#bantingsghost

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"I feel like you can't really say it gets better, because it doesn't. I always thought I'd never reach that mental block where you're just like, 'I'm sick of this and I don't want to check my blood sugar and I don't want to inject myself'. I was the most diligent diabetic for the first three years. Recently I hit that block. I literally just had a mental breakdown because my stomach was hurting and I was hungry and I just wanted to eat. I had to check my blood sugar and take insulin because my sugar was high. Then I have to wait. I just wanted to f*cking eat. I started tearing up right there at school. I didn't want to do it anymore. But I have to." #bantingsGhost #type1diabetes #documentary #fujifeed #fuji #x100f #climbing

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"I don't know if I should say this but cancer patients, essentially you go on chemo or whatever and there's gonna be one of two outcomes. You go into remission or you die. There's a possibility that you can get cancer again if you go into remission but it goes away for a while. Diabetes doesn't go away for a while. No matter what you're always going to need insulin. Right now I'm working 36 hours a week managing a climbing gym. They do not provide insurance." #bantingsghost #documentaryphotography #diabetes #fujifilm_xseries

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@on_dresss getting after it on the rock. For both of us, the challenges of #type1diabetes are best met with a creative focus on something bigger and more valuable. Our discussion of the pricing of survival (insulin) was a lot darker and definitely gave me new appreciation for the will to keep on going. I'm hoping this #BantingsGhost project will not only draw attention to the insulin access crisis but will also build community around the ways we see people respond under pressure. #climbing #weshootmirrorless #fuji #x100f #getoutstayout

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"I wanted to get into music theory...getting good enough to the point where I could be a studio musician. I thought about that because it pays pretty well but it's competitive and if I don't make it then I don't have insurance. If I don't have insurance I don't have insulin. If I don't have insulin, then...I'm dead, so yeah." #bantingsghost #type1diabetes #ndam #diabetes

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"I've had this box since I was diagnosed in 2012. March. Lots of syringes and pen caps, we just dumped them all in there. I think we did the math once. This represents thousands and thousands of dollars." #BantingsGhost documentary project. This is #diabetes. (Link in my bio)

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"It's not even something that's visible. Cancer's not technically visible but you can lose your hair, lose a lot of weight. But you look at me you wouldn't think, Oh that guy's sick. He's climbing mountains, swimming in the ocean. He doesn't have a handicap, you know? It's sad. Diabetes has just been turned into a joke. It's not about the people who are actually suffering with it. It's a joke." #bantingsghost #documentary

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“I should have access to the insulin I need to survive so I don’t have to get to that point–so I don’t potentially end up in the hospital. So my family doesn’t walk into my room the next day to find a dead body. It legitimately scares me. It doesn’t just scare me it scares my significant other. And my parents too.” #bantingsghost #documentaryphotography

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"It's pretty dramatic. My brother has casually gone through school. He's five years older than I am so he's taking his sweet time. He's 28 and he's already been off my parents insurance for three years. I still have a few more years on there but I'm like, 'what am I going to do when I don't have that insurance any more?' I'm not able to buy insulin out of pocket. Not even in Mexico, which is just an hour south of here." #bantingsghost #insulin4all #diabetes #type1diabetes #t1dlookslikeme

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"If diabetes was cured tomorrow and a company patented the cure, like, it wouldn't make a difference because it still wouldn't be accessible. It's not just a business, it's literally peoples lives that you're putting price points on. You're effectively saying 'this person owes us this much money to be able to live' and not even a normal life--just to live." The full #BantingsGhost project is linked in my bio. #fujifilm #documentaryphotography #type1diabetes #diabetes #xpro1

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I'm starting to post a new #bts chapter in my Insulin access documentary project. From California with @on_dresss I turned northward to #canada where I met up with @mhfuhrer a #type1 #climbing partner and another dear friend from way back. Our goals were to collect some #adventures together while shooting for the #BantingsGhost project. In the coming weeks I'll be sharing images from the time we spent shooting (photographs and injecting insulin!) in the Canadian Rockies. The story behind the story is often the most fun. On a personal note, this whole documentary project is kicking off as I'm heading back to college to pursue a nursing degree, which starts Monday. It's a real luxury to have some of the best photos I've taken all year, waiting in the queue to get me through these challenging months ahead. I am grateful to those of you supporting this project and my work on it-I am also indebted to those who have opened their stories up to me for the purpose of bringing awareness to the unpopular topic of why our insulin costs 5x more than everywhere else in the world and very few leading organizations and personalities within the world of #diabetes are raising hell about it. In such times, the least qualified must do their best to make a racket with whatever tools they possess. #neverstopexploring #type1diabetes #fuji #x100f #MtRundle

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San Bernadino shot at a roadside pull off with a signpost for a tripod thanks to @on_dresss and his patience with my incessant photography. I like making do with the resources at hand. I'm exited to share the next bit of shooting for the #bantingsGhost project-all the way from Canada with @mhfuhrer. Choosing the starting points for this project about insulin access has been challenging but it makes sense to build the stories on those I know best. It's hard to get people to open up about life with #type1diabetes and how the costs of insulin play into navigating it. So far it's been questions leading to more questions-but beginning the exploration with friends in high places (literally, we've been #climbing too) feels like we are on the right track. #fuji #x100f #weshootmirrorless