A San Antonio man is combining his love for making videos with a passion for eduating people about his serious illness. He’s won a prize in a contest with his latest project, a video about diabetes.
The video shows what it’s like to suffer from low blood sugar in the middle of the night, from Joe Nielsen’s point of view. The 30-year-old San Antonian suffers from type 1 diabetes. He knows firsthand the confusion and disorientation hypoglycemia can cause.
“Anyone with a disease has that conundrum of it’s hard to explain that I’m feeling these things inside. But at the same time, you don’t want to sound like a whiner,” Nielsen explained.
So Nielsen took his high 8 camera and tripod and came up with a unique video that caught the attention of the Making Sense of Diabetes contest. He was named one of ten winners for his submission about living with this widespread chronic condition.
Keeping track of his blood sugar is a daily part of his routine, and doses of insulin help keep him alive. After he was diagnosed with type 1 in his 20s and got on the right medications, he said he’s felt much better.
“As soon as I started taking insulin, it was like being born again or something,” he remembered. “It was like, ‘Wow, this is what it’s like to feel normal.’”
Still, Nielsen has to carefully watch what he eats and drinks. In the middle of the night, he still runs the occasional risk of slipping into a low blood sugar coma.
His video has already gotten hundreds of hits on You Tube, and he hopes it teaches a wide audience about the struggles of people with diabetes.
“The whole contest provides a way for family members and others to see what it’s like to have diabetes,” Nielsen said. “It’s something that we live with every day.
The Diabetes Hands Foundation sponsored the video contest. Nielsen won third place in the “sight” category.
