My Diabetes - Film 'Broken' starring Tim Roth ( Most Realistic Diabetic Portrayal I've seen on film)

Nearly every movie I have ever seen with a character with diabetes was awful verging on dangerous.

The typical scenario is some major event is going down e.g. a planes crashes in the desert where the is no water and certainly no carbohydrate,  and everybody is desperately trying to find the insulin to give to the 'hypo' diabetic... argh.. it would kill them quite quickly by hypo seizures, coma etc.

As I say to my friends and colleagues, if you find me in difficultly give me carbohydrates, if I perk up in 15 mins then all is well if I don't then the slightly higher sugar can be dealt with later.  Don't ever give me insulin or let me take it without testing my blood.

Don't the medical advisers to these corporations know anything about diabetes.

Then a month or so ago a close friend who also works with people with disabilities asked me to watch the British film "Broken" as she wanted my opinion.

At last a great film with an almost accurate portrayal of diabetes.

The story is quite simple with the portrayal of 'normal people in normal life' and an 11 year old insulin dependent diabetic girl called 'Skunk' (newcomer Eloise Laurence) who lives with her brother and single parent father (Tim Roth)  in an english cul-de-sac.  Like all of us we don't get to pick our neighbours and Skunk is living next to the school bullies.  Skunk also has a neighbour with a learning disability who she treats with kindness and respect, so what could go wrong?

I found the movie gripping, its portrayal of how normal life is for Skunk despite her diabetes was really positive, and the local boy with other difficulties is no harm to anybody.  But then lies and discrimination from the bullies and ignorance and intolerance cause everything to rapidly spiral out of control with devastating consequences.

I thoroughly recommend this as a film.

Here is what Amazon UK

and Amazon USA

This video deals with some adult themes so you may not be suitable for younger children, so I suggest adults watch it first before showing the kids.

Please let me know what you think if you watch it.

Malcolm

My Diabetes - Riding my hypoglycemia 'hypo' bicycle

I view learning to become an Insulin Dependent Diabetic is like learning to ride my first bicycle. When I got my bike I thought I just get on and ride like everybody else, but this is not what happened.  I remember being frustrated that I couldn't ride a bike like my brothers and everybody was giving me advice and telling me how to do it:

sit on the seat and peddle you'll be fine (oops crash)
just peddle and move forward and you'll be fine (oops crash)
try sitting up straight (oops crash)
keep you hands tight on the handle bar grips (oops sideways crash)
going down hill will help you get your balance (oops crash)

Eventually my mother held the back of the seat just enough to stop me leaning too far on one side or the other.  Suddenly I had balance and was peddling and moving forward safe in the knowledge that she was holding me.

Then she shouted out I looked round realise she was no longer holding me (oops crash).  Then over time it became second nature, I can even ride without your hands, then get really cocky.. oops crash.

Controlling my diabetes was like this.  The professionals were very matter of fact.  They said if I:

1) Test my urine for sugars and write it in the diary
2) Inject the prescribed amount of insulin at the set time
3) Ate the right quantity of food
4) Exercise

Then everything would be okay and fine.

I did exactly what I was told to do and some days it worked and my blood sugars were low, and other days my blood sugars were high.  If I took the bus up the long hill to home I would be fine, but if I walked up the hill I'd be shaking like a leaf.

The real question for me was how to square this diabetic circle.  Like all medical instructions they seemed to be very rigid and inflexible.  It may sound incredibly straight forward to a dietician, or a specialist nurse or and doctor but real life is not that straight forward and simple.

TBC