michael, in
Michael Anderson:our Seaside Records studio here in lovely Los Angeles, California.
Michael Anderson:It was on the number one ReverbNation charts for over a
Michael Anderson:year and still charts very well.
Michael Anderson:So, have a pleasant moment and listen to Perfectly Wonderful World.
Deborah E:Yes, I'm living inside of this perfectly wonderful world.
Deborah E:Oh.
Deborah E:Mmm.
Listen On
🎵 Life Worth Living 🎵
Here are a couple of episodes to get you started.
In some cases, it is other people who think they hold YOUR life in their hands and have the power to end it. Is that how you want to play the game? Yeah, I didn't think so.
It is time for you to have the say in your life and to find the balance, and joy, and happiness! ❤️