I saw the pilot of this new show on TNT last night – Men of a Certain Age. Within the first two minutes of the show, one of the characters (Andre Braugher) gives himself an insulin shot in the car, right before going on a strenuous hike. That made me sit up and take notice.
All through the show, his friends keep making jokes about how much and how badly he eats, and how out of shape he is. Later, he gets yelled at by his boss (who is also his father) for being an embarrassment, in part for “shooting up at his desk” at work.
The climax of the episode came during another hike, when he runs out ahead of his friends who find him a few minutes later lying face down in the middle of the trail. “Must be a diabetic thing,” his friend says. They carry him back to the car and get him to the hospital, where the doctors says he’s had a diabetic seizure. “Your blood sugar was under 40,” his wife tells him.
I thought it was interesting to see diabetes front and center in a new TV series that is being promoted heavily, at least with our cable service. Just wondering if anyone else saw it, and what you thought. I can’t find anyplace to watch the whole episode online but there are some clips on YouTube right now (search Men of a Certain Age).
I wanted to watch this. now i’m not sure as TV is entertainment and an escape. If that character loses a foot I’m going to end up kicking in my tv screen
I missed and I wanted to see it, I love Andre Braugher. Interesting how they’re treating the diabetes portion. I hope they portray it correctly and actually do some good for the disease.
That was what I thought too – why is he taking his shot right before going on this big hike? Are the writers making the point that this character doesn’t know how to use insulin? Or is it the writers who are clueless about that? I also thought the language was weird – when he was in the hospital nobody ever used the word “low” and it seems like his wife would’ve told him an actual number for his blood sugar, not just “under 40.” Wonder what that was about?
Judging from this first episode I’m guessing they’re planning to make diabetes a focal point for this character. I’ll be interested to see how they deal with it as the show goes on.
I’d blame it on clueless writers. I think a letter-writing campaign is in order. I started a comment on the show’s forum. (You have to sign up as a member to add your own comment.)
Did you happen to catch the pilot episode after writing this? My impression was that the Ray Romano and Scott Bakula characters knew about Andre Baugher’s character’s diabetes. In an early scene in the first episode, Romano drives to Baugher’s house to pick him up and while they are sitting in the truck (SUV, whatever) together, Baugher takes out a vial of insulin (either a mix or straight NPH, since it is cloudy), loads up a syringe and then injects. The camera gets a close up of Baugher pinching up some skin on his belly and of the needle going in, all while Romano sits in silence, apparently tactfully ignoring the injection, but fully aware of it going on (how can he not be, since he is only a couple of feet away?). Given that these people knew of Baugher’s condition, and that these are good friends, you’d think that when the group goes on the hike, they’d all be aware of Baugher’s need for glucose and would have something with them – some jelly beans, glucose tablets, WHATEVER, to ensure that Baugher didn’t end up on the ground, unconscious.
I only saw part of the second episode, but I did not see any diabetes-related issues in it. The third episode will air on Monday at 10:00 PM Eastern.
I havent seen this show yet. Is it still on? I would like to see it. Are they writing more sensible plots in regards to the Type 1 diabetic character ?
It sounds intriguing except that I AM a man of a certain age. I will see if its on “On Demand” and if I can talk the team into watching it for a while.
RE the prehike bolus, I’ve bolused during a 1/2 marathon, about 2 miles into my second one because I got nervous @ the hotel before the race having eaten toast and saw the AM bolus (probably prebolused early b/c of the running around getting ready and then ate?) pushing me < 100 after I ate so I had a moderate (maybe 6 oz?) of OJ but noted it running up to 160 or 190 or something like that in the race and was like “hmmm” so I used the wizard to calculate a CB and took 2/3 of it figuring I was exercsing moderattely as I’d run my first 1/2 two weeks before and had no expectations of any sort of ooo-rah performance or anything like that but I finished around 120 a minute faster than the other race, likely because it was a much flatter course.
My 1st thought re: the pre-hike bolus and ending up in the hospital with a bg of <40…was that the writers knew exactly what they were doing…showing that taking insulin before strenuous activity can tank you. As far as portraying the guy as clueless as far as taking care of his diabetes, how else would they be able to spotlight the fact that he’s diabetic? If they just showed him dutifully counting carbs and dosing, going on about his day and not having any hiccups (seriously, how many of us get through all of our days without something stupid happening that we blame on either over eating, overdosing, or just general diabetes wonkiness?) it would get boring, no one would care, and the point would be lost.
Still, if he’d anticipated the activity level correctly and cut the bolus w/ the exercarbs chart, he could have been depicted as being intelligent too? It’s not like a pre-hike bolus couldn’t be calculated for but he’d just have to know what he was doing. I think they could have demonstrated the SWAG thing, including numbers, to make the thing more realistic? Not showing the numbers doesnt explain the true burden of data which is sort of a hidden “complication” of diabetes that I think contributes to a lot of the feelings of depression/ helplessness/ anxiety that people have reported? It’s sort of rare to have smooth and slick numbers all the time but if you have a plan for off numbers, you can still feel good about it like you’ve accomplished something. Instead of 40= check out time, they could have shown him drift down to 72 and have an appropriate snack?
At least they got it right in the sense that insulin + exercise = low = seizure. Rather than some other movies/TV shows where the writers can’t even get hyper- and hypoglycemia right.
Hmmm…I’ve already seen two episodes of this show and didn’t see anything you describe. Maybe I saw episodes #2 and 3? Seems kind of like Army Wives where we all got excited because one of the characters was diagnosed with Type 1 and it was a focus of an episode, and then we never heard about it again. (Or at least I didn’t. I tend to do other things when I’m watching TV and often miss parts of the plot…lol).
It must be nice to have your diabetes cured in a one hour tv episode! Wouldn’t it be nice if life were like tv? But then again I watch Criminal Minds and can do without all the serial killers and rapists, thank you!
Instead of 40= check out time, they could have shown him drift down to 72 and have an appropriate snack?
I like that idea much better :o) That being said, I know alot of my friends don’t realize the possible severity of a low low, as I tend to catch mine in the 30’s/40’s when I can still fix it myself. They’ve never seen what can happen. Knock on wood, I’ve never faceplanted due to a low & woken up to paramedics in my face…not that seeing it on a TV show would cause anyone to be all “Oh my! I didn’t know that could happen!” because they’ll just figure it’s Hollywood - gota glam things up and exaggerate things to get those ratings! ;o)
