Denver Diabetes Expo (and me) in the News
I wasn’t sure what to call this post, “diabetic helps misinforms the world (or Colorado at a minimum)”, “i’m a dork”, or “my 10 seconds of fame”. It was a tough call. “Denver Diabetes Expo (and me) in the News” seemed appropriate.
I got asked while I was at the Denver Diabetes Expo if I wouldn’t mind being interviewed. I asked Steve (the camera man) if he’d tell me the questions he was going to ask before I did the interview. He shook his head no. Figuring that there was a reason he asked to interview me and not Anne, or Sara, or Keith who were still on their bikes I said yes.
That was mistake number 1 (I’m horrible when it comes to public speaking, my brain just locks up, and it locks up worse when I don’t know what I’m going to be talking about).
So Steve said that he was covering various parts of the expo, health, food, etc and that he wanted me to talk about exercise. That should’ve been easy enough right, I mean, it’s exercise, everyone knows exercise is good whether or not you have diabetes. So he asked me questions and I answered.
The last question he asked was how it (exercise) affected me personally. This is where I was a dork. I said that I’m 10 times healthier than I’ve ever been, but the truth is, I’m 100 times healthier than I’ve ever been.
Then, even worse, and this is what probably helped lead to the misinformation about how exercise is key to me controlling my diabetes, I said that I went from having horrible blood sugars to great blood sugars. The problem with that is, they didn’t put what I spoke before that (and I’m really hoping that my brain isn’t misleading me here) but I’m fairly sure I said something about healthy eating, and checking my numbers.
All I can think to myself is how it’s this kind of stuff that gets misconstrued and misunderstood and requires lots of clean up. Damage control in mass amounts if you will. It’s the half of sentences that the news takes out of all that we say that help contribute to the misunderstanding of diabetes (but since I don’t recall what I said I can’t fully say it’s on them).
Exercise alone won’t help me as a Type 1 diabetic, half the time, if my numbers aren’t aligned right, I can’t even exercise. And even good numbers and exercise aren’t good enough, the healthy eating falls into it’s place where diabetes control is concerned. It’s like a 3 part key, there is no one key to diabetes control, they all fall together and if one’s out of place, everything is going to be off. (I’m fairly sure that I didn’t say anything like that and that perturbs me too).
Are you completely lost with what I’m talking about, I can understand how that would happen, here’s the clip from the news:
You can read the full story (which happens to be everything in the video typed out) on CW2 news “Thousands get educated at Diabetes Expo“.
*shakes head* the more I think about this, the more I wish I could recall all that I said. I guess I should just be grateful that they didn’t televise the part where I said when I was younger it was easier to pull me out of the PE classes than it was to control the blood sugars so that I could participate in them. That could’ve been really really really bad. The moment I said that I was like “oh crap, did I just say that out loud?” The problem with that is, it was the truth. But that’s a whole other story.
I suppose it could’ve been worse, I mean, it’s not like I was like Halle Berry and said that I had beaten diabetes via exercise (although she simply said healthy living) but what I said can be construed in the same manner.
I’m just gonna stop now, because the more I think about it, the more I’m disturbed about it.
6 Responses to “Denver Diabetes Expo (and me) in the News”
Leave a Reply
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Hey Courtney - It was awesome meeting you at Expo - SO glad you drove up!
I thought you were great on the news, you shouldn’t worry about it. You can always count on the local news to butcher whatever information they’re given, anyway. I’m just glad they didn’t ask me to talk, the footage of me making goofy faces on the trainer is bad enough.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
i thought you looked great on the bike
I’m glad that they put you guys in the clip 
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I’m sorry you are disturbed about it. But I think you did great! I know there is more to your diabetic journey than just exercise and I hope more people will look you up to find out even more.
I like what you said about the 3 part key. Excellent way to put it.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I think you did a great job. Second guessing yourself is just going to eat you from the inside. Great job. Hey, I rode a bike today for about a 1/2 hour. I’m going to have to make that a habit.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Drew you definately need to keep that up, and over time you can ride longer and longer, and I’ll give you at least a year to prepare for a Massachusetts ride.
We can do the New England classic, you have a choice of 150 miles or 550 miles
March 5th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
[...] I got my 10 seconds of fame in the news: [...]