Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Real change of pace because the walks being held at
the Darwin Waterfront this Sunday to raise awareness and funds
for research into type one diabetes. It's being organized by
the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which says that while progress
has been made, a further fifty million dollars is needed
over the next four years. Joining me on the line
(00:22):
is Darwin mum Vanessa Scott, who has a son who
was diagnosed with type one diabetes on Christmas Day three
years ago. Good morning, Vanessa, good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, it's lovely to have you on the show. Vanessa,
tell me how old was your son when he was
diagnosed with type one diabetes.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, so Jake was actually seven years old when he
was diagnosed while on Christmas holiday visiting family in Western Australia.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Wow. What talk me through how you know how that
diagnosis happened and how you worked out that it was
type one diabetes.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, so I'm a nurse, so I had a fair
idea that it was type one diabetes when I took
him to the hospital. So your classic symptoms for type
one diabetes is weight loss, increase, thirst, increase your nation
as your body is trying to get rid of that
extra sugar and fatigue. And then as you become more unwell,
(01:23):
if you're go into kido acidosis, then you can lose consciousness,
fall into a comas, die.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
It's frightening stuff. And it would have been for you
as a mum. I mean, what was like. Obviously you're
a nurse, so you're I'm assuming quite used to dealing
with these kinds of things, Vanessa, But what was it
like for you when you sort of, you know, when
you finally got that diagnosis and realize what it would
mean for your young fella.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
It's terrible. It's life changing because type one diabetes has
no cure. It's needing insulin injections for the rest of
your life.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I've got a my cousin is now grown up and
he has type one diabetes, and I, you know, as
a kid, I never really realized how difficult that must
have been for him and his family. You know, we
just sort of you don't know right when you're a kid.
But now when I think about it as a parent,
I think it must be really like, it must be
quite tough managing, you know, with that him managing with
(02:25):
that insulin pump. And and just dealing with it more generally.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
It is, so for people living with diabetes, they make
about an extra one hundred and eighty decisions a day.
So you're needing to every time you eat, you need
to make a decision about what you're eating, how much
carbohydrates in that food, how much insulin you're going to
give to to cover that carbohydrate. You're looking at, what
your levels, what's the trend, what's your activity? What do
(02:52):
you plan on doing after you eat? So it's it's
a lot, and it's twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Vanessa wats Is it quite a costly you know? Is
it quite consely for families as well?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It is, it's very expensive. So basically we've tried one. Diabetes,
you need to inject insulin. There's two main ways you
can do that. One is through using injections, so you
would be injecting with a needle insulin every time you eat,
or you can use what's called a insulin pump. So
(03:27):
the pump means that for most people you're only needing
to put a needle in once every two days. That
needle then stays in your body and you can just
dial up the amount of insulin you need on your
pump so that you're not needing to give yourself injections.
So it's life changing. It's much more like less invasive
for people. So you can imagine if you're at a
(03:48):
restaurant pulling out a needle and injecting insulin into yourself,
is you know, people around you give you quite a
few weird looks. Or you can simply pull a pump
out and dial up your dose pumps. You can even
dial up your doves using mobile phone, so it can
be very discreet for people around you don't know that
you have diabetes.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, but how for him though?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, yeah, about eight thousand dollars for an insulent p yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Gee, that's a lot of money, it really is. Yeah.
And then I mean, so your son's about ten now,
is that right?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, that's right, he's ten.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
He's ten, And so it must be like it must
be difficult for a little fella of that age sort
of you know, learning about all this stuff with his
body and and then sort of you know, and then
having like having to manage this.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
It is, and it's I think one of the most
difficult things is wrapping your head around the fact that
it doesn't get better. This is for the rest of
your life. And Jake does everything a normal child does.
He does jiu jitsu, he plays soccer, He's extremely active.
He goes camping and swimming and fishing. It just takes planning. Yeah,
(05:04):
we we just we need to plan diabetes into every
activity he does.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I'm so glad that you know that he is able
to still do all of those different activities and Livy's
life in a normal way. But I mean, like you've
touched on, you've got to do so much planning in
terms of like I don't want to get too stuck
on this pump situation. But is that covered by health
by your health cover or anything.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
That's an excellent question. So people living with diabetes, they
have a lot of out of pocket medical expenses. Yeah,
so they're paying for their specialist appointments. Then they're paying
for their consumables that goes for their pump. If you're
someone who chooses to use the pump, if you were
to buy one outright, it's going to cost between eight
and ten thousand.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Dollars, Holy moly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
If you have private health insurance, then your private health
insurance will cover one pump every four years. Technology in
that four years changes significantly, so you might find yourself
that there is a better pump on the market that
would suit your needs better, but you will stay with
the same pump if you can't afford to pay ten
(06:13):
thousand dollars for a new pump. And then for some people,
if you can't afford private health insurance and you can't
afford to pay that eight to ten thousand dollars, there's
very limited, like hundred pumps for people of Vanessa.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
It makes me really cross. Hey, when I think to myself,
you know that that a family going through a diagnosis
like this, that they're you know, at the very time
when you realistically need that health cover to be able
to you know, to step up and to be able
to support you more than just once every four years.
(06:51):
And the whole like, that whole situation makes me feel
angry on your behalf having to deal with that. And
really it doesn't sound like that support is there as
it's actually needed.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
No, it's pretty it's very costly, it's and you know,
not way fortunate that we have private health insurance, but
not everybody's in that situation.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Vanessa. I do want to ask you because I know
there'll be people listening this morning sort of you know,
maybe feeling a bit confused if they don't know a
lot about type one and type two diabetes. What's the difference.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, so they're very different diseases. Diabetes it comes with
a lot of stigma. So when you say diabetes, people
they're automately say, oh, you're fat, you're lazy, you eat
too much sugar. That's not actually the truth. So diabetes
has a strong genetic component which puts you at increase
of developing it. For type one diabetes, it's actually an
(07:46):
autoimmune disease, which means that your body has attacked your
your cells and your paintings that create the insulin, and
your body no longer makes insulin. So it's an autom
disease that has nothing to do with your diet or
your exercise, eating too much.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Sugar, and is type one more prevalent in young children
Type one.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Previously it was known as juvenile diabetes because it was
normally when people were diagnosed as diabetes as a child
is type one. However, more adults are now being diagnosed
with type one diabetes, and what children are now being
diagnosed with type two diabetes. So, yeah, it is more
common in children, but it definitely can still be diagnosed
(08:34):
with adults.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So Vanessa. This weekend, there is a walk happening on
Sunday morning. Give us a little bit of info about
the walk and why it's happening.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, So it's the It's the main sundraiser for JDRS
who have recently changed their name to Breakthrough T one D,
which stands for Breakthrough Type one Diabetes. These guys are
one of the main fundraisers and contributors to breakthroughs in
technology and trying to find a cure for diabetes. This
(09:08):
is their main fundraiser of the year. At the moment,
we have forty seven people registered to participate for the
walk in Darwin. There's also one an Alice Springs if
you're living in Central The goal for Darwin is to
aim for fifteen thousand dollars raised towards typewine diabetes research.
At the moment we're only sitting at three thousand, six
(09:30):
hundred and sixty five. So if you are wanting to
join the walk or if you're wanting to donate, you
can jump online on the walk JDRF website and you
can donate or join up.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So just tell us that website again, so that if
anybody's keen to be involved in the walk or if
they want to jump online and make a donation, how
they can do so.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, So if you just pop into your search engine,
it's just walk dot jders dot org dot au and
then you can select which a walk is in your
state or closest to where you live, and you can
choose to donate or you can choose to register and
raise funds yourself.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Well, Vanessa Scott, I really appreciate your joining us this morning.
It's been like it's been an educational chat for me.
There's things that you've told us this morning that I
didn't know, and I think it's really important for people to,
you know, to know a little bit more about type
one diabetes, and particularly with our young people are young
Territorians and people of all ages, but you know what
you're going through on a daily basis, and that planning
(10:30):
that is constantly required every single day. Just to give
people that that context and an understanding and hopefully get
along on the weekend to support you guys.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
And it's a fantastic morning. There's barbecues, there's coffees, drinks,
ice cream, space painting, blues raffles and like games on
the days, so it's actually a really nice family mourning out.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Vanessa, it's great to talk to you this morning. I
really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having
a chat with me.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Thank you
Real change of pace because the walks being held at
the Darwin Waterfront this Sunday to raise awareness and funds
for research into type one diabetes. It's being organized by
the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which says that while progress
has been made, a further fifty million dollars is needed
over the next four years. Joining me on the line
(00:22):
is Darwin mum Vanessa Scott, who has a son who
was diagnosed with type one diabetes on Christmas Day three
years ago. Good morning, Vanessa, good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, it's lovely to have you on the show. Vanessa,
tell me how old was your son when he was
diagnosed with type one diabetes.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, so Jake was actually seven years old when he
was diagnosed while on Christmas holiday visiting family in Western Australia.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Wow. What talk me through how you know how that
diagnosis happened and how you worked out that it was
type one diabetes.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, so I'm a nurse, so I had a fair
idea that it was type one diabetes when I took
him to the hospital. So your classic symptoms for type
one diabetes is weight loss, increase, thirst, increase your nation
as your body is trying to get rid of that
extra sugar and fatigue. And then as you become more unwell,
(01:23):
if you're go into kido acidosis, then you can lose consciousness,
fall into a comas, die.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
It's frightening stuff. And it would have been for you
as a mum. I mean, what was like. Obviously you're
a nurse, so you're I'm assuming quite used to dealing
with these kinds of things, Vanessa, But what was it
like for you when you sort of, you know, when
you finally got that diagnosis and realize what it would
mean for your young fella.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
It's terrible. It's life changing because type one diabetes has
no cure. It's needing insulin injections for the rest of
your life.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I've got a my cousin is now grown up and
he has type one diabetes, and I, you know, as
a kid, I never really realized how difficult that must
have been for him and his family. You know, we
just sort of you don't know right when you're a kid.
But now when I think about it as a parent,
I think it must be really like, it must be
quite tough managing, you know, with that him managing with
(02:25):
that insulin pump. And and just dealing with it more generally.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
It is, so for people living with diabetes, they make
about an extra one hundred and eighty decisions a day.
So you're needing to every time you eat, you need
to make a decision about what you're eating, how much
carbohydrates in that food, how much insulin you're going to
give to to cover that carbohydrate. You're looking at, what
your levels, what's the trend, what's your activity? What do
(02:52):
you plan on doing after you eat? So it's it's
a lot, and it's twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Vanessa wats Is it quite a costly you know? Is
it quite consely for families as well?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It is, it's very expensive. So basically we've tried one. Diabetes,
you need to inject insulin. There's two main ways you
can do that. One is through using injections, so you
would be injecting with a needle insulin every time you eat,
or you can use what's called a insulin pump. So
(03:27):
the pump means that for most people you're only needing
to put a needle in once every two days. That
needle then stays in your body and you can just
dial up the amount of insulin you need on your
pump so that you're not needing to give yourself injections.
So it's life changing. It's much more like less invasive
for people. So you can imagine if you're at a
(03:48):
restaurant pulling out a needle and injecting insulin into yourself,
is you know, people around you give you quite a
few weird looks. Or you can simply pull a pump
out and dial up your dose pumps. You can even
dial up your doves using mobile phone, so it can
be very discreet for people around you don't know that
you have diabetes.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, but how for him though?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, yeah, about eight thousand dollars for an insulent p yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Gee, that's a lot of money, it really is. Yeah.
And then I mean, so your son's about ten now,
is that right?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, that's right, he's ten.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
He's ten, And so it must be like it must
be difficult for a little fella of that age sort
of you know, learning about all this stuff with his
body and and then sort of you know, and then
having like having to manage this.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
It is, and it's I think one of the most
difficult things is wrapping your head around the fact that
it doesn't get better. This is for the rest of
your life. And Jake does everything a normal child does.
He does jiu jitsu, he plays soccer, He's extremely active.
He goes camping and swimming and fishing. It just takes planning. Yeah,
(05:04):
we we just we need to plan diabetes into every
activity he does.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I'm so glad that you know that he is able
to still do all of those different activities and Livy's
life in a normal way. But I mean, like you've
touched on, you've got to do so much planning in
terms of like I don't want to get too stuck
on this pump situation. But is that covered by health
by your health cover or anything.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
That's an excellent question. So people living with diabetes, they
have a lot of out of pocket medical expenses. Yeah,
so they're paying for their specialist appointments. Then they're paying
for their consumables that goes for their pump. If you're
someone who chooses to use the pump, if you were
to buy one outright, it's going to cost between eight
and ten thousand.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Dollars, Holy moly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
If you have private health insurance, then your private health
insurance will cover one pump every four years. Technology in
that four years changes significantly, so you might find yourself
that there is a better pump on the market that
would suit your needs better, but you will stay with
the same pump if you can't afford to pay ten
(06:13):
thousand dollars for a new pump. And then for some people,
if you can't afford private health insurance and you can't
afford to pay that eight to ten thousand dollars, there's
very limited, like hundred pumps for people of Vanessa.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
It makes me really cross. Hey, when I think to myself,
you know that that a family going through a diagnosis
like this, that they're you know, at the very time
when you realistically need that health cover to be able
to you know, to step up and to be able
to support you more than just once every four years.
(06:51):
And the whole like, that whole situation makes me feel
angry on your behalf having to deal with that. And
really it doesn't sound like that support is there as
it's actually needed.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
No, it's pretty it's very costly, it's and you know,
not way fortunate that we have private health insurance, but
not everybody's in that situation.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Vanessa. I do want to ask you because I know
there'll be people listening this morning sort of you know,
maybe feeling a bit confused if they don't know a
lot about type one and type two diabetes. What's the difference.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, so they're very different diseases. Diabetes it comes with
a lot of stigma. So when you say diabetes, people
they're automately say, oh, you're fat, you're lazy, you eat
too much sugar. That's not actually the truth. So diabetes
has a strong genetic component which puts you at increase
of developing it. For type one diabetes, it's actually an
(07:46):
autoimmune disease, which means that your body has attacked your
your cells and your paintings that create the insulin, and
your body no longer makes insulin. So it's an autom
disease that has nothing to do with your diet or
your exercise, eating too much.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Sugar, and is type one more prevalent in young children
Type one.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Previously it was known as juvenile diabetes because it was
normally when people were diagnosed as diabetes as a child
is type one. However, more adults are now being diagnosed
with type one diabetes, and what children are now being
diagnosed with type two diabetes. So, yeah, it is more
common in children, but it definitely can still be diagnosed
(08:34):
with adults.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So Vanessa. This weekend, there is a walk happening on
Sunday morning. Give us a little bit of info about
the walk and why it's happening.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, So it's the It's the main sundraiser for JDRS
who have recently changed their name to Breakthrough T one D,
which stands for Breakthrough Type one Diabetes. These guys are
one of the main fundraisers and contributors to breakthroughs in
technology and trying to find a cure for diabetes. This
(09:08):
is their main fundraiser of the year. At the moment,
we have forty seven people registered to participate for the
walk in Darwin. There's also one an Alice Springs if
you're living in Central The goal for Darwin is to
aim for fifteen thousand dollars raised towards typewine diabetes research.
At the moment we're only sitting at three thousand, six
(09:30):
hundred and sixty five. So if you are wanting to
join the walk or if you're wanting to donate, you
can jump online on the walk JDRF website and you
can donate or join up.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So just tell us that website again, so that if
anybody's keen to be involved in the walk or if
they want to jump online and make a donation, how
they can do so.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, So if you just pop into your search engine,
it's just walk dot jders dot org dot au and
then you can select which a walk is in your
state or closest to where you live, and you can
choose to donate or you can choose to register and
raise funds yourself.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Well, Vanessa Scott, I really appreciate your joining us this morning.
It's been like it's been an educational chat for me.
There's things that you've told us this morning that I
didn't know, and I think it's really important for people to,
you know, to know a little bit more about type
one diabetes, and particularly with our young people are young
Territorians and people of all ages, but you know what
you're going through on a daily basis, and that planning
(10:30):
that is constantly required every single day. Just to give
people that that context and an understanding and hopefully get
along on the weekend to support you guys.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
And it's a fantastic morning. There's barbecues, there's coffees, drinks,
ice cream, space painting, blues raffles and like games on
the days, so it's actually a really nice family mourning out.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Vanessa, it's great to talk to you this morning. I
really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having
a chat with me.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Thank you
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