Playing the audience

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Yesterday I had the fun of being in a focus group at an advertising agency testing concepts for a pharmaceutical company’s new campaign for diabetes care. We were five people on our side of the table, five real live people with diabetes, and they were three – a researcher, a copywriter and an account director.

We were presented with four different concepts and asked what hit us positively or negatively about the ideas, what the ideas were communicating and what was our gut reaction. These ideas would then be worked on further and narrowed down to be presented to the client and potentially be made into TV commercials and magazine ads. Often, as advertising is developed, it is shown to potential viewers to validate whether the ideas being developed are going in the right direction. After all, we are the ones who live with diabetes, they are the ones who read about it in a brief. 

It’s a heady feeling to help people make decisions that will impact and influence millions; to have the opportunity to affect how they will talk to us, approach us, regard us. It gave me a deep sense of satisfaction to represent my own views and I hope the many, having listened to so many people’s stories of living with diabetes.

While I will not blow their cover, for this is a competitive pitch, I will tell you that two concepts resonated with me. The first because it presented living with diabetes as a progressive process best performed in a ‘make one small change today’ way. It was positive, it understood that this is a condition you can’t get on top of in a day or a week, or just by taking a pill. Rather there are many habits and lifestyle modifications one must address to move toward living well with diabetes.

The second concept that grabbed us all has a great tag line, but again my ethics prohibit me from telling you what it is. But I will tell you that it regards people who live with diabetes as powerful and positive and people who throw themselves into enjoying their lives rather than letting diabetes stop them. It inspired us. It commended us. And it’s how

I hope everyone with diabetes will choose to take life on after they get past the shock, anger, why me? stages and phases and realize now it’s your decision truly, totally about how you want to live your life. Below you’ll see my observation about being on ‘the other side of the needle.’ Yesterday was just as interesting being on ‘the other side of the table.’ It also confirmed what a hot topic diabetes is today. Hopeful, isn’t it?

Each side of the needle

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I typically perform my diabetes tasks in public as necessary, like taking an injection at the table in a restaurant, no big deal, no fanfare. I’m so smooth in fact, taking out vial and syringe, putting the syringe in the vial, drawing up my dose, checking for air bubbles, pulling a tuck of shirt out and injecting that generally no one notices until I put the stuff back in my bag. So I was utterly surprised and truthfully thrown when, while seated at Orlando airport having just stuck the needle in my stomach, a woman and her young son were standing directly in front of me staring in what looked like horror. I quickly thought this is something she doesn’t want her young son to see, she thinks I’m a junkie……. So I apologized profusely, partly for what she was viewing, and then realizing I was in her seat. 

I moved a few rows away with the shadow of ‘evil’ hanging over me. I felt I had done something wrong. According to my diabetes etiquette book, I shouldn’t ‘shoot up’ without first checking that no one will see. Well at least not from the vantage point of standing right on top of me. A few moments later when clarity of mind returned I had a different thought.

I wished I had told her, “Don’t worry, I have diabetes. I’m taking insulin, and yes, I’m moving out of your seat as soon as I get this needle out of my stomach, sorry.” My overriding feeling was this stranger now branded me irresponsible, and that is so far from the truth it disturbed me. My underriding feeling was what must it have looked like to her? It’s so out of the ordinary to see people with diabetes injecting (that’s a whole ‘nother issue isn’t it?) kind of like women breast feeding, that I couldn’t blame her for her dismay and I wondered what it felt like to be on her side of the needle. 

Then I recalled two instances when I was on ‘the other side of the needle’ so to speak. The first was while interviewing a young woman I’d met at a support group. During our interview sitting on her couch in her apartment she took out her meter and pricked her finger. When she pressed to get a fair sized drop of blood, I felt queasy. “Huh?” you say. You’ll say it again when I tell you that I check my own blood sugar between four and seven times a day. But looking from the outside in, it was a little nauseating. 

My second experience was interviewing a type 1 woman over the phone whom I’d never met. I called her as we’d arranged and she wasn’t home. I called again fifteen minutes later and she told me something about losing her cell phone. Already I’m thinking maybe a little irresponsible? Yes, apparently responsibility is a big one for me. As we began to talk her verbal responses were delayed, her speech slurred. I thought she was intoxicated. It went on for five long minutes until I realized she was having a hypoglycemic episode and then I immediately asked her if I should call 911 or if she had someone there? She told me her boyfriend was there and I heard him approach. I hung up and said we’d reschedule.

Phone down, my heart was racing. I’ve had low blood sugar episodes, many, the ones just like hers where you’re not making much sense. Yet I didn’t recognize it in her and when I did it rattled me. I have never experienced someone else going through it, as my husband has witnessing me go through it so many times, and I realized how frightening it can be. So why do I tell you all this? Why do I risk sounding so utterly thick and insensitive?

We know how poorly informed the general public is about diabetes, what it is and what it is to live with. We know how many people think we’re just supposed to not eat candy or that we have no willpower or why are we complaining, it’s “just a little sugar.” But here I am, the informed, experienced, living with diabetes person, and looking from the outside in rather than the inside out, I had a whole different experience. What I saw, sensed and heard shook me a little. Then it shocked me that it shook me. 

Interesting isn’t it? When you choose to look from the other side you can see what others are seeing. So maybe we can do more educating as the opportunity arises rather than reacting. I would go back now and tell that woman in the Orlando airport what I thought to tell her minutes later. I could always try of course, air travel being what it is she may still be there. Or maybe I’ll look for the next opportunity. It’s hard to know what it looks like, feels like, seems like from the other side when you’re always inside. Maybe that’s all I mean to say. 

Mindshifting

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Dr. William H. Polonsky
Dr. William H. Polonsky

I’ve had diabetes 35 years and it was only two years ago I heard something so profound it blew me away. So empowering I wanted it to be the first thing you read here. I was in an emotional coping with diabetes workshop given by Dr. William Polonsky, PhD, CDE and founder of the Behavioral Diabetes Institute. He was speaking at the Taking Control of Your Diabetes conference I attended. He opened by asking us, “How many of you have heard diabetes is one of the leading causes of blindness? If so, raise your hand.” Hands all over the room flew up. “How many of you have heard diabetes is a leading cause of stroke and heart disease?” The hands stayed in place — up. “How many of you have heard diabetes is a leading cause of kidney disease and limb amputation?” Well, now everyone’s hand was up, right? We’ve all heard this.  “Wrong!” he said. We sat dumbfounded. “Poorly controlled diabetes is a leading cause of these things.” See those first two words? Wow, I had to replay it again in my head. When does any doctor, magazine article or TV ad ever stop to give us the fine print? Pretty much never. So here’s the very fine take-away:  keep your blood sugars in good control and you’re not the people they are talking about when they jabber, jabber diabetes leads to all this stuff. For me, it was a truly enlightening moment and a gift that keeps on giving.

I took one other crucial thing away from Dr. Polonsky’s workshop that day. Literally, I took it away. Well it was being given out, I didn’t steal it. A little stickie to put on my meter. It shouts “Hey it’s just a number!” every time I come near to test. Not vocally of course, but I see it and then hear it in my head like a little mantra. Chances are you know we’re not supposed to look at our blood sugar numbers as ‘good’ or ‘bad, (even though they call it testing) or take them as a statement of our worth (hard to do when your meter’s screaming 265!). No, we’re merely supposed to use our numbers as data, you know feedback for course correction.  Well, I have to tell you this little stickie really helps. So here’s my advice — write it on a little piece of something sticky like a label and slap it on your meter. There’s a whole lot of mind-shifting power in this 2 cent, primitive, pre-digital tool.