TV Gets it Wrong in Will Trent: In Real Life, Will Sends Faith to Hospital or Death #18

Welcome, everyone. I hope you had a wonderful holiday, spent time

with people you love and you realize that those people that we

call family do not have to be the people that we're related to,

but those are the people that we love, the people that you choose

in your life. So I hope everyone had a wonderful time. Whether

you spent time thinking about things that are dear and near to

you by yourself... Or whether you spent time with those you love

or whether you gave of your time to people that you want to share

your time with and give of yourself. Now we're ready to start

that new year. Can you believe it's a quarter of a century? Wow.

Well, Michael and I were a little bit late to the draw, I recognize

that and I admit that. But we had quite a bit of switcheroo going

on here in the studio. We actually, we didn't replace because

we don't want to. We don't throw away computers or anything

like that. We would donate or do something like that. But we repurposed

some of our computers and we choose them according to what they're

going to do and what the best choice is. So Michael, who is an

expert, and Michael being my husband, he's an expert at hardware.

We each have our talents as far as computers go. So he selected

a newer computer that's excellent for video. This one really

screams when it comes to video. So I'm looking forward to

putting out more videos. But back on the topic of diabetes, I

thought of an interesting topic because we were binge watching.

You know how a lot of TV shows kind of go offline during the holidays?

And I'm all for that because our wonderful actors, producers,

all of the entertainment industry, they need time with their

loved ones too, right? So we were binge watching and my husband

pulled up the show. Will Trent. And I really enjoy watching

Will Trent. And he just happened on the episode season one,

or if you're in the uk, it's series one and episode four. And

of course we'd watched it before, but we just happened on it

and we were eating lunch and watching it. One of our favorite

pastimes to eat and watch. My husband groomed me for that a few

decades ago when we married. Anyway, we came up on a scene where

Will Trent's partner, Faith Mitchell, she is diabetic. Now, I'm

going to assume that she's type 1 diabetic. I think that is

referenced in the episode. But the reason I'm assuming is because

she's taking insulin. Now, it is possible for type 2 to take insulin.

But we're going to go with the easiest answer here. And I do think

that she references that. She says something about being diagnosed

in her 30s, that it is possible to be diagnosed as needing

insulin, as a type 1 diabetic needing insulin in the 30s. It's

also possible to be diagnosed as a type 2 and needing insulin,

but usually that's type 1. It used to be that they thought adult

onset that was a type and that that was always type 2. Fortunately,

now they do not say juvenile onset and adult onset. They do not

say insulin-dependent and non-insulin-dependent. Now they say

type 1 and type 2. We're going to just go with the assumption that

she is type 1, even though she was diagnosed in her 30s. Referring

to the character here. Now shout out to the actors playing these

parts. Iantha Richardson, superb job acting. And also to Ramon

Rodriguez as Will Trent. So the particular scene that I'm going

to reference right now is season one, episode four. According

to my timestamp, I'm at 24 minutes and four seconds. It's called

"My Stupid Detective Brain" is the name of the episode. Now, Ms.

Richardson did an awesome job of acting, but we needed some coaching

here on how to act like a diabetic. And I really don't want

to criticize, I hate to criticize, but there are several

things wrong with this scene. Now, fortunately, Will Trent's part

on acting like he didn't know anything about diabetes, that was

pretty easy because it came off that he didn't know anything

about diabetes. And so that was a pretty easy role. First of

all, she's walking along pretty normal, and then she kind

of like trips to the side. Okay, I'll tell you, as a diabetic,

it doesn't come on like that. The first thing is you have to know,

is it a low blood sugar or high blood sugar? And that is actually

part of the scene because how the scene is treated is off. But

if it's a high blood sugar, most diabetics are already acting

uncomfortable because it's extremely painful. You're cranky.

That's hard to. Now, I tend to try to push that down and not act

cranky with people. But again, I've had diabetes for many years.

I tend to, since I've had diabetes so long, I tend to try to

push down those symptoms from the high blood sugar. But you are

very uncomfortable. You're more likely to not want people to

talk to you. I mean, depending on your personality and who you are,

you're going to want to pull back because you don't feel well

at all. With high blood sugar, it's very slow coming on. So Faith

would have known that she was high blood sugar. It would have come

on very slow. She would have known that it was coming on. She

would have treated it with insulin before that, because she

would have known it was coming on. Now, if it's low blood sugar,

it could easily have come on very quickly. And the way she's acting

here, the way she tips over a little bit, that's the acting for

low blood sugar. That's where you get tipsy. Some people think

a person's a diabetic, is drunk because they're unstable, they're

tipping over. I sometimes get giggly when I'm low blood sugar.

But the way that she acts on here, that's a low blood sugar. Even

my husband and I are watching. I mean, he may not have diabetes,

but he's lived with me many decades. He saw that, and he's like,

low blood sugar right away, low blood sugar. So you have a character

that is acting low blood sugar as far as the acting. Whereas with

a high blood sugar, you would be able to sit down, you would know

that a high blood sugar is coming on. You would be uncomfortable.

You wouldn't want to be talking to people. You would just

deal with the high blood sugar, low blood sugar, you'd practically

fall over. You'd be unsteady. You might actually fall in the ground.

So her acting, wonderful for low blood sugar. So we keep going.

She sits down and again, presumably from a low blood sugar,

because that's how she was acting. And Will Trent asks her,

it's like, do you need orange juice or insulin? Well, that's another

thing. Okay, we're going to give him a pass because he's the

character that supposedly doesn't know anything about diabetes.

Now, he does reference how he knew a diabetic in the home where

he grew up. And he should. He should, technically. I mean, if he

knew a diabetic and he learned about it, he should know that whatever

situation she has, whether it's high blood sugar or low blood

sugar, it's not going to be a case where you ask if you need orange

juice or insulin, because those are two diametrically opposed.

I mean, they're completely two different treatments. If you give

somebody with low blood sugar insulin, you could kill them. If

you give somebody with high blood sugar orange juice, you're

going to make them sicker, and you may make them have to go to the

hospital. So that's not a flipping question at all. Now, from

somebody who knows nothing about diabetes. Okay, yeah. All right.

But even if you have a passing relationship with somebody with diabetes,

you should know that those two. I mean, I'm sorry, guys, the

producers of Will Trent, Come on, this is a basic diabetes 101.

You should know that those two shouldn't be in the same sentence.

Now, my husband brought up a really good point. He said the first

question you should ask is, what is your blood sugar? And anyone

would be able to figure that out. If you know anything, if you've

listened to even these podcasts, you could figure that out.

If your blood sugar is 29, well, you're headed towards death.

But okay, if your blood sugar is like 50, you're low blood sugar.

That's orange juice time. If your blood sugar is 300, don't give

them orange juice. That's insulin time. That's high blood sugar.

So my husband had a really good point. What is your blood sugar?

The next thing. And then he says, I can help you if you want.

And so she hands him a little bag. It's the needles, she says.

And then she asks, how did you know? In other words, how did Will

Trent know that she was diabetic? And he said, the fainting

gave it away. Which is interesting. I just got done saying

the fainting is something you do from a low blood sugar, not a

high blood sugar. You don't faint from high blood sugar. If you

do faint, and I've done this where I go completely unconscious

where all my organs started to shut down, that wasn't fainting.

That was complete unconsciousness, and I did almost

die. I think I told you guys about that. Or that will be coming

up in a podcast if I haven't. But I'm pretty sure I told you guys

about that. That was when they had to fly in an endocrinologist

from another city to save me. Yeah, that's called death. That wasn't

fainting. That was ICU for three days. That was completely different.

And if I did that again at this age, I just simply would die.

That was when the. The paramedics didn't believe that I

lived through it because literally my body was already shutting

down. That's not fainting. That's something else. Her fainting

quote, unquote. That's low blood sugar. So. But the next thing

he says, which really caught me, I mean, oh, the change of eating

habits and the band AIDS on your fingers. I mean, bless their

hearts when they wrote the script, but come on. Okay, I don't

do the. As People like to call it. I don't call this, but I've heard

other people say the finger pokes, or sometimes I have finger

sticks. Whatever you want to call it, checking your blood sugar,

where you're poking your finger, and then checking the blood

sugar with a meter. I don't do that anymore. I know. Horrifying,

horrifying. But that's because I have a continuous glucose monitoring

system on my pump, my Medtronic pump, and it does it for

me. That doesn't mean I never check my blood sugar with a finger

poke, as they call it, because I do do that to check how well the

Medtronic pump is doing, or Minimed pump. Medtronic is the company.

Minimed used to be the company, but it's bought out by Medtronic.

Medtronic's the company. Minimed is the pump. So now my blood

sugar is measured through this continuous glucose monitoring system.

But even when I was doing the finger pokes and testing it with

a meter, I would be testing eight times a day. Can you picture

what I would look like, especially on these video live streams,

if I used a band aid for every finger poke and I'm doing it eight

times a day? Eight times seven is 56. I might have to take out stock

in Band aid, the brand. 56 band aids a week. I would never want

to show my hands. I would be wearing gloves on these live streams

because my hands would look hideous. I would have to stop playing

the piano because I couldn't play with that many band aids. I'd

have to stop typing because I couldn't type with that many band

aids. I'd have to stop using my iPhone to send messages because

I couldn't do it with that many band aids on my finger. I wouldn't

be able to write anymore because I wouldn't be able to type

with that many band aids on it. You see where I'm going with

this? The idea of that many band aids. I can tell you right now,

with the number of decades I've had diabetes, I have never put

a band aid on my finger after a finger poke. Now, they did in the

hospital back in 1976. They did. But that's because they used

something the size of a darning needle. And they stuck it

right in. I've told you, this is another episode. They stuck it

right in the center, right where all the nerve endings are in

my little bitty finger, and they poked it in deep. And, man,

that finger gushed. Bled and bled and bled. Yes, they had to stick

a band Aid on that. And I've had hospitals, I've had nurses come

in and they've gone to do a finger poke, and they go for that

tissue right dead center in a finger. And I've stopped them. I

said, no, no, no, no. You don't need to hit where the nerve

endings are or where it's going to bleed that much. All you

do is, is a light poke on the side of the finger. You'll get all

the blood you need, but it won't continue to bleed forever.

And it doesn't need a band aid. You can take a little tissue,

put it on the spot, maybe five, ten seconds, and it's done.

You don't need a band aid. So, no, I don't even carry band aids

with me because I never bleed that much. And it's not just me.

This is. If you look around, if this is true about the Band aids,

you'd be able to spot the diabetics because they'd have 56

band aids or maybe only 28 if they're doing the four a day. The

four a day pokes. That one. I had to laugh. That was really pretty

unrealistic. In all the decades I have had diabetes, other

than the hospitalization, no, never had band aids on my fingers

for it. And I checked my blood sugar pretty religiously. He's talking

about cases. Oh, he said, piece of cake. And then he said,

which you can never have. Oh, you guys know my thoughts on this

one. We've had episodes on this, even with the whole thought

of Thanksgiving dinner. And remember I talked about having the

pie and that you can just dial in the insulin a couple episodes

back. Yeah. Not having cake. No, not an issue. And this is where

my husband also mentioned. We were watching this, guys, Come on.

It's, you know, I think this episode, let's see, four years ago.

So this came out in. I think this was. Came out in what, 2020

or something? I'd have to look it up on IMDb, but either way, I've

been on insulin pumps since 1998. Why on earth is she not on

an insulin pump? It's not like this is a show that they're looking

back in time. We're not doing something in the 70s. Why is she

not an insulin pump? Why is she out at crime scenes, Potentially

very dirty crime scenes, carrying all this stuff around with

her in a Ziploc, that's very dangerous. And with her being diabetic,

she could very easily become infected. She's prone to that as

a diabetic. So that's very dangerous. And so the next thing

is she hands it to him to Will Trent to help her, and he pulls out

a needle. Now, I tried to look at the screen. My husband said it's

an insulin pen, which I've never used. I went from needles to

using the insulin pump. I'm not really sure why people do not

want to use the pump. Again. Why are you giving insulin to someone

who's having low blood sugar? That wasn't discussed in the scene.

Because she's acting like low blood sugar. Basically, if you're

giving her insulin, you're going to kill her. But I guess they

didn't quite figure that out. As far as the scene. It's nice that

Will Trent is offering to help. But me as a diabetic, I'm not

saying I've never had help, but what I'm saying is I like to

take care of myself. Maybe I'm an odd person because I like to be

self sufficient. I need to know that I am able to take care

of myself so that if I'm ever alone, I can take care of myself.

And this is a shot in the belly or in the side. I can reach

my belly in the side. I do. In fact, that's where I insert all the

time. I. I've never had to have my husband do a pump insertion

on my side. I've never had to have anyone help me with a pump insertion

on the side. Now when my doctor insisted that I was pushing

insulin out of me, he said, I want to have other people do the

shots. Whole nother topic. But that was never a case where I could

not give my own shots. I'm very much so in the diabetic helping

themselves so that they can take care of themselves and then

asking for help when they need help. Maybe this is just Will Trent

helping out his partner. Okay, all for it. But the comment about

never having cake. No, that's not the case. There is glucagon.

Glucagon is something that you would give a diabetic when they're

unconscious. My husband has given me that because I'm unconscious.

That's what you give a diabetic when they're unconscious

and needs sugar. I've never actually given it to myself because

if I'm awake, I can actually take the sugar. But again, we went

back to the scene and looked at it. That was not glucagon. That

looked to be an insulin pump or a shot of insulin. And in the

scene they did not take out the needle and draw up insulin. So

it looked like a pre filled insulin pen. And that's very dangerous

with if anyone is watching this and taking care of a diabetic,

it does not give the right message. I would dare say I'd send

this podcast episode to the producers of Will Trent because it

does not give the right message. The acting that she did

said low blood sugar and they turned around and gave her insulin

that would kill her. So that scary. That is scary to me. Anyway,

that one, another episode that was very interesting to me was one

with Rosanna Arquette. And I just realized the other day when

I was looking up the dates that Rosanna actually, and I'm not

one of these name droppers, I don't, in fact, I actually guard

against name dropping. But I met Rosanna, very nice lady. And

she married a friend of mine, Todd Morgan. In fact, he was my employer,

very nice man. They got married in 2013, unfortunately, currently

filing for divorce. But they got married in 2013 and I had what

seems to be a case where I may have been poisoned. Can't prove it,

don't want to prove it. I don't want it coming back on any

friends who are not guilty of the poisoning. But with my body,

since my body is very in tune with, it's like a computer shutdown.

You crash a computer that a computer knows how to shut down and

reboot, it's going to shut down and reboot. So my body knew

how to shut down and reboot and do a seizure. And I had a seizure.

And it was actually when we were out of town doing a conference

or not really conference. It was a special thing for the company.

So Ms. Rosanna was there and I had actually visited with her at

my friend Todd's house. Again, wonderful lady. But it just so happened

that about a year and a half or two years after that, there was

an episode of Law and Order that came out. And let's see what

episode that was. Episode number 14 of season 15 and it's called

Wednesday's Child. And it just so happens that it's about a child.

Well, it's about several things. That's also where, that's

also where Sargent at the time Olivia Benson met her future son,

Noah. So just a little, if you haven't watched Law and Order, this

is, you know, spoiler alert here on this one. But one of the

children there has diabetes. Ms. Rosanna played the part of Alexa

Pearson and the little boy that was given by his adoptive mother

to this family. Again, it's a spoiler alert. Nikki was his name

on the show, the character played by Duncan Nicholson,

and he was diabetic. And I went back and watched this show.

Now, I could go back with more of a critical eye on this one. But

interestingly, that show did pretty well as far as representing

a diabetic child. And what the diabetic child would go through in

feeling sick because he didn't have enough insulin and he was getting

sicker and sicker. So in this case, the diabetic child who had

Type one, his blood sugar was going up. It was going higher and

higher. And the concern they had about finding him now, he wasn't

going to struggle as far as blood sugar going too low. He was

going to struggle with the blood sugar going too high, and they

needed to find him so they could give him insulin. And I was

thinking when I watched that, I thought that show actually did

a really good job as far as representation of type 1 diabetes.

It kind of made me wonder, because here I had gone over to Todd's

house during breakfast after I'd gotten out of the hospital. And

again, the hospitalization, they treated it, of course they're

going to treat it because I have diabetes. They're going to look

at the diabetes aspect. They're going to look at the other,

make sure that I'm healthy. And they had marked down that they

thought that I might have been poisoned. Not by Todd, by the way.

Todd had nothing. Todd is a wonderful man, Mr. Morgan. No problem

whatsoever. He did not have anything to do with it. And neither

did Ms. Rosanna anything there without blame, absolutely without

blame on this. But I wondered, when I watched this episode, I thought,

I wonder if going into this that helped at all. Now, maybe Ms.

Rosanna knows other people who are diabetic. But I did notice that

that storyline and the delivery of that was a lot closer

to accurate and closer to accuracy as far as the type 1 diabetes

and how it was represented. So this is not meant to be critical

of the Will Trent Show. I love the Will Trent show. It's great.

I think it would really help in the entertainment industry if

they actually had medical advisors specifically for the situation

represented in this case on the Will Trent show, it was diabetes.

So have a medical advisor, preferably someone who has type 1

diabetes, be there to help coach the actor in how to represent

the diabetes. A little tip to the entertainment industry. I think

that would help. If you're going to represent a diabetic, have

a diabetic actually give tips on how to do so, because that scene

was a bit off. But let's not stop watching tv. Let's not stop

supporting our actors and our producers and everyone that's involved

in the entertainment industry, as some of us are also in the entertainment

industry. And I love to support us all in whatever role we're

in and love us all and hug us all. And with that, I send out my

hug and my loves to all of you and hope to see you in the next episode

of DiabeticReal. And with that, I'm signing off. Till then, this

is Deborah signing off. DiabeticReal.