Thursday, December 3, 2009
Nick Tallmon has always lived a healthy lifestyle, even as a college student. He shies away from carbs, eats a lot of protein and works out enough to have 12 percent body fat.
So at the 2008 Indy 500, when he started eating every greasy hot dog and soggy nacho chip he could get his hands on, his parents started to worry.
On top of the fatty snacks, Tallmon gulped down several, large paper cups of water in a matter of hours and dashed to the bathroom every 10 minutes.
“I’d never experienced anything like that before,” Tallmon said.
But his parents knew his behavior pointed to the three classic signs of the hereditary disease they thought he’d avoided.
After the races, with no sign of his symptoms abating, Tallmon’s parents took him to Watkins Memorial Health Center, where a blood sugar test confirmed their worst fears.
The test found that Tallmon’s blood sugar was 680. A healthy blood sugar rate is somewhere between 70 and 130 – meaning Tallmon’s pancreas had stopped producing enough insulin to manage his blood sugar.
Tallmon, 28-year-old Lawrence senior, has Type 1 Diabetes. He inherited it from both his grandmas and now can’t go anywhere without some whey protein and his insulin.
Tallmon injects himself with a basal insulin shot every night before he goes to sleep. He injects another five or six shots of bolus insulin so he can eat without risking a blood sugar spike. He monitors his blood sugar five times a day.
But more frustrating than the constant monitoring, Tallmon said, is the lack of options for diabetics on campus.
“As a diabetic, you have to really manage your diet,” he said. “Everything within the KU meal system is very carb-heavy, which really isn’t good for anyone.”
Another setback to the disorder: no alcohol.
“I used to drink fairly excessively,” he said. “But technically I can’t have any at all because the basal insulin blocks the functioning of the liver.”
Because of his healthy lifestyle, Tallmon said, the diagnosis hasn’t changed his day-to-day life as much as it has changed his and his family’s financial situation.
To pay for Tallmon’s insurance premiums, his deductible and his medical bills, he said his parents fork out $12,000 a year.
Included in that cost is the $1,825 spent each year on the 3-centimeter strips used to test his blood sugar each day. The insurance plan cuts the cost in half, so his parents pay $1 per strip. However, he said his insurer is now suggesting he test his blood two times a day, rather than the doctor-recommended five.
Tallmon is left to pay about $1,000 per year for insulin and co-pays at the doctor’s office. His insurance lowers the cost of his bolus insulin from $1,000 every three months to $160 every three months.
He works two jobs at the University to pay his bills.
But because diabetes is considered a pre-existing condition, Tallmon is locked into the insurer he had before the diagnosis, leaving him helpless against his ever-increasing rates.
He said his premiums have increased twice since the diagnosis.
“It makes no sense why they would continue to raise my premiums,” he said. “Yes, I have a pre-existing condition, but I’m actually really healthy for someone with that condition.”
Tallmon said he’d like to see three things from health care reform: a public option, no rate hikes or denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions and more options for people trying to live healthy lives.
He said he approved of the House health care bill, but didn’t think it would make it through the Senate.
“I think Democrats in general need to grow a pair,” he said. “I’m a liberal who thinks we should be kicking a lot more ass than we are.”
But without an effective reform, Tallmon will remain at the mercy of his insurer.
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