Download Insulin Resilience – How Diabetes Shapes Lives for the Better

Insulin Resilience – How Diabetes Shapes
Lives for the Better
Andrew Deutscher
March 7, 2015
“D Day” – A day to remember
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Pull Vs. Push
“All of a sudden, it was NOT cool to NOT
check your blood sugar!” – Morgan
Patton
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OLD STORY - PUSH
REBELLION – “Rules don’t apply to
me.”
ANGER – Father left, couldn’t
reconnect, Felt Mother didn’t
help her reconnect, Diabetes
diagnosis.
A1C = 16.8
LAZY – “It’s OK if I skip my insulin.”
SELF-CENTERED – Didn’t see
impact of her behaviors on those
that loved and cared for her.
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NEW STORY - PULL
“When I talk to kids who were just like me, I can look them in the eye
and say, you’re only hurting yourself.”
ACHIEVEMENT – Find what
motivates you, achieve your
dreams, regardless of your
condition
LIMITLESS – Speedweek – 7 races, 9
days, 12th place
A1C = 6.5
WITHOUT MEANING THERE IS NO
BEING – Speaks to kids and adults
at races about diabetes and racing,
found her passion, mentors
women, pulled to greatness
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STEP into what moves them

Push equals push away. Link managing diabetes to
realizing their passion and they will be pulled to
taking care of themselves.

Set the right environment, Trust they already have
what they need inside them, Encourage and
Empower their role in helping themselves, connect
them to their Purpose.
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COMPASSION VS. Criticism
“I suck at this every day. But, don’t we
all. It’s the moving forward that is so
crucial.” – Tom Karlya, Diabetes Dad
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“We need to talk about the fact that there
is a disease burden. Type 1 diabetes is at
best, tedious and at worst, always
changing and in fluctuation, and vacation
is not an option.” – Barbara Anderson,
Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Head of Psychology,
Baylor College of Medicine
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Tom’s keys for Compassion
“Parents lose all the time because they haven’t
experienced diabetes.”

If you haven’t been there…You can’t argue it if you don’t have experience
with it.

Don’t feel like you need to know everything they are doing.

Find shared experiences for them through online forums, camps, public
events and many other options.

Empathy builds compassion. Listen and let go.

Type 1 diabetes builds gratitude and appreciation. Let it flourish.
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“I have seen people do incredible things
with this disease and in spite of this
disease, some well known and some just
kids doing their thing, but doing it with
diabetes.” – Tom Karlya
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OLD STORY
Acting is something I was good at, really enjoyed,
and was beginning to have much success.
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NEW STORY
“I am a completely different person now. I have no
idea what I would be if it were not for diabetes.
Acting may have turned out the way I hoped.
Now, none of that matters. My focus now is to
help, learn, give back and make a difference.”
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NEW STORY
“It is important to ‘just don’t do nothing.’ I know
so many people who have changed the world.
The pain we all live with has surely given us
enormous laughter, help, joy, knowledge, and
most importantly, hope for all those with
diabetes.”
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Realistic Optimism – Psychologist Sandra Schneider
Accepting the reality of the current
situation and finding a satisfying meaning
therein.

“A healthy psychological immune system strikes a balance that
allows us to feel good enough to cope with our existing
situation, but bad enough to do something about it. What is a
more nuanced perspective that includes both optimism and
pessimism, positivity and negativity, without choosing up
sides between them.” – Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on
Happiness
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noun: something that can be verified objectively
by any person. it is irrefutable.
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noun: something we create to
make sense of the facts
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Facing the Facts

Type 1 Diabetes is an immune disorder in which antibodies mistakenly attack
healthy beta cells in the pancreas and disrupt them from the ability to produce
insulin.

Insulin is vital for our cells to absorb glucose, which is used to provide energy and
sustain health.

Without insulin, blood glucose levels would go too high, possibly leading to
serious complications – loss of eyesight, kidney failure, nerve damage, etc.

You need to regularly monitor blood sugar levels to determine how much, if any,
insulin is required to cover carbohydrate and moderate higher BG levels.
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without denying the facts, what’s
the most empowering story i can tell myself?
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“with no change in environment, but a
change in response to that environment
resulted in stress declines.”
- Sara Lazar – Neuroscientist, Harvard
Medical Research
What’s your Story?

Our new normal to abnormal circumstances,
while not one we’ve chosen or did anything
to get, is with us. I feel fortunate because we
can control our response to it and my child
can do whatever he dreams about and wants
to achieve.
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IMPOSSIBLE
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I’M POSSIBLE
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