Life with Diabetes: Behind The Scenes With Pam Durant – Dia-Logue Podcast Episode 10

In this solo episode, Diapoint founder Pam Durant shares her son’s Type 1 diagnosis story, some of the craziest things people have ever said to her about diabetes, and how her family faces Halloween with Type 1 Diabetes. She talks a little more about her Why for starting the Dia-Logue Podcast. Pam reveals more about Diapoint’s mission, resources and offerings for people touched by diabetes, and gives a sneak peek into Diapoint’s plans to celebrate November – Diabetes Awareness Month.

Pam Durant is diabetes thought leader, entrepreneur, healthcare expert and wellness coach. She is the Founder and Managing Director of Diapoint – The Place for People Touched By Diabetes.

Her successful healthcare management career was turned upside down when her 20-month-old son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes over a decade ago. Not only did this challenge Pam as a parent, it also challenged everything that she believed and understood about healthcare and the provider-patient relationship. As she went on to tackle the steep learning curve of diabetes to support her son to grow and thrive with this condition, she soon realized the great need for change in healthcare and in diabetes management. 

She was inspired to create Diapoint, a company that focuses on people with diabetes through events, education, advocacy and products to support them.

Find Diapoint on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @diapointme.

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Episode 10: Life with Diabetes – Behind The Scenes With Diapoint Founder Pam Durant

Pam 0:02

Hello, and Welcome to Dia-logue, the Diapoint Podcast. I’m your host, Pam Durant. So Hi, everyone. And thank you for joining me on the podcast. Today I am sitting solo to do an episode, we’re about halfway through Season One. And I thought it might be a good time for me to come in and talk about a few things. A lot of people have had questions about the podcast or about Diapoint or about my background. And I’d like to talk about those as well a little bit. But also there’s a few other things I’m going to highlight. And this month being October, one of the things that always comes up in the life of people, especially people that have children living with diabetes is what should I do with Halloween. So I’m just gonna jump right into it.

Pam 0:57

One of the biggest questions I’m asked every October is how to manage Halloween? And I’ll admit it was terrifying in the beginning. We didn’t really participate in Halloween the first year after my son was diagnosed, he was still quite small because he was diagnosed at 20 months old. But the next year or two later, we started trick-or-treating door to door just in our building. But even then, it was still tricky to navigate because I had never had to do that before. And I was determined from very early on that my son would do all the things that the kid without diabetes would do, that this would not affect him, this would not make him feel left out, ever.

And so we were never big into celebrating Halloween when I grew up. But for some reason, my son embraced Halloween, and he loved dressing up. He loved having parties, it wasn’t about the candy. It was about being with friends and just having fun.

And whatever that was, if it was dancing, or you know, playing a party game, he just loved it all. But he especially loved to dress up in a costume and started planning his costumes early every year.

So the first year the challenge that I had was, he was and is still on an insulin pump. I was having to bolus him every time he’d want to stop and eat something and then that would cause him to fall behind his friends, because friends were just so excited to go from door to door. And they didn’t understand why we were pausing. Actually not even forget understanding, they didn’t even notice.

So we’d have to stop, give insulin, and then he felt sad that he couldn’t go on. So what ended up happening, I think I just kind of increased his basal rate or gave him a little bit more insulin, so then he wouldn’t have to stop every single time he wanted to try something. And I think he only really stopped three or four times and even then he wouldn’t eat all of it. So for us, fortunately, he was not as interested in the candy or the sweets itself as he was with the celebration. And I say fortunately, not because people with diabetes can’t have candy with Type 1. I always say the only kind of candy they can’t have is that which is laced with poison. But just diabetic or not, I’m gonna say it again and again, you’ll hear me say that a lot – diabetic or not. Nobody needs to have pounds of candy every day or kilos of candy every day, we all need to be eating healthy.

But one day a year if your child wants to participate in Halloween, it should be okay. If you’re not sure, ask your doctor how to go about navigating it. But one of the things that we were told very early on by the first doctor that I was assigned to, he said, let him be a kid, let him eat what he wants. You don’t want to induce an eating disorder later. And that was some really great advice that I do live by.

I think for girls eating is a much more complex and bigger topic than boys usually, but we’re very into healthy eating and healthy lifestyle at home. And everything in moderation. And if my son wants to go trick or treating, then I let him do it. And he usually forgets about the candy the next day.

Now that he’s 13 as we grew up with Halloween every year in school parties and all of that kind of stuff every year. Now that he’s 13 last year he went out on his own when he was 12 with some friends and he was on a bicycle. He wanted to be a paperboy that rode a bicycle. But that was a strategic costume because then he could have bags on the side of the bike and he could also take my large photography bag and get so much candy. And then at the end of the night he and his friend, went over to his friend’s house and he sat down and they traded candy. And he ate some and he managed it quite well.

He didn’t feel great after, not because his blood sugar was high, and he didn’t care for it. But it was just because he’s not used to eating that much sugar, or that, and not much like really simple sugars. So the rest of the candy we put away, I have this drawer in a refrigerator. And we keep it in case we need it for low blood sugar treatment. But the rest of that candy, for the most part, he never touched the rest of the year.

And that’s typically how Halloween goes every year.

Now that he’s one year older, we’ll see what happens this year, he hasn’t asked me about a costume. I haven’t asked what he wants to be or what he’s doing. But I sit here and I look out my window, and I see some kids playing outside that are much younger than him. And it makes me wonder if he’ll want to continue to participate. Because he’s almost I guess, kind of grown out of Halloween to some extent, even though I’m sure he’ll still do something. But it’s maybe easier now somehow, but enjoy Halloween, I made a short one minute YouTube video about it, then I’ll put it in the show notes. So you can have a look at that.

But I say for Halloween child first, diabetes second. Teach them how to manage it, make sure they get the right amount of insulin for the carbs that they’re having. But don’t change your traditions, because you might have diabetes newly into your life.

Pam 6:35

Another topic. So a lot of people have been asking me about the podcast and how I decided to start Dia-Logue. And do I have any, you know, did I go to special training or do anything for it? And the honest answer is No, I did not really get any special podcast training.

I do have a team of people that helped me produce it and put it out every week, which I’m so grateful and thankful for. But I decided to start a podcast because I know that there are so many people out there with diabetes that have stories that need to be heard. And while I love to write, and I would love to write about them, I think it’s much more engaging, and much, much better if we hear people tell their own stories.

And I also wanted to present some topics that inspire people. I wanted to present topics that make people think, and I think having a podcast is a really consumable, easily consumed way I should say, that we can think about all these different aspects of diabetes.

Because when people think of a diabetes diagnosis, they think it’s terrible, that it’s horrible, and that it’s ugly. And that it’s the end of the world. If you don’t take care of yourself, it can be really terrible and really ugly, and really the end to some things. But there’s no reason in this day and age where we live in a country or when we live in places that we have access to things that it should be that way.

So having a podcast just allows me to reach more people with that message, because I’m very hopeful for the future of people with diabetes. So that is kind of that is my reason for wanting to start this podcast.

Pam 8:35

While I don’t have any experience in podcasting, prior to the launching of Dia-Logue: The Diapoint Podcast, I do have a lot of experience and background in healthcare. And I do have experience in managing my child’s diabetes.

I don’t know what it’s like to have diabetes, so I can’t speak firsthand about that. But I can empathise with people with diabetes from understanding a little bit more about my son’s experience.

And also having a healthcare background gave me special insight to some of the things that were happening to us that I didn’t agree with. Meaning some of the things people would say or some of the processes, or just some things that I never thought about for any chronic condition, diabetes or otherwise, when I was working in healthcare.

We think we have all the answers because we’re told we’re experts. I worked as a healthcare consultant, I was a healthcare manager, a clinic manager. I worked in hospital quality management, dealt with accreditation, and so many different wonderful areas that I was exposed to. But never once before, until I had a child actually and I really had to say take him to a paediatrician when, you know he would have a rash or something or different things and then you suddenly you have to be an advocate for your child. And then when they’re faced with something that’s as permanent as a Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis, you see things that nobody should have to experience.

And sometimes even the patients themselves, don’t realise that because I’m fortunate, it’s a blessing and a curse that I’m able to see both sides. I’m able to experience things as a patient. But I also understand as a health care manager, why certain things happen, and some of them should not be happening.

But I do believe that this has made me a better advocate for all people with diabetes. And this was one of the driving reasons why I started Diapoint because I want to make the world a better place. And in the space of diabetes, I would like to do that because there’s a lot of room for improvement.

Pam 10:59

My son was diagnosed when he was 20 months old. I’ve told this story a few times before, but for those of you that haven’t heard it, he started to drink a lot of water. I was working a lot. So I was, you know, of course, a busy working mom, working as a health care consultant with a 20-month-old. And I had a lovely helper who was at home with him while I was at work. And she came to me one day and she said, I think he’s drinking too much water. And I was like, really, it was August in Dubai, which is just incredibly hot, hotter than hot and super humid. And I thought it might be normal but he’s drinking so much water.

But she said no, I really think it’s it’s too much. And I always called her the baby whisperer, because she was very in tune with Erin and just small children. They just loved her. They were drawn to her. And she understood him. And I did notice he was going backwards and toilet training because he figured that out and understood it fairly quickly. But he would wake up a few mornings, that week, he started to wake up just fully drenched, and it just didn’t make any sense.

So before I left for work the next day I said let’s measure how much water he’s drinking. And let’s see. So he drank a whole litre and a half of water in one day. And this was in addition to the milk he was drinking, anything else outside of that which he may have been asking for juice, we didn’t give a lot of juice before diabetes, that was not really something that we gave on a regular basis because juices are full of sugar. But now we use them to treat low blood sugar. So he was drinking way too much for a 20-month-old.

Pam 12:44

And growing up, It’s so funny how life has these things that that happen, you know, and then several years later, you can tap into those experiences to help you with something much later in life.

I had this dog growing up. And when I was in my early 20s he started to drink too much water and he was urinating all the time. His hair was falling out. And it was really just baffling his veterinarian. I used to have to drive across town so that they could check him because there was only one specialist that kind of knew a lot about different diseases in dogs. And they kept testing my dog for diabetes like every single time because they insisted that the dog had to have diabetes. He was drinking too much water he was urinating, but later they finally figured it out that he had an adrenal gland problem. It was I can’t remember what it was the hyper the overactive adrenal gland and I don’t remember if that’s Cushing’s disease or Addison’s, I think it’s Cushing’s disease. And then very long story, they started to give him the medication to treat it, and then it had an over-reactive effect and then it made him have an underactive adrenal gland. And then he had to take steroids the rest of his life, but he lived to be a very happy dog.

But this because of this dog, and my experience with that, when I came home from work that one very hot August day and my son drank a litre and a half of water. And because we had done, I grew up in the US and we did the JDRF. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundations walks almost every year when I was really young, so I had an awareness for diabetes and Type 1 Diabetes. I had no real idea what that meant. So I went to Dr. Google as everybody does, and everything kept coming up is Type 1 Diabetes, and I thought okay, hopefully, it’s not that. But it still didn’t hit me to understand what that meant.

And I made a doctor’s appointment for the next day, which I think was a Thursday was the next day, he was scheduled to actually go for a checkup, the following week. But I said I’m not going to be able to sleep this weekend. I’m going to be worried about it the whole time. Let me make an appointment now and insist that we go in and get this check just so we know what it is before that weekend and the suspense would be killing me.

Went to the doctor’s office, very good doctor, American Board Certified Paediatrician with a practice in Dubai. And he said, no, it’s not possible. You don’t have any family history. He’s healthy, he’s growing normally. But if it’ll give you peace of mind, I’ll check. He kind of shrugged it off as I like, at least it felt as if he shrugged it off, that I was a mom like over-worried.

So he pulled out his glucose metre and he checked. And the blood sugar read, I think it was 640. Either 640, or 460. I’m not sure if blood sugar if the metre he had could read that high of 640. He didn’t believe it. So he asked his nurse to go get a second glucose metre. And the reading was again the same. And sure enough, you know, he just shook his head, he was shocked.

And this is why I say to people, doctors often miss it. Because you see otherwise relatively healthy child, why would you even think that they would have diabetes, but it’s something to consider when you have those symptoms of drinking too much water and urinating and different things.

So then we took a urine strip, and we checked for ketones, which also showed high. And while we didn’t have any vomiting or any of the later DKA symptoms, but he sent us to the hospital right away.

Pam 16:41

And that’s where our journey began. At that time in the hospital, not a lot of people really knew or understood what to do. Nobody really educated us about a lot. We were put on a sliding scale. With insulin injections, there was a nutritionist or a nurse trying to kind of teach us about counting carbohydrates. But I’m not really sure that was even really done. Because it didn’t make sense to me until I was really with a diabetes team that could really educate me on what to do.

So I took a few months off work, I was fortunate I could do that. But I took a leave of absence to kind of just get my life together and figure out what was going on and figure out how to manage diabetes in my very small child. And I went back to work, I was before my son’s diagnosis, I was on a project where I was going to have to drive an hour and a half one way every day, it was the project of a lifetime to build a new beautiful hospital. But I wasn’t able to do it. So I took a backseat. I did some things remotely, but then they were running out of things for me to do remotely.

So then I took a new position that kept me in a chair. That was a more operational job where I wouldn’t have to travel even if an hour away because I wanted my son to live a normal life. And he needed me here to be supported through all of that. And I’m not sorry I did that at all. It was difficult the first year because I had like, you know, this fear I was missing out on this great project. But in hindsight, it was absolutely the right thing to do.

I don’t think that there’s anybody that I’ve ever come across or mom, particularly that you know if her career took a backseat it because she had to help a family member or a child, I don’t think anyone has any regrets of ever doing that. And I know that I don’t. And so now here we are several years later, my son is now 13.

Pam 18:39

I left the corporate world in 2016 to start Diapoint to focus on some of these areas and gaps that I experienced, and that I saw through my newfound experience as a patient with my son. And I realized that while there were many good doctors here, after you went home you were alone with your diabetes, and that can be very isolating. Because diabetes is something that’s with you 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, and not many people understand it. After you visit your doctor and medical team. There’s not a lot of support.

And also I wanted to not only support people but help them find other things that they need like, like in the shop. It’s not about selling products, but we have other cool accessories. For example medical tape, never thought I could be so excited about medical tape. But the StayPut tape we sell, it actually keeps your devices on and in place. And that’s something that makes me really happy because when you lose a device, they’re very expensive. And then also you lose the time, you lose the ability to see like if it’s a CGM, you’re losing the ability to see blood sugar numbers and decrease risk. And that sense of security and keep your child safe for or for yourself, if you’re an adult, there’s so many, it’s so much more than just a piece of tape. It’s something that’s keeping this device on you that can be life-changing.

So those are some of the reasons why I started Diapoint.

Pam 20:19

But it took me a really long time to get to that. And there’s quite a few reasons why I think it took me a really good year to get used to the idea of being a mom, with a child with Type 1 Diabetes and understand what that means. And what my role was, there was a lot of grief and a lot of shame around it. I went through a lot of doubts and questioning if I myself might have had something to do with it. We were making his baby food from the best organic. And if not organic, from fresh produce, I wasn’t buying really hardly anything that was processed ever. So I did everything right. But yet things went really wrong. Or at least I thought I did everything right.

So when people would learn about it, of course, they wouldn’t know what to say, or how to react. And some of that was due to what their idea of diabetes is. A lot of people think diabetes is the result of being obese, or being overweight, or not taking care of your health. So when they see a 20-month-old with diabetes, they’re like, how is that possible?

And just for the record, not everybody that has Type 2 Diabetes is overweight and obese. If you’re on my newsletter, and you read my response to the email I got from the gym owner, from the franchise gym owner, you will know that I was totally outraged at that. And but a lot of people do make those kinds of comments.

Pam 21:56

So one thing that I often share too, are some of the things that people ask and people say, and I find this especially effective when presenting at medical conferences, because the doctors and everyone that’s there, they’re looking at diabetes from a medical perspective. And they know that people with diabetes go out in the world, and they live with this and they deal with it every day. But they don’t always get the gory details from the inside. Because when you go to their office, they’re looking at your numbers, your outcomes and trying to help you manage. They’re not looking, now they’re looking at it more I think, but before they weren’t looking so much of the psychosocial aspect of it.

So some of the best questions that I’ve ever been asked. People have asked when they see his insulin pump, which he carries in a pack on his waist. They say what is in that pack? Is that a cell phone? and he’s like, you know, four years old. It’s not a cell phone.

One woman who I’ve seen on many occasions, every time she sees me, she asks if my son still wears an oxygen mask. He’s never needed one for diabetes, you don’t inhale your insulin. Happy to say that now we do have an inhalable glucagon, but they don’t use oxygen masks.

Explaining the concern security staff looks and comments is always fun. Now, I think over the years more security have been exposed to insulin pumps and other diabetes devices, or they see people carrying medication. But it’s always been a challenge. I find here in the UAE the airport security and everyone’s lovely but we like to travel, at least in the pre COVID world we travel a lot more. And we have a lot of travel stories and a lot of experiences because every airport security has been different. And some have been really challenging and some have downright made me cry.

People ask always if he’ll outgrow it. They’ll be like he’ll outgrow it right? Because he’s so young. Unfortunately, no, it’s for life.

Shortly after my son was diagnosed, a trainer in a gym said to me, you must have eaten too many sweets when you were pregnant. That’s why your son has diabetes. I didn’t say anything to him. I didn’t go complain to his boss. It just didn’t seem to make any sense at the time and I was so horrified by the comment. I wasn’t even sure that I could have the energy to go complain about it.

Someone else, which one of you – is it me or my husband that’s a carrier?

Someone once asked me, what is that for? Pointing to his insulin pump. Is that for his ears? I’m not sure if there’s devices for ears worn around the waist, but I’m sorry if there are, I don’t know if there are.

I had a cat that had diabetes, and our lovely little cat Meggie. If you follow our social media, you may have seen her picture. I put it up there again recently because she was a beautiful cat. She was a stray cat that we found in Istanbul. And she was so thin and so skinny. And she always had that scarcity mindset with food. And in her later years, she became a little bit overweight, but not maybe because she was overweight. What I learned is that older female cats have a higher incidence of diabetes or insulin resistance than other cats. So one morning, Meggie is, I hear something in the kitchen. And it sounds like somebody is on the counter going for a loaf of bread. And my cats know that they’re not allowed on the kitchen counter, they don’t get on the counters. But that morning, somebody was, and I noticed the litter box was becoming too full of urine. I noticed maybe drinking a little bit more water. And I was like, huh, so I took her into the vet. And I put the box on the table. And this young that came in, if you’re from the UK, they have this show called Vets in Practice. And they always follow these young newly graduated veterinarians out of vet school. And I think I had one of those because he was like, so young. And so new, lovely guy, I’m sure very experienced. But I put Maggie on the table. And I said I think this cat has diabetes. And he looked at me and he’s like, Well, you can’t just like call it like that, you know, we got to check her blood sugar. I said, Yes, we do. I say can you help me check her blood sugar? So I didn’t know that the cat, they check the blood sugar from the ear. So he pricked her ear, he checked her blood sugar, and her blood sugar was high, I think it was close to like 180 or 200. And it should be around 100 just as a human. So he was still not convinced she had diabetes. So he needed to get a urine sample. Now I won’t go into all the details of that. But they could not get a urine sample from Meggie. In the end, she had to stay the night. They gave her an anaesthetic to check the urine, which I think was totally unnecessary and overdone. But then after the urine sample, he was satisfied. And he came back to me and he said this cat has diabetes. I said okay, and then after that, we gave her some insulin shots a couple of times a day. And she lived to be like 19 years old.

But after that experience, when they confirmed to me and I went to pick up my son from school that day. And I walked in the school, and I had this look because I’m just thinking like, what are the chances? My child has diabetes, now my cat has diabetes. What’s going to happen next? And one of the moms that knew me, she looked at me, she said, are you okay? I said, Yeah, I said, It’s unbelievable. I said, one of our cats has diabetes, and she knew that my son had Type 1 Diabetes.

And her first question is to me, was she didn’t get it from your son. Did he? Like or did she didn’t know if the cat was a he or she. Just like the cat didn’t get it from your son did he? And I was, I just didn’t know what to say. And I just said no. So yeah, that’s the story of Meggie.

People often ask, and I’m sure if you’re listening, and you have Type 2 Diabetes, people will ask you all the time, if you can eat that? There’s food police everywhere. People would ask, you know, their child’s eating something that’s kind of junk food. And because my child is there, he’s participating in it, and they’ll ask like, but can he eat that? Or even if it was like watermelon. Can he eat that? Yes, he can eat it.

There’s a meme, a very popular meme that says that Type 1 can eat, you know, cookies, as long as they’re not laced with poison, kind of the same thing for watermelon. I think for all of us, everything in moderation is good. But yes, we should all be eating healthy, well-balanced meals. But that doesn’t mean that everyone is so perfect and rigid all the time. And in the case of Type 1, we look at what it is we look at how many carbohydrates are in it, and we give insulin.

Or people will always ask how’s his blood sugar been? His blood sugar has been awful because he has Type 1 Diabetes. Even a person without diabetes does not have blood sugar that’s a perfectly straight line. It fluctuates, it ebbs and flows. If you have Type 1 Diabetes, it can be really, really hard to manage even in people with some of the most well-regulated blood sugars. Maybe it won’t always be a flat line, there’ll be the one-off.

And then also there were you know, the many well-intentioned relatives in the beginning that would ask why would this happen? And that was always hard to answer because I was asking that question myself. And I never found it really supportive or easy to answer. Why would it happen? I have no idea and I wish I knew.

Pam 29:58

But over time we still get questions, they still become easier. And I think, you know, the way that we deal with them, our children see it. And they learn to deal with it through the same way. We deal with it a lot of the time through humor, or just being really honest.

People have asked me also, like, am I afraid of alternative medicine, because that’s going to cure my son. And it’s very difficult for me to look them in the face and say, no, I’m not afraid of it. But if I focused on it, 100%, my son would die because he has to have insulin.

Those are the difficult conversations to have sometimes, but I don’t like to use the word death. But sometimes it’s needed when people are really insisting that they have the cure for something that they really don’t understand.

And there’s challenges if you have diabetes. If you’re an adult, and you’re at work, it’s difficult. Sometimes not everyone has to know you have diabetes. But sometimes if people do know you have diabetes, or they see you struggling, they may not understand, they may not understand why you’re late to a meeting, if you’re having to treat a low blood sugar. Or if you have to leave work early to go to a doctor’s appointment for a checkup and things like that. I do wish employers were a little bit more understanding. I even had somebody tell me one time when I was leaving to go pick my son up because there was some urgent kind of situation with his blood sugar. And someone actually looked at me and said, I wish I had diabetes. So I could leave work early.

So those things happen. And I understand that they are more about the person that says them, than the person that they’re directed at, so I don’t get upset anymore. I can only try to advocate and educate and continue to talk about it.

And so that’s what I do here at Dia-Logue. And that’s why I started this podcast. And that’s why also, some of the things we do at Diapoint are supportive of that and making the world a better place for people living with diabetes.

Pam 32:10

We focus on education events, we have a lot of exciting plans coming up in the next year. I can’t believe we’re already talking about the next year, because it’s October 12, as I’m recording this. And we just want to make the world a better place for all people with diabetes.

So at Diapoint, we focus on a few different areas. One of those is community, the creation of an inclusive diabetes community across the region. We want to help people find the services that they need.

And it is our goal to work and collaborate with clinics and hospitals. We don’t believe in working in a silo. And we don’t believe that any one place can solve everything, it takes a community, we’d love to see people refer patients to each other.

Because the true reality is, there’s how many million people with diabetes in the world? There’s enough for everybody. In 2019, there were 463 million with diabetes, that were documented. That is 9.3% of global health care expenditure. So if you’re in the business of diabetes, and if there’s 760 billion US dollars spent on diabetes every year, there is enough for everyone. So we want to work as part of a community.

Pam 33:50

We’re also patient and family-focused. And by patient we mean the person with diabetes and family-focused. We use the word patient, and I know language does matter. And that’s another topic that we can discuss. That is so super important, but we use the word patient because when speaking with organizations and clinics that work with people with diabetes, we want to find common language and while we want them to say “person with diabetes”, they refer to all of their clients as patients. And so that’s why we say Patient and Family focus sometimes.

But we are absolutely aware that diabetes does not define who a person is, it’s just a condition that they have to manage. By this, we mean the establishment of education and social activities for all people living with diabetes.

Pam 34:47

We also focus on Wellness Coaching. And coaching is really important. Coaching was important before I realized it was important. I’ve always been interested in Health and Wellness. And I’ve always lived fairly healthily throughout my life. But it wasn’t until I started learning more about coaching and positive psychology that I realized that that was one of the things that helped me succeed very early on in my son’s care. And that it really got me to kind of pick myself up and move forward for his sake.

And very early on in our diagnosis, I asked his doctor a question. And his doctor turned it back to me and said, Well, what do you think? And I said, well, I don’t know. Because you’re the doctor, I want you to tell me the answer. And I think as patients of doctors, we have been trained, and we’re so used to just the doctor telling us what to do, we want the doctor to solve it, we want the doctor to give us advice.

But when you have a chronic condition, what I realize is your doctor’s not always there to give you the answer. And we have to learn how to problem-solve, and how to manage it. And so that’s what he was trying to help me do because he knew that I wouldn’t have access to him 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and he knew that I had to start doing my own critical thinking. Therefore I could teach my son and coach my son into managing his diabetes, which is what I try to do now.

And the approach absolutely works. It’s not done in a silo, it’s done with the team. It’s done with the person with diabetes, their medical team, but it can be a beautiful collaboration, and it can help anyone achieve their lifelong goals beyond what they thought was even possible.

Pam 36:45

And we also do some other things, working with hospitals and clinics to help them with different programs that they have for people with diabetes. So that’s a little bit more about what we do at Diapoint.

Pam 37:00

So one thing that I’d like to leave you with before I go is an upcoming challenge that we’re having for the month of November. And as you know, November is Diabetes Awareness Month. And this year, we thought we do it a little bit differently, we are going to be out there advocating and joining others in the community to do some pretty amazing things. And we’ll share more details about that.

However, please watch for your chance to sign up for the Diapoint November Challenge. Here we’re going to be tracking our Health and Wellbeing for the entire month. And all aspects of our health.

When people think of health they often think of it in the context of only weight loss or in the context of only exercise. But that is only one part of it. Health and Wellbeing is so much more than just the physical. It’s it goes so much further than that. It’s not, like they say beauty is only skin deep. Health and Wellness is way beyond skin deep.

Pam 38:08

And I was listening to a podcast this weekend. As I was working in my garden, if you follow me on social media, you’ll have seen this picture. I took a picture of my garden after I dug out all the holes and put all the plants in and then this weekend, we topped it off by landscaping. I had a lovely Thursday night date night with my husband and we drove down into the desert and got a bunch of rocks and mulch, loaded up the car and drove back and then put that back in the garden the next day. For those of you that don’t live in Dubai, rocks and mulch are just not lying around, we did go to a proper garden place to buy this.

So as I was putting everything in the garden to finish it off, I was listening to a podcast that I really enjoy. And I thought okay, this guest might be interesting. The pitch was he was going to talk about or teach people how to live to be 150 years old, which is amazing. Nobody’s living to be 150 at this point in time or yet. And he highlighted that once upon a time yes, the average lifespan was kind of 35. And people never thought much beyond that. And now here we are, and we can get into our 70s. And he highlighted that in the West for example, in us, the lifespan is declining and that is largely due to lifestyle. And that that’s been you know, scientifically proven and he went on to talk about a lot of other things.

But what I realized was the things that he was talking about that might help us live to be 150 are things that we can all act on now things that we can do now. For the most part.

He did talk a lot about health care technology and different things but a lot of the things he talked about, are available in the developed world. So there’s no reason not to start adopting these habits. And this is from one of the leading experts on anti-ageing in the world.

So if you join us for the November challenge, you can actually start to focus on improving your Health and Wellness. Now, I can’t promise you you’re gonna live to be 150. I don’t think any of us listening to this are, however, no better time than the present to take charge of your health.

Come join us for the Diapoint November challenge. And in there you will be able to focus on your mental health and self-care. We’re going to focus on your sleep, we’re going to focus on the basics of nutrition, we’re going to focus on hydration, super important. And we’re going to focus on exercise and if you have diabetes, there is also a focus on blood sugar. So please if you’re not on our email list, get on it, go to www.diapointme.com and sign up for our mailing list or drop us an email at info@diapointme.com.

And we’re going to have a little challenge around this as well and the winner will get a free coaching session. So stay tuned for all the details. And I hope to see you there.

If you don’t want to participate in the November challenge, that’s okay too. But try to do one of these things and start taking care of your health. Drink more water, get more sleep, get off your device, get outside if it’s not too hot, where you are or too cold, and take care of yourself and your health and beyond the physical. So if you’ve made it this far through my first solo episode in the Dia-Logue podcast, thank you for joining me and I’ll be back next week with a very special guest and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Show Notes and Links

Disclaimer: It should go without saying that the Diapoint podcast is not intended as or should not be used as personal medical advice. You will hear us interview medical experts and others, but please always always ask your qualified doctor, diabetes team or other expert about your health. What works for one person does not always work for another person. What you should always do when you discover any new health information is ask YOUR doctor about it. This information should empower you to have a discussion with your healthcare providers about it. Diapoint, our guests, sponsors and business partners are not here to replace that advice. Living a full, healthy life means taking the proper medical advice from your qualified physicians, diabetes team or other healthcare providers.

Our Sponsors

Dia-logue: The Diapoint Podcast is brought to you by the Diapoint Shop. Diapoint is the place for people touched by diabetes. We support people through education, events, services and advocacy and with beautiful diabetes accessories sold in the D-Shop. Check out all the useful products we have to support you in your health, wellness and diabetes! We offer the highest quality possible, and have tried, or regularly use most of the items in the shop ourselves. Check out www.diapointshop.com now to get the latest in health, wellness and accessories!

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About Dia-Logue: The Diapoint Podcast and Pamela Durant

Here at Dia-logue: The Diapoint Podcast, we talk to experts and people living with diabetes about social situations, nutrition, mental health, travel, and many other topics related to health and wellness.

The Founder & Managing Director of Diapoint, Pam Durant, shares her experience as the mother a teenage son who was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at 20 months old.

Pam was also a healthcare manager for 25+ years, and is a certified Wellness and Lifestyle Medicine coach. She is passionate about showing people how to not just survive, but thrive.

If you are interested in appearing as a guest, please email us at info@diapointme.com. We would love to hear your story and your connection to diabetes.

For more information about our work visit us at diapointme.com and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @DiapointME.

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