Happy 2021, everyone! We did it! We made it through 2020!
To kick off the new year, I invited a very special guest onto the podcast: my mom, Mary Alice Johnston, R.N.!
Episode 5 of The Phunky Diabetic Podcast focuses on a caregiver’s perspective to type 1 diabetes, and quite honestly, even I learned new things during the interview about Mom’s experience raising a diabetic.
On that subject, I’d like to take this time to issue a formal apology to both my parents – I’m sure I said and did a lot of mean things as a four-year-old in response to you pricking my fingers and giving me insulin shots several times a day! Mea culpa!
I had a wonderful (and emotional) time interviewing my mom about what it was like to raise a child with T1D in the late ‘80s and throughout the ‘90s. Mom did have a leg up on the science of it all, being that she was (and is) a registered nurse. That being said, knowing the science behind the disease didn’t give her all the answers.
Mom talks about some misconceptions she had prior to living with the disease on a daily basis. She discusses what it was like to raise a brittle diabetic, her efforts to provide me with some independence and choices in the management of my disease, her struggles with the public education system to provide me with adequate health services, and much more.
As a now-retired public school nurse and health teacher, mom shares some great advice as to how parents and caregivers of type 1 diabetics can effectively advocate on their loved one’s behalf.
If you want to reach out to me or to Mom about anything you hear in the episode, please feel free to do so! Mom can be reached by emailing her at maryj112@verizon.net and including “T1D podcast” in the subject line. As always, I can be found on Instagram at @katherine.itacy, on Twitter at @katherine_itacy, on Facebook at @authorkatherineitacy, and through my website, http://katherineitacy.com/.
I hope you enjoy my discussion with registered nurse and A1 mom, Mary Johnston, and stay tuned for more episodes in 2021!
All my best,
Kate
The Phunky Diabetic Podcast 
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