Why It's OK That "They" Just Don't Get It

I have yet to see a character with diabetes who isn’t a day-player, who has diabetes, not because it will make a kidnapping even more dramatic, or create strange events in an operating room, but because it makes a character more real and layered having to deal with an ever present challenge.

To have a group of people who have lives and interests and desires and also diabetes, to see the different ways personalities interact with the management of diabetes, to have the jokes that we can all tell each other privately finally up on the screen would be incredible.

So instead of just complaining about how “they” just don’t get it or ever do it right, I decided to do better.

A Bad Case... is an original comedy series about four friends. It is not some PC, educational crap about fighting stereotypes and bringing a message of hope and happiness to the world. It is a dark comedy about when diabetes goes all wrong and how real people come to grips with it and become better versions of themselves because of it.

It is purely for entertainment value and laughs told in six episodes of five to seven minutes each.

I would love to have this series made by our tribe, the people who deal with diabetes day in and day out. There’s something about being in the trenches together that makes it ok to tell these kinds of jokes. We go through it. Our lives are shaken by it. We are the only ones who can really get away with making fun of what diabetes can do to our lives.

If this sounds like something you would love to help make a reality, I am currently looking for a cast and a few select crew positions.

If you have ever wanted to be in front of the camera, or maybe behind it with a cast full of people with diabetes producing the reality of what life is like for us in a seriously funny way, I want to hear from you.

If you have that one friend who is hilarious and you have told them a million times they need to get into a show, I want to hear from you. And them.

If you have zero acting ability and no experience with a camera, but you can hold a pole above your head for a few hours while watching an amazing team put together something that has never been done before, drop me a line.

And if you have been working in Hollywood for years, but haven’t had the pleasure of playing someone with diabetes like you, (yeah, I’m talking to you Derek, Austin, and Jennifer) reach out.

And if your best trait is your ability to sit behind a screen and binge watch shows for hours while Tweeting and Snapchatting and Instagramming all your friends, we need you, too, to get the word out and to enjoy the show. Feel free to drop me a line and tell me you’re out there, too, waiting to see a version of yourself on your phone.

A project like this needs a community to make it happen and I tend to think we have one of the best communities out there. Here’s your chance to prove me right.

For more info on how to join the cast or crew and on the production details, go to S

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT- DAY 4

Today I hit a wall. A writing wall. It was probably because I spent the last seventy-two hours in front of a computer. I thought with all this time off I could accomplish great feats of writing, maybe even finish a book.

But instead I have accomplished very little on the book front. I have left far too many status updates on Facebook and read far too many articles and books and blogs and theology (though I could never get too much theology.) I even read a, I think they call them, Paranormal Romance short story which I typically would never read.

Today was going to be the day all that changed. I have gotten over the initial shock of radiation and isolation. I can be out in public just long enough to order breakfast out at my favorite coffee shop and eat it in the one chair that gets sunshine on the patio in the morning with everyone else a safe twenty feet away eating inside. My computer was charged. My chart notes were out ready to be cross-referenced for trip details.

And nothing.

I could write nothing. I sat for over an hour writing nothing. I considered an early morning drink. considered writing in a new section of the book.

And nothing.

I gave up. No sense wasting good sunshine doing nothing.After a quick run and a shower I took off in my car, camera in hand to fill the well.

I once read The Artist's Way. Not much I remember except the concept of filling the well. Artists need a reserve of creative capital in order to create. If we draw and draw and draw out, eventually that well runs dry. It's a good practice to regularly do things that will put the creative capital back in.

Usually, for me, this means sunshine, a good lunch outside, a dose of nature, and enough silence to let my brain run free, unencumbered by chapters to plot and scenes to write and dialog to remember.

First stop was an open patch of land for a hike. Not more than fifteen feet in, I saw a guy sitting shirtless in a beach chair, soaking up the sun. Now that's what I need to be doing, but with my shirt on. So I gave up my hike, found an open field up on the left and sat. The bands on my brain began to loosen. I shot some pictures of small stuff nearby, a technique I'd been wanting to play with but hadn't found the time.

Hunger jumped into my thought stream, so I was off to obtain another fish taco in some more sunshine. The knots in my brain started to untie themselves. Finally I had found a way around one of the biggest problems of my work in progress, trying to make my villain(ess?) not completely evil, because they say a villain must have some redeeming qualities and also because she isn't really all that bad. With that problem solved the other ideas began to flow. Lucky for me I had my notebook and pen I carry to jot down these ideas before they run away.

Ice cream was now a must and a chance to work out on paper what had been swirling in my head. Now I am off to resume my role in reality; pick up the kids, clean the house, toss the food containers and silverware I'd been collecting from breakfast, lunch and ice cream into my radioactive trash pile, take the kids to the pool to play at least ten feet from me and watch them enjoy another seventy-seven degree January day in sunny San Diego.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT- DAY 1

My day started at five am so that I could get one last meal in before six hours of fasting in preparation for my thyroid ablation today. I was back in bed by five fifteen after yet another bowl of oatmeal and plate of egg whites- some of the only foods I could find that are easy to prepare, somewhat appetizing, and on the low-iodine diet I've had to be on since the first of the year. But since I have been off the anti-thyroid meds for five days, there was no chance I'd be able to go back to sleep.

I saw Tony off to work at seven with a big, gotta-last-for-seven-days hug and got the kids ready for school. I dropped the kids at school and had coffee with a friend, or rather, I watched a friend drink coffee- damned fasting rules- while sitting in the morning sunshine. Then off to the doctor's office to swallow a pill they brought to me in a lead vial.

"Don't touch it. Just take it straight out of the vial," the doctor told me. I do wonder what on earth I'm doing taking a pill that isn't safe to touch. And thus began seven days of solitary confinement.

While everyone was at school I had free reign of the house, but once the kids were home, I was confined to my office in the garage. Once Tony got home and had to do a workout in the garage, I was sent to the upstairs bedroom. If I had to enter the common areas, I found myself calling out to warn everyone of my presence. I felt like a leper calling out, "Unclean. Unclean."

I have dutifully used paper plates, cups, and utensils, double bagged all my trash separately, and stored it outside. I have stored all my radioactive clothes and towels in my now radioactive office and always flushed twice when using the bathroom. I waved goodnight to my kids and gave them air hugs from down the hall. My evening ended with a quick hazmat sweep of the upstairs bedroom and making my bed downstairs all alone.

Since I could not spend any time with my family, I spent most of the day writing and editing and I have to say, I absolutely loved it. Although I miss my family desperately, six more days of my writer's retreat and I should be one very content writer.