Jim Turner: Actor, Comedia, Diabetes Advocate - escobedogerry1946

DM) Thanks for taking the time to talk, Jim! Can you start by joint the skinny on how you got type 1 diabetes? (see what we did in that location?)

JT) I was diagnosed in 1970 as a junior in high-stepped school, in Des Moines, Hawkeye State. Certainly noncurrent then, diabetes management tools were much different and little compared to what they are today. You basically just took a shot or two, and there was no blood glucose testing. So I spent 10 years sporty guessing. I had urine testing, though that tells you almost nothing, and there were no insulin corrections or carb counting like-minded there is now.

I was put happening this Switch List for meals, where in the morning I had 2 bread exchanges, three meat exchanges, and one Milk and a fruit change and you'd consider this book to see what foods could be changed. You'd do all this stuff, and so conk to your doctor and connected that one day you'd get your actual blood simoleons turn. It could be anything, without really knowing what had happened. There were in love lows, and it was altogether fraught with much trouble and doubt. Those first 10 years were really a crap shooting on how to do anything with diabetes.

How did you fare in those archaeozoic years?

I got really good at guessing my ancestry sugar, and am still jolly good at it. The doctor I had when first diagnosed was one of those really into allowing his patients to doh whatever they required to contend diabetes. Indeed in 1972-73, within few years of my diagnosis, I hitchhiked to Vermont and lived there for several months — until it got cold and the cabin I was support in without any heat made me leave.

I was working at this soul-sucking speculate at a play produce, so I hitchhiked back with two cats. And nine months later, I went to Europe and rode my bike all around Europe for just about three months — never once intentional what my blood lolly was and just flying by the seat of my drawers! I ended up in the hospital in Southern Italy, round the time of the epidemic cholera pestilent there in '73. I get into't get it on if I had cholera or something else, but I was in the hospital for five days with a high schoo fever and sick.

Yikes, what was that overseas hospital experience like?!

They wouldn't get me take my insulin and weren't eating me, because they were trying to starve out of me whatever this thing I had was. So I had one syringe, and would engage small doses of insulin. I would sleep with the syringe under my leg, so the doctors and nurses wouldn't find it and take it away. I'd besides perambulate hospital and ask for food from hoi polloi if they weren't feeding it, and I got to know the cook WHO'd contribute Maine a cup of soup.

One Day, I woke up and the syringe was on the stun without the cap… and the floor of this hospital was like a cabinet room, to put it nicely. So at that point, I had to beg and fight them to get a new syringe that was a divers, large glass syringe where I had to reckon how much I was attractive. Eventually, they let me out and I took the cultivate from Southern Italy to Munich, and later found my way home.

What a incubus! How did things go when you got back to the U.S. and started doing funniness shows?

In the late '70s, I was touring non-stop with a comedy group and we were always on the road because that's how we successful our money. I (was) feeding breakfast at 6 a.m. and sometimes at midday — every repast was wholly variant, and information technology was really hard for me to abide in control.

I went to the Mayo Clinic and this doctor told me to change my lifestyle. 'I'm not going to,' I said to him. 'This is what I serve. I'm not going to change my lifestyle. Isn't there a better way?" He liberal in miff and came back in with an older sophisticate, World Health Organization didn't understand why we had this problem. I flipped out and was furious, and went back home plate to where I was staying with my aunt and uncle, and told them it was horrible.

Then a year later, I went to San Francisco and found a doctor who started me on multiple daily injections (MDI). Helium himself had eccentric 1 diabetes for decades, and he was great. He got Maine testing my blood gelt and injecting regularly, and that varied everything. He was my doctor for a few years before swirling to New York in 1987 for three-and-a-half years.

What metamorphic?

I had met 2 writers: June Biermann and Barbara Toohey – June was type 1 and Barbara was not, but they wrote children's books before they started writing diabetes books. Back then, diabetes books were miserable affairs, just ironical and not fun to read. They wrote about 15 books ended the years, but the first one was the Aristotelean Diabetic (in 1984), and it changed my life.

They were funny, raucous and fair all varied how I thought about diabetes. I wrote them a fan missive and they wrote back within the week. They were forever at the forefront and were the firstly to write about Dr. Richard Bernstein's debased-carb coming. They'd as wel started what was titled the Shekels-Free Center, supposed to be a place you could go get products and advice, but it didn't part and they closed it. We had become friends when I was still living in San Francisco, so I called them up erst I got to Louisiana and asked them if they knew of whatsoever doctors in LA… They told me nigh were complete broad of sh#t, only Dr. Michael Duby was not. Thus he became my touch on only because they told me to see him, and atomic number 2's been my doctor at once for 30 geezerhood. And I wish him.

And you've upgraded your diabetes technology too, right?

Before A1C, the original blood strips that I used in the early '80s were the Chem-Strips, where you'd put some blood on and waitress ahead wiping it off. If information technology was a certain color you had to wait once more and compare colors, where information technology'd conscionable be a guess on where the numbers pool were supported the primary color. And the strips were then expensive. There was a company that made a little gimmick that would slit these strips in half. But I contract them into thirds, sitting and slicing each blood test strip into three strips so I had even to a greater extent.

I didn't wear an insulin ticker forever, until I eventually sawing machine an Omnipod at one of these diabetes conventions. There were no tubes, and I cerebration maybe I could wear out one… only I didn't. Untold later, one day I was admiring one and tried IT, and after fortnight thought, "WTF, was I ready and waiting for?!" I loved it and have been wearing away the Omnipod ever since, along with my Dexcom CGM. And soon, I'm going to Be getting a lesson on Afrezza inhaled insulin… because I had a bad soaring maybe imputable bad insulin. That's motivated me to explore Afrezza more for department of corrections, because it's so fast, more than fixture correction bolusing. I am look forward to trying it out.

How did your comedy career actually get rolling?

Growing up, we moved every last the time so I was always the class clown, from age 5 and on. My show biz calling in truth began in college when I was doing a frolic, one that I very didn't wishing to do just a friend had signed me busy audition for. I got put, and the director and an actor were going to Doctor of Osteopathy a show in a bar… this was 1974 in Iowa Urban center, so no one did plays or shows in parallel bars operating room clubs. They asked me to be in it, and it was widly sure-fire. We did more shows and some other bars signed us, and sooner or later we did a Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday with four sets of comedy. We were authorship constantly, so much of it was horrible, but some was great.

We did that for a year until we were burning ourselves unconscious, and talked about NY and Louisiana or Pittsburgh, but we ended ahead going to San Francisco. This was also before the big comedy boom there, and I thought we were going to rule the City because our stuff was such punter. When we moved there, information technology didn't happen like that and information technology took a few years to make any kind of living. Two of the other guys did glut for NPR, and we got really known on Altogether Things Considered. That led to us touring anywhere with an NPR station in the previous '70s and early '80s. There were Phoebe of us guys doing a live act. We were good, really good. We didn't make any headway in films or TV, but in the mid-80s we were doing a show in NYC and a guy we knew wrote for MTV and brought a whole bunch of MTV people on that point. They loved the show and that led to what was next for me.

So you appeared on MTV, and created smitten Randee?

They asked me to do this character named Randee of the Redwoods, atomic number 3 a host of this 20^th anniversary of the Summer of Love (in 1967). Helium was sort of a hippie who played guitar. I went out and we shot 20 musca volitans and a music TV in ii days, racing all some New House of York. They became tremendously nonclassical and ran connected MTV all the time.

Then in 1988, MTV asked me (as Randee) if I'd run president. So I moved to Virgin York, where my girl lived – she's now my wife, Lynn. I moved in with her, and Randee ran for President. We made all these "Randee for President" spots and put on this live reveal touring all round the country, and there was plane talk of a movie but that hide divided.

Eld subsequently, I even establish out that I got a mention past Stephen King in The Stand… when atomic number 2 rewrote the original '70s book The Stand atomic number 3 a longer version, it's in on that point. I remember we had honourable moved to LA and I was and so broke that I went to a bookstore to view the book and skimmed through it and found it on page 763 of the hardback version. Two people were talking and a woman starts crying and says, "I'm but thinking about things the elbow room they used to atomic number 4, the likes of Fourth of July, Frank Sinatra, and that stupid guy on MTV, Randee I think his name was"… I almost started crying myself, that I'm in a Stephen King Koran. I'd love to meet him someday and experience him sign my playscript. I'm not sure if (the mention) ever made it into the TV movie mini-serial, but I May have to watch it and hear.

What came next on temporary?

At that point, we were disgusted New York and had moved to Pelican State and that's where we have been e'er since. I ended high as a rule-governed on a show called "If Not For You" with Elizabeth McGovern from Downton Abbey, and then many others in that point and other shows: Hank Azaria, Debra Jo Love from That '70s Picture, Peter Krause from Six Feet Under and tons of things, with Sandra Oh, and honourable lots of people and node stars. It lasted seven episodes and I then went out for the HBO evidenc Arli$$ about a sports agent for seven long time. That was a eager running game, and my character was Kirby and I even became a verb from sports agents World Health Organization would pronounce "Don't displume a Kirby." Complete the long time, on that point have been so some another fun TV and movie spots. I became known as the sort of king of one-day client stars — because about of my parts on TV shows were small so I'd only consume to work one day.

I really enjoyed the Felonious Minds one, because that show was huge and I was present throughout the full-page episode. I played a local sheriff helping the Federal Bureau of Investigation team, and got to run through the wood with a gun pulled and kick down a door. All of this really fun stuff, and boy, I loved doing that express!

Any stories from the motion picture side of your career?

There have been a number of them, from those early parts in The Lost Boys and St. Elmo's Fire. In 2004, I did the Kicking and Screaming movie about soccer with Will Farrell, and even though most of it got chopped out (in editing) to almost nothing, I got to spend 10 weeks with Testament Farrell.

A calendar month subsequent, I went out and got a genuinely big part on the movie Bewitched, where Stephen Colbert and I were writing partners pitching the idea to Bequeath Farrell's character about doing a movie-redo of the '60s Telecasting sitcom. That was another 10 weeks with him and other people the like Nicole Kidman, Steve Carell, and Shirley McLain. My God, that was a blast.

Most recently, you were happening the Boob tube show Mom. How did that go on?

I was at my dad's monument and a text came at the very second I was sitting there holding my momma's hand. I adage later it was from my coach who wanted to see if I'd be able to do a small role happening that show the next day. I couldn't, because I was there with my mamma. But they agreed to wait, and when I got spine I did the role. I played a bartender working in a bar where Anna Farris is stressful to change the direction. It's non a huge part, merely I got a bunch of little jokes and starred with them, and it power recall.

Will we see you in anything else soon?

You know, I'm 66 and am kinda retired. I wear't obtain crazy about pursuing stuff, with my pension off and social security measur and insurance for the rest of my life story. We're renting out rooms in the theatre we bought 20 years ago, so I actually don't need to crop. That's why I don't pursue it a slew. I love it when I sustain a job, but I don't a-okay crazy nowadays and call up my manager for new parts.

Stool tell us about your time on D-Life?

I was along from the very beginning with the pilot installment where Dr. Bernstein was a guest to several years later when it was taken off Telly and D-Lifetime went online-only. When we first did the reveal in 2005, it was a blast doing that with a live audience. We'd cram a few shows in at a time and the audience would cost people with diabetes who took the bus to NYC and sat in for the show.

At first, they had me as a host on the show, but eventually they let me do many comedy rather than the interviewing, which I was not as good at — the other hosts like Nicole Lyndon Baines Johnson and Mother Love were smashing at that. I told them I'd felt the show lacked something, and successful a pint-size picture about a low blood sugar I'd had and took that to them as an example of the goofy, private stuff that I wanted to exercise to show people what it was really suchlike living with diabetes. It was fun doing that, and I was on for a total of 8 or 9 days. Simply by the piece, everyone left, and I wear't yet cognize where it is now.

What's your main passion these days?

Most of my direction is on the diabetes events that I'm doing, and working happening a diabetes book that I'd really alike to get out. This volition follow a book with stories along my life with diabetes, incorporating that with entertainment industry stories in an alternative comedy kind of room. I'd eventually like to move into TV and films, and assay to use the display biz aspect to make it more fun to read.

Again, keep in heed that the books I grew up wth were dry and not fun to read. I would like for this book to personify something that the great unwashe with diabetes could hand to other people or parents, saying 'OK, this is what it feels comparable. This is what I go through.' I want to have some fun stories in there. I've full improving two notebooks of stories that I've experienced, and my editor bequeath determine what works and the order they go might go in. We'atomic number 75 also working to find the inter-group communication 'tween my show biz and diabetes lives, and when we get a rough sense of that formatting, I'll go back and try to sharpen the stories. I'd hoped to have everything turned in to my editor aside the time of my birthday on Oct. 28, and that's inactive my contrive. For at present, I am hoping the reserve can personify published in Spring 2020.

How do you balance the seriousness of diabetes with humor, especially with shivery hypodermic syringe situations?

The thing I tell the great unwashe nigh diabetes is that it's beautiful all-extensive. I believe about it all the time. It's always at the forefront of my brainpower. I've ever called myself a 'sick,' because that's what I am first—before I do anything else, ahead a dad, husband, an actor, a comedian. That's what I am first. It's like existence on an airplane and needing to turn in your atomic number 8 mask archetypical. You take to take care of the diabetes first, and then the reside of life falls into put away. Fight is the number one thing, and I'm engaged with IT day in and day out.

With that said, it can be really freaky and frightening at times, just every now and then it can be hysterically funny. It's hard to describe what happens to your mind when you have a low-down rakehell sugar, as considerably Eastern Samoa when you have a high blood loot. It's coo-coo.

What are the 'Sexuality, Pods, and Rock n' Roll' events every last all but?

These are put connected by (Boston-settled) Insulet that makes the Omnipod, and in recent age we've through belik about 15 of them. Usually, they are for healthcare professionals and the aim is talking about things that might not come up easily in their practices. I'm actually getting ready to caput to Florida to do cardinal there, with Nicole Johnson and the local JDRF.

We've actually never done one of these for teenager patients or those in their 20s operating theatre 30s, so this will comprise the first fourth dimension for that. I'm usually the moderator and we ingest an advocate and provider. I'm all but looking forward to the Q&A, to hear what they want to discuss — body image and those form of issues, the uncomfortable kind of stuff, is what this is about.

I personally have a stiff taradiddle around pot use, when I was 17 in 1970. You consume to be careful with these topics, especially on drugs and intoxicant, to not just say 'Don't make out IT.' Because that's not helpful. Parents and doctors often want to say that, but teenagers and boyish adults are going to practice those things. It's important to name and address that, and not induce these topics right something other they can't do. Concurrently, it's important for them to sympathize what the diabetes impacts will be and they need to be prepared.

What a fascinating calling… Thanks for your dedication to portion our Diabetes Community, Jim!