Pie, Ice Cream, and Insulin: My Thanksgiving Experience as a Type 1 Diabetic #15

The essence of Thanksgiving transcends the traditional focus on food, embodying a spirit of gratitude, connection, and joy. Deborah eloquently shares her reflections on the holiday, emphasizing how it serves as a reminder to appreciate the loved ones in our lives. For those managing diabetes, particularly Type 1 diabetes, this time of year can present unique challenges. However, Deborah advocates for a balanced approach that allows individuals to partake in the festivities while prioritizing their health. Her perspective encourages a shift from a food-centric view of Thanksgiving to one that celebrates family, laughter, and shared experiences.

I hope you had a wonderful time of balance, self-reflection, and you are looking forward to a wonderful year ahead. 

-Deborah

Throughout the episode, Deborah shares practical tips on how to navigate Thanksgiving dinner as a Type 1 Diabetic. She recounts her strategy of carb counting and insulin management, illustrating how she successfully enjoyed the holiday without significant blood sugar spikes. By sharing her personal stories, such as the unexpected low blood sugar episode and her eventual enjoyment of cranberry sauce, Deborah highlights the importance of adaptability and mindfulness in managing diabetes. Her insights serve not only as guidance for those with diabetes but also as a reminder to everyone that the holiday spirit is about more than just culinary indulgences.

• Diabetes doesn't prevent someone from enjoying traditional holiday foods with proper planning.
• Taking time to reflect on what you're thankful for can enhance the Thanksgiving experience.

Deborah also tackles the misconceptions surrounding diabetes and the common assumptions people make about dietary limitations. She recounts a conversation with a family member who expressed surprise that she could have pie, showcasing the need for greater understanding of how individuals with diabetes can still enjoy traditional holiday foods. By demystifying her insulin pump and explaining its role in her diabetes management, Deborah aims to foster a sense of empathy and awareness among her audience. The episode culminates in a heartfelt message about the importance of community and support in navigating the complexities of living with diabetes, encouraging listeners to embrace the holiday spirit with gratitude and joy.

Chapters

• 02:25 Welcome
• 04:48 Thanksgiving Reflections for Diabetics
• 08:20 Managing Blood Sugar: Insights and Experiences
• 09:28 Understanding Type 1 Diabetes Management
• 11:36 Managing Diabetes: A Personal Experience
• 13:10 Reflections on Family and Thanksgiving

Episode Resources

• Medtronic Diabetes (Minimed)

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Episode Credits

Perfectly Wonderful World [Episode Music]

• 🎵 Perfectly Wonderful World 🎵 sung by Deborah E (written by Denny Martin & Jaimee Paul; mastered in Seaside Records Studio by...

Episode Transcript

(03:33):
Okay, welcome everybody toanother episode of DiabeticReal.
And I'm Deborah. All right. Ihope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving
holiday this past week. And Isure did. And so, you know, I thought
we'd talk about Thanksgivingand especially Thanksgiving as a

(03:55):
diabetic and specifically as aType 1 Diabetic. Now I do like to
keep this open as anydiabetic, but there's certain things
that do relate to the Type 1Diabetic. So we're going to talk
about that. I realize that,you know, there's always this talk
about food and food and foodand what are you going to eat and

(04:17):
the turkey dinner and allthat, but personally I, you know,
I'm not trying to be. Again,I'm not a saint or anything like
that, but I like to look atThanksgiving as time with family
and friends and you know,especially those you choose to hang
out with and just a good timeto stop and, you know, spend some
time realizing what you'rethankful for. That was something

(04:38):
that we always tried to focuson as a family with our kids and
spend some time saying, hey,you know, what are you thankful for
this year? Just really takingtime to stop and think, you know,
spend some time together,games, laughing, all that fun stuff
and not to focus so much onfood. And mostly it's because, you

(05:00):
know, if you focus so much onfood and this gluttonous attention
to food, you don't feel wellafter a while, diabetic or not, it
can. What do you think? Imean, if you eat too much. Personally,
I feel like a slog and it justthen I just want to sit there. I

(05:20):
don't feel like running aroundor anything. And some of the most
fun Thanksgiving celebrationsare those when you and play games,
maybe even Monopoly, somethinglike that with everyone else and
all kinds of different gameswe've played. But we even like one
year we played Wii withgrandma and grandpa and you know,
playing golfing games and allsorts. It paired up different teams,

(05:43):
all sorts of fun games and tome that's a great, well rounded Thanksgiving
celebration where you can eat,yes, together, spend time together,
but then play games together.So anyway, we're going to talk about
the food part because that'sthe part that can sometimes get people

(06:04):
hung up when it comes to beinga Type 1 Diabetic especially. And
I didn't think about it at allthis year because, well, hey, being
a Type 1 Diabetic is just partof life. So that's pretty much every
day for me. Right. First ofall, I'm Going to proudly say, my

(06:25):
blood sugar did not go up atall. I sailed through Thanksgiving
dinner without a problem. Butthen again, I've had Type 1 diabetes
almost all my life. So it'sjust a breeze. It's just another
meal for me. You sit down.Well, you know, in another episode,

(06:46):
in fact, I think I might doit. Next episode, I'll talk more
specifics as far as dealingwith meals, but. And insulin and
so forth. But to me, I eyeballthe food, even if I haven't prepared
it, I eyeball the food, figureout what I'm going to eat, especially
carbs. It's carb counting, andit's not carb counting just for dietary

(07:07):
purposes. It's not aboutdieting. So calculating how much
insulin you take. So Icalculate, I sit down, I eat. Now,
in my situation this year, Iactually didn't take enough food.
In other words, I calculated,I guess somebody must have gone a

(07:28):
little bit lighter on thesugar or something, because I ate
my food and I was low bloodsugar, which meant there wasn't enough
carb in the food that I waseating. So maybe somebody didn't
add enough sugar or somethingto some of the food, which is great.
Hey, that's wonderful. So Iactually, I have nothing against

(07:48):
cranberries, and I just don'ttend to grab cranberries. And that
comes from those days when Iwas a little kid where it's like,
don't eat sugar, don't eatsugar. So I didn't grab cranberries,
but nice little delight therewhen I had low blood sugar. This
year, we got to go back in thekitchen and grab some cranberry sauce
that my husband and I happenedto have brought to the family dinner.

(08:10):
Easy to pick up at the grocerystore when we were traveling in into
the family dinner. And, boy,those are yummy. But, you know, a
few spoonfuls of that willhelp the blood sugar come back up
again. So anyone that's a Type1 Diabetic or even a type 2 diabetic
can understand sometimes youhave to adjust. Low blood sugar,
eats more food, high bloodsugar, exercise. If you're type 2,

(08:33):
take some insulin, Type 1,because it's all about balance and
balance in life. So, anyway, alittle bit later after dinner, I
went into the kitchen, and thehost said to me, he says, oh, I suppose
you can't have pie, can you,being diabetic? And I looked at him,

(08:56):
I said, actually, I can.That's not a problem. He's like,
really? And it struck me asodd because I'VE been living with
the Medtronic Mini Med insulinpump for so long and the method of
counting the carbs andadjusting the insulin that it surprised

(09:19):
me that he hadn't realizedthat. And that's fine. You can't
expect the whole world tounderstand how you live with your
Type 1 diabetes. So that's whyI thought, okay, I'm going to explain
this because maybe otherpeople don't understand that, maybe
they don't know how we as Type1 Diabetics live. So I'll explain

(09:40):
it. So the way I told them, Isaid, it's like this, it's kind of
like this little device thatI'm holding in my hand and I pulled
out the insulin pump. It'slike it's an external pancreas. You
in your body, you have apancreas that takes in the food and
it automatically adjusts tothe food and it puts out the insulin.

(10:05):
It balances your body system.Now I was talking to my husband about
this a few hours ago andtalked about how he could go and
eat too much food and just notfeel well, but his body will catch
up, the pancreas will catch upand start balancing the systems because
the insulin will balance thesystem. The difference is with a

(10:28):
Type 1 Diabetic, I've got thisinsulin pump and I have to eyeball
the food before I eat it. So Iknow and I dial in the insulin. So
I'm telling my mechanicalpancreas, if you will, AKA in my
case, the brand of, you know,the Medtronic Mini Med insulin pump.

(10:50):
Now Maybe a Type 1 Diabeticout there has another brand but it's
insulin pump and I'm tellingit how much food I'm going to eat
so that it can, it already hasthe. And again, we'll cover this
in another episode so it cangive me the amount of insulin that
I need for the amount of food.Now that also means when I sit down
and eat, I need to eat thefood. A few months ago I went to

(11:13):
a family reunion and I hadn'tseen some people in like 20 years.
Everyone was coming over and"Deborah, Deborah, Deborah," and
giving me hugs and all thisstuff. And my son-in-law got a plate
of food for me which iswonderful. Dialed in insulin, everything's
great. Problem is I didn'tfinish eating. I was so excited to
see everyone and givingeveryone hugs that I didn't finish

(11:34):
eating. Not a really goodthing. If you dial in the insulin,
you need to finish eating. Soyou know, it's, it's Kind of mechanical,
if you will. Or it's gotelectronics, computerized the whole
thing. It's an externalpancreas. You can think of it that
way for layman's terms, butyou do have to finish the eating

(11:57):
part too. So it's. It's anintentional process. Whereas people
who are not diabetic have apancreas that does this for them
and automatically. So Iexplained that to him. I said, yes,
I can actually have pie now.Bless his heart. Oh, man, he gave
me so much pie. It was sodelicious. And whipped cream. No,

(12:19):
no, it wasn't whipped cream.He asked me, he said, do you want
ice cream? And one of myfavorite ways of answering yes is,
well, I wouldn't say no. So hesent his daughter out to. Out to
the garage to the deep freezeto get ice cream. I thought, oh,
man, if I knew she had to goout and get some ice cream, I would
have said, no, thank you. Butyou don't say, no, thank you after

(12:39):
they've gone into so muchtrouble. So I had this big, huge
piece of pie and ice creamand, like, probably twice as much
as I would normally take. ButI'm so blessed. So thankful. So dial
in a little extra insulin.Again, thankful to report my blood
sugar never went out ofparameter, so I dialed in the right

(13:00):
amount of insulin. Even if Idid eat twice as much pie and ice
cream as I would have takenmyself, I enjoyed it thoroughly and
more so. What I really enjoyedwas eating with a family and spending
time with the family. So Ihope that all of you out there enjoyed

(13:21):
your time with your family.And you know what, even if it was
time with yourself, I hopethat you had a blessed Thanksgiving
time. I hope you had awonderful time of balance, self-reflection,
and you are looking forward toa wonderful year ahead. I'm looking
forward to the time with you.And next episode of DiabeticReal.

(13:45):
This is Deborah signing off.