Ready To Describe Diabetes In Any Language #20

Deborah
00:01:57

Hello, everyone. It's great to be here. This is Deborah. Welcome back. And it has been quite a week. Martin and I launched Studio Fusion Podcast.

So that was really busy last week. And getting that all in order. It takes a little bit to launch a podcast, but I won't go all into that.

You can actually listen to Studio Fusion if you're interested in that or if you are a podcaster, because that podcast is about podcasting. So really busy with that.

And also as a part of that, we were going through making sure all of our RSS feeds, which is a part of podcasting, were valid. A whole thing on that. And if you're interested in that, you could listen to one of our upcoming podcast episodes.

Again, if you're a podcaster and interested in learning about valid RSS feeds, you'll want to listen to Studio Fusion. So anyway, that means that that included this podcast and making sure that all the RSS feeds are valid. And I won't go all into it again.

Listen to Studio Fusion if you want to know about that. So quite an undertaking. And had me busy. And on top of that, hand surgery. Always a fun thing. Yeah, yeah. We got to be positive about life, right?

We have to be positive or life can really get you down. Now, remember a few episodes back, well, actually quite a few talked about complications with diabetes. And I said that I.

I didn't believe in saying, hey, you know, a whole bunch of complications. I still stand by that. There's a difference between a complication of diabetes and someone having a propensity towards or tendency.

Now, what I read and what I'm told is that what I had, I actually had trigger thumb and my right thumb had trigger thumb. That's where it kind of clicks. It doesn't. You know what? Google it, please, for me to explain it. I am not a medical person.

I understand my diabetes, but I'm not a doctor. And it's like the little. What did the doctor say? A pulley system. It doesn't quite bend properly. It kind of clicks.

And I would show you, except I got it fixed today. Anyway, it doesn't quite bend properly. It gets hung up. So that's why it clicks as it bends.

And the doctor said, hey, your left thumb is also going that direction, so it'd be better to fix both of them. Now, a lot of people have a cortisone shot to fix that. It takes a little while, and then pretty soon, hey, the thumbs are working.

And then maybe have a couple shots per year and you're all good. But the Shot didn't really work for me, so I said, hey, let's just get this fixed permanently. And the doctor actually had the same thought too.

So got my right hand done today and for anyone that has to have that done, you know, it's not that bad. I mean, I wouldn't say surgery is super duper fun, but I love the music the doctor is playing and you know, it's not that bad.

And I go in in two weeks and have my left hand done.

I think the trickiest thing is I am so right handed that trying to live my life with one hand for the next two weeks and not using the right hand to lift or the whole thing.

But hey, I won't waste your time talking about the complications on that one because if you ever had to have hand surgery, you would get all the post op information from your doctor, from the nurse, et cetera. But I go off topic a little bit because I was going to say as far as complications versus propensity.

So the trigger thumb tends to affect women and not exactly 20 year old women, if you get what I'm saying, and diabetics. So, you know, if my husband were diabetic, he would not be as likely to have this as me.

So if you want to say it's complications of diabetes, you'd have to also say it's complications of being female. Or I could say that another way, but probably not appropriate to say that on a podcast and keep this as a general audience.

But yes, what you're thinking, that's exactly what I was talking about. So anyway, I wouldn't call it a complication of diabetes, but I would say it's a propensity.

If you're a little bit on in years and you're diabetic and you're female, you probably have a likelihood, but that doesn't mean that you absolutely will get trigger thumb. And yes, it's fixable. I was so excited when the doctor said, hey, bend your thumb. And I'm like, oh, I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying.

And then he said, here, let me show you. I was like, oh my goodness, my thumb moves. Because, you know, it was so numb I thought I couldn't move it.

But this podcast episode is not about the thumb.

The other part and what the podcast episode is about was, okay, I went to go get my nails done yesterday because we don't want to go in there when we're all bandaged up and everything from surgery, do we? So get the nails done before the surgery and you know, I've had my insulin pump for, oh, let's see, 27 years. I've had it for a long time. So I don't.

I don't think a whole lot about it. I mean, maybe I was. Was I ever really self conscious about it?

I don't know if I was, but as I said in one of the other episodes, I'd be in church and you see people going, 1, 2, 3. When it's attached to the bra and it's like, no, that's an insulin pump. I really am not self conscious about the insulin pump at all.

So I go in there, I sit down, and it was a new guy doing my nails. I hadn't met him before. You like to give everyone a chance. Need to spread it around. Spread the tip around. So he was so curious.

Very pleasant guy, just very expressive. I mean, he'd be great at parties. And he's like, what is that? I can't remember what he thought it was. And I said, it's an insulin pump.

And, you know, I have to say English was not his first language. So I think he thought I said something else. And so we had quite a bit of time together because I was getting my nails done. So he said something else.

And I said, it's for my diabetes. And I realized now, in hindsight, he didn't know what diabetes was. He didn't know what insulin was because he kept asking me.

So he figured out it was related to something. And he said, oh, when I get home, I don't feel like eating, so I just like, punch the button, punch the button. Punch a button, and I get food.

And then I feel better. And I'm thinking, whoa, wait a minute, something's not connecting here. He goes. Because it goes in the tube, right?

And I said, yeah, but it's not food that's going in the tube. And so I took some time to explain it, and obviously Trudy, my little studio dog here, decided that she's. Oh, no, no, no, that's not what it is.

So she's piping in here to explain what the pump is. So it took some time and he pulled out.

He had, I think it was his wife with him because he was explaining it to her in another language that I didn't understand. He was pulling out the translator, and I said, it is the organ called the pancreas that we're looking up. And so he punched that in.

And then he said, wait a minute, how do you spell that? And so I spelled it P, A, N, C, R, E. A S. And I slowed it down and spelled it again, and he punched it in.

And then the two of them were talking back and forth, and it seemed like they got it. And I said, okay, there's two types of diabetes, and I have the one where it's broken. It's just taking up space.

But I said, but the pancreas is very small, so it's not taking up very much space. That used to be what I told people, that it was just taking up space. But you can't say that when the pancreas is very small.

But I thought, no, if I say all that, that's going to complicate it and it's going to confuse him. So I said, there's another type of diabetes where it just doesn't. It meaning the pancreas does not work effectively.

But I said, you're balancing food, the pancreas, in other words, the insulin, which is what the pancreas produces, and exercise. And I said, you could actually survive without exercise. You shouldn't. You need exercise, but you cannot survive without insulin and without food.

So I was explaining diabetic ketoacidosis.

I said, if you've got the food in your body, but it's not actually going throughout your body, which the insulin is helping the body to utilize that food. I'm sitting here thinking, am I explaining this correctly?

Because most people, I just go up and I say, I have type 1 diabetes, and sometimes they get confused, like, oh, that's the type 2 diabetes. And you just have it so bad that then you start taking shots, right? Now, I've had that sometimes.

So some people really do get the type 1 and type 2 confused. But I've never had anyone that is so confused that they haven't heard of the pancreas or insulin or any of that.

And, you know, it was actually refreshing because it really got me thinking that I need to make sure I've got it straight in my head. I mean, of course I know what my disease is, but am I prepared to be able to explain this to someone who has zero knowledge of what diabetes is?

So, number one, I need to refresh my knowledge, and number two, I need to know how to explain this to someone who knows nothing about the diabetes. And number three, to explain it in a way in their language.

Now, I don't mean that I have to go learn every single language as far as linguistics in the world, but to be able to use words that makes sense. I was wishing I had the book.

I think I've mentioned this in One of the other podcasts, the book that I was given when I was 6 years old in the hospital, and all I remember is one of the characters was Flo. And I think she was the needle. Flo the needle, I suppose because of the flow of the insulin.

I wish I had that little book because it was such a helpful little book and I kept it for a long time, like when I was a kid.

But it's not like when you're my age, you're still looking at a coloring book with little bottles and needles and things like this that have names that help expl diabetes. But it was very helpful to help explain it to a six year old.

So I guess what I want to challenge diabetics everywhere is to learn how to explain the diabetes to people. Because you just never know when you're going to cross paths with someone that has no idea what diabetes is or even what it's called.

And is this curious? I mean, it was so refreshing how curious he was. That's all he wanted to talk about.

The whole 45 minutes he was doing my nails was, what is this diabetes? What is it called? What does it do? And all this stuff. He could not get enough. He wanted to know information. And like I said, it didn't bother me.

I was fine with talking about it and sharing with him and answering his questions.

So take a moment to find your way of explaining diabetes to someone who knows nothing about diabetes and explain it in a way that makes you comfortable and also somebody that you're talking to comfortable in their skin, so you can have a nice pleasant conversation when that happens. Because you just never know. Might be when you're having your nails done. This is Deborah and I'll see you the next episode of DiabeticReal.