“I didn’t want to be defined by my illness, and I didn’t want to be seen as weak, but type 1 makes you different and it’s important for everyone around to know so they can help if you have severely low blood sugar. said Mr. Boudreaux, 35, who lives in Monterey, California and works for the nonprofit Beyond Type 1.
Mrs. Hepner, too, has spent much of her life downplaying the disease, even with her husband, Mr. Mossman. She recalled his confusion early in their relationship when he woke up to find her confused and drenched in sweat, the result of hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. The more Mr. Mossman, a cinematographer, learned about the illness, the more he pressured her to make the film.
For years, Mrs. Hepner stood her ground, concerned about unwanted attention to her health. “It’s a competitive world out there and I just didn’t want people to think, ‘Oh, she’s not thinking clearly because her blood sugar is high,'” she said.
But over time, the ubiquity of pink ribbon breast cancer campaigns and the much-discussed efforts to cure Alzheimer’s made Ms. Hepner that her filmmaking could change the public perception of Type 1, a disease that is nearly invisible, in part because many people don’t make it look sick.
She hopes to change other misconceptions, including the idea that diabetes is a relatively minor and “manageable” disease, one made popular by Big Pharma’s feel-good drug TV commercials featuring confident patients playing tennis and basketball and hot air. control balloons.
