Beta Cell

For National Diabetes Awareness Month, Beta Cell has partnered with JDRF to produce a 4-part "T1D Looks Like Me" podcast series. Every Monday this month we’ll release a new episode on a different topic and JDRF will post additional resources and materials on their website to go along with it. Here's a preview of what's in store.

Grace Bonney is the founder of the popular design blog Design*Sponge. In January of 2016, at 35 years old, Grace was misdiagnosed with type 2 diabetes. After several weeks of starving herself, going on fast walks several times a day, and taking drugs that left her in excruciating pain in order to keep her blood sugars somewhat under control, she suspected that she probably had type 1 diabetes instead. Grace talks about realizing how little doctors know about T1D, running a business after being diagnosed, and discussing her diagnosis publicly online.

Kids are heading off to college for the first time and, in addition to all the normal college anxieties, people with T1D have to figure out how T1D fits into their social lives. In this bonus clip from episode #009 with Trevor Torres, he talks about how he used T1D as an ice breaker to meet new people.

Trevor Torres was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in his freshman year of high school. He started calling himself the "Diabetes Evangelist" because he would always joke about how getting T1D could help his friends with their problems, such as eating healthier or exercising more. He's now a senior studying cognitive science at the University of Michigan and he shares his methods for keeping a positive outlook on T1D.

A bonus clip from episode #008 with Libby Russell: a look behind the scenes of recording Beta Cell and the interesting (and delicious) conversations that can sometimes occur.

Libby Russell was diagnosed at 17 years old in 2005. While being a teenage girl is already pretty hard, adding type 1 diabetes made it that much more complicated and she didn’t feel like any organizations were messaging to teenage girls. After a lot of drafts, 7 years later she launched her blog I Have The Sugars to empower girls with type 1 that she thinks are getting lost. Her new movement #MeFirst takes that even further by reminding all of us to put our lives first and then figure out how to fit diabetes into that plan. Find Libby at ihavethesugars.com and on social media @ihavethesugars.

Robin Arzon is a corporate lawyer turned "Ambassador of Sweat." She is a running coach, cycling instructor, and ultra-marathoner. So it came as a shock when she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 32 years old. Since then she has accomplished even more than she did before she was diagnosed.

Jim Natal was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 30 years old in 1978. 38 years later, he still struggles with maintaining the balance between controlling his diabetes and leading a fulfilling life without worrying about every high or low blood sugar. In his first book of poetry, In the Bee Trees, he shares the story of his diagnosis:

Learning To Live With It

Barbara taught me to give injections
to an orange, thick pop of penetration
through the skin, short smooth glide
into soft tissue under. Slowly, with control,
push down on the plunger, and quick
backward dart toss, remove the syringe.
I practiced in her office, still dazed from
diagnosis, seeing through pinpoint pupils,
eyes after a strobe flash. Stretched like surgical
tubing colorless with tension, I was renamed
after a disease, time now measured in gleaming
needle pricks, insulin units, blood sugar levels.
My wife sobbed in the car parked beneath
the medical building, rusty pipes wrapped and
painted white, strung along the oppressive ceiling.
She cried because we didn’t have much money.
For the money, not for me. In that time of change
there were changes yet to come.
Barbara said I would learn to manage it by myself.
She said I had no choice.