TreeTree's Story about Living with Type 2 Diabetes

In this episode of The Sugar Diaries with Bell, I sit down with Treetree to talk about her journey living with type 2 diabetes — from the moment she was diagnosed to the everyday realities people don’t always see. We dive into the emotional side of diabetes, lifestyle changes, and the lessons she’s learned along the way. Treetree opens up about the highs, the lows, and how she’s learning to take back control of her health while still living life fully.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey y'all, and welcome to the Sugar Diaries with Belle. I'm your host, Belle, and today we have another guest joining us. We have Tree Tree joining us who will be talking about her journey with type 2 diabetes. Hey, hey. Welcome to the show. I really appreciate you for joining.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Yeah, I'm kind of excited.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Yeah. So tell us about your journey with type 2 diabetes and how you found out about it and how it changed your life.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Ooh, uh, I can't believe I'm bringing this story up again. Um, so firstly, I had no idea what diabetes was until my father is also the same as me. He's type two as well, but way older than me. And I was in elementary school. And I was in like um here in Chicago, we have this this, I guess, class switching thing where in middle school from fifth grade to eighth grade, you learn how to go to different classes, like in high school. And um I think I was in my homeroom, and I noticed that I was feeling kind of weird, but didn't know what it was because I never ate sugar like that. I never did anything really unhealthy as a kid. I was always playing outside, riding my bike and stuff. And in class one day, I noticed I kept going to the bathroom like a lot, a lot. And it was every maybe five or ten minutes or so. Normally I would sit through maybe 35 minutes of the lesson in the classroom, but I couldn't sit there. I couldn't just sit and I was like, Oh, I have to pee again. And the teacher was like, Again, and I was like, Yeah. And she was like, Well, let me let me call your mom. So they called my mom first, and she thought something was completely wrong. Like, she went ballistic a little bit, she was a little nervous. So then the school nerves got into it, and my mom was like, Well, what do we do? Like, how do we like what's the solution and stuff? And it was on a Wednesday at school. I got picked up early, about maybe one o'clock. We normally get out of school at three here in Chicago, and we ended up going to the pediatric office, and we laid it down to the doctor, like, hey, uh, my daughter keeps going to the bathroom. What's going on? And she did the blood work and stuff, and she came back. She was like, Well, you have a UTI. And I was like, What is that? I'm only what 11, 12? I don't know what this stuff is, never heard of that before. And she was like, Well, further on now in your blood work, we found out that you are type 2 diabetic. I was like, Oh, okay. I didn't cry. That that is shocking too. I didn't cry, but I was like, Well, what do I do now? Like, how does this how does this go? Like, can I still go to school? Do I gotta get pulled out of school? And she was like, No, you just do it, and we'll go from there and see how it progresses, and we'll keep an eye out on it and come back in. I guess it was what four weeks, six weeks for a follow-up with the doctor pediatric. And we did it, and we went back, and that was the first time after my first diagnosis in let me see, maybe 20 2007-ish, 2006. After I went back to my follow-up appointment, I kind of asked all the questions like, what do I do? How do I do this? What's going on? And she got down to the nitty-gritty, which was, oh, you're gonna have to be on insulin, so you're gonna have to use a needle every day. I was like, oh, oh, oh, needles, oh kind of nervous. And I was uh diagnosed with that type 2 diabetic uh situation in 2006, so the needle situation was a syringe with the little orange cap on it, and it had the um, I guess it had the the gauges on it, like the different numbers, so I can know what units to take and stuff. But it was an old school syringe, and the needle was not small, so I did that for about maybe two more weeks after my follow-up just to get acclimated, and then after that, maybe it was getting ready to be time for um grammar school graduation, so then I would be a freshman in high school. From then up until my freshman year of high school, maybe my whole four years of high school, I didn't do any insulin, I didn't do any diet changes, I completely was living on my own. Like, I never checked my sugar every day, I never watched what I ate because I was eating the school lunch and stuff, but the school did ask, well, is there any like restrictions? Because the school nurse had to know, my high school nurse had to know. Never made any changes, I was still eating the same, and then it didn't get really, I'm not gonna say bad, but it didn't get complicated-ish until my first A1C check. And I was like, oh my very, very, very first one, shoot, um, I think I was at 13. Wow. And manual, it's a it's kind of a lot to deal with, but I didn't really, I'm still, you know, in a kid's state of mind at this point. Like, oh, I'll be fine. I just gotta work out and I play sports, so maybe that'll cancel it out, or you know, stuff like that, not knowing how deep it was with that type of number. So it was like 13.2. And the same doctor I had when I first got my diagnosis was like, oh, oh no, no, no. We need you to be at a seven. I said a seven. I'm at 13. That's um far away. Yeah, very far away. Like, and she told I asked her, like, why was it 13.2? And she was like, Well, you're you was like, Well, um, your insulin resistant and dependent at the same time. That's interesting. And then she was like, Well, how long has it been since you had insulin in general? I was like, since the last time you gave me my I guess since the follow-up appointment. She was like, Okay, it takes you know this long for insulin to stay inside your body to regulate you. So did you miss a couple of days? And I was like, Yeah, to be honest, doc, I did miss a couple of days of taking insulin and stuff. Cause I just I couldn't understand why I was doing it, like, what is this needle for? But it wasn't like a confusion thing, it was I didn't want to do a thing because needles after a while started to bruise in my arms and stuff. And she was like, Well, maybe we got a new solution. So now we're a year later, two a year and a half, two years later, and they came up with insulin pens. And I said, Oh, I like this. And um my first go ride with the insulin pens was fine. It's it's small, you put it in your purse, you can put it in your backpack. Take school. I had special privileges at school, which I kind of like too. Like I could have water, I could have a juice box just in case, or whatever, like that. So I was kind of I was feeling it. Like it's not that bad. I get perks, it's fine. And then I did insulin pens for let's see, maybe four years. I'm still doing them occasionally, like when I don't have one to pump. So that's kind of cool. And then I learned how to do it. It's real easy, you know. You click a clicker to whatever unit she gotta take, and you go ahead and go. As long as you got an alcohol pad, a twisty cap beetle, and your insulin pen that you need, you you all good. You can go out in public, go to a party, whatever. And from the from that situation with the pens, I was on MDIs, multiple daily injections, which was one in the morning time, and then two at night, or two in the morning and one at night, depending on how my day was going. And then I got my first blood sugar check-in kit. Um, that changed with time because now my insurance doesn't even cover that brand anymore. They don't even make that brand anymore. So I'm definitely upgraded. And then a couple years after that, MDIs turned into, hmm, I think I want an insulin pump. Which one do I want? I don't want a tube, I don't, I don't want nothing with a cord, I don't want nothing. No, no, no. So I went back and forth between the tandem and the omnipod 5 for a couple months. And then I finally sent in like um an informational booklet thing, and omnipod sent me the information in the mail. So had to find out if my insurance covered the omnipod 5, which I'm glad it did. And I ended up on the insulin pump. So now I'm on the insulin pump, omnipod 5, which I love. And then instead of me pricking my finger all the time, I was thinking, oh, how do I control that? Like, how do I know what's it doing between you know 4 o'clock and 8 o'clock p.m. or what graph do I look at? So I was inspired by one of the Jonas brothers because he's diabetic, and I saw him wearing the Dexcom G6, and I said, Oh, I would like to have one of those. That looks nice. It's free-handed, you don't have to worry about nothing. We get up and go. So I ended up getting the G6, had that for a couple of months, and then now the G6 is being stopped with uh production. So now I'm on a G7. I'm like, okay, G7's kind of small, it's a little faster, but it does hurt to take off. It does.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Um and it's real sticky. Had no idea it's gonna be that way. Um, I do G7 now, officially on my current type two journey, is Dexcom G7 and Homie Pi 5 is a part of my everyday outfit now. Okay so if I do have a patch that matches my shoes, I put on a patch.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Okay, so yeah, that's about it. Okay, well, you gave a whole lot of information. I don't even have that many questions, like you answered so much, but I do want to ask, how do pumps work? So I currently just use the insulin pen and the syringes every day for my long-acting and my short-acting insulin. So I don't know how the pumps work. I know what they look like, I've seen them, but I don't understand them. I've heard people talk about, you know, you you put your bolos in or things like how does that work?

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Well, uh, the first thing first, I'm not sure if all the pumps have a class you have to take, but omnipod 5 has a very, it's not complicated if you don't know, but there is a um what you call it, it's like a a setup class where you, um, a nurse practitioner or a doctor, however it is in your state, you guys would go into an office and you set it up, and they set it up with you. Okay, and you're not you're not by yourself. Like they'll ask you general questions like how many carbs about do you think you eat every day, or you know, stuff like that. And then there's a setting on it where it sets up your temporary basal um intake for insulin, which is two different modes, first of all, which is very important. It's automated mode when you have a DEXCOM hooked up to the pump and they sink it together. So whatever your DEXCOM say, your pump is gonna read that number and be like, hey, you only had 105, you good. You don't need to put no carbs in because you're not eating anything. But the day the temp basil is like going in the background, so they could still manage you just in case. So you won't fight to 205 by accident or anything like that. Like it's slowly microdosing you, really, really small. And you can kind of tell, but at this point, I'm like, okay, I put it on, I'll literally get in the shower, get dressed. I forget I'm wearing it sometimes until I hear a click. I'm like, wait a second, what is that? Oh, that's a click. It okay, it's my easily pump. So now I can go forward with my day and stuff like that. But I love it. I would recommend the five for anybody, one or two diabetic, because it's easy. You can do it from your phone or you can do it from in the kit they send you to your address. You get a PDM, which is like a little Android phone, and it's connected to the pump. You can do it that way too. And if they got cases for you could put it on your hip, hook it on your shirt, put it in your purse, whatever you want to do, and you just get up and go. If you work out, you can use it. If you sit at a desk all day for work, you can use it.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Anywhere you go, it goes with you. So that's a good thing. That is that's amazing. I may talk to my doctor and look into that. I don't know though. I've I've had the Dexcom before on my arm, and I just don't like stuff on my body, but I do know that it does work, and I I do need to consider it, and it's better than pricking your fingers all day and injecting a pen.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

So, yeah, but I do the finger sticks, like it it they do tell you on the um, I guess when you first get if you well, if you upgrading from the G6 because they're not making those anymore to the seven, they do tell you, like, if you're not sure and you feel a certain way, prick your finger. The finger prick will tell you the truth because the machine might have a little glitch in it. You might be sitting on it, depending on where you put it, or you might be laying on it and get a compression load by accident, so you don't really know because how you're moving, like sleeping, or if you bump it and it might be coming off a little bit, prick your finger. So I don't I don't mind pricking my face now, but before I was like, Oh, I gotta do this three times a day. Oh man, yeah. So now it's like once or twice.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Okay, yeah, I understand. So, what is your current A1C now? If you don't mind saying, if you do, you don't have to mention it.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Oh, I forgot to mention that part, that's the last part of my journey. Um, I ended up taking Trullicity, and um there were no side effects for me, so I'm glad about that. But when I was on Trullicity, I was at I went down to a 10, and then again I did a checkup and went from 10 to 9 and then 9 to 6. Nice now. I'm at 7.5.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Okay, that's still good. Okay, that is really good. Yeah, well, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Um, and if you don't mind me asking your age now, so you got it in middle school. How old are you currently? I'm 31. I'll be 32 uh in July. Okay, wow. Happy early birthday. I know it's really early. Yeah, but that is awesome, and you have given so much information. Last thing I'd like to ask that I usually ask my guest, for someone who may just now be learning about diabetes or getting diabetes or wanting to know anything, what advice would you give them for their journey?

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Enjoy it because you have perks, number one. Um, and number two, it's not that bad, really. It's not it's not that bad, it could be way worse, but it's not that bad. And um, don't be afraid to ask like questions, especially if you are just just starting out. Definitely ask many questions, get as many answers. You can do your research if you want to get involved with the diabetic tech and the movement and and just have fun with it. Really, it's really not that bad.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

That's awesome. Okay, well, I really, really appreciate you joining the sugar diaries with Belle and being a guest. Um, thank you so much. If you want, you can give your TikTok out so that people, if they have messages for you or anything or want to ask you a question, they can message you.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Okie dokie. Uh, if you guys got questions and stuff, feel free to message me on TikTok at T-R-E-E, TREE 0710. That's my TikTok. So I'll be looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

All right, and you all always know you can reach me on TikTok as well at Southern underscore bell678. And that is our episode of the Sugar Diaries for today. Thank you all for listening.