#while my mom was doing a fellowship at a college in chicago

[bionelly2]

probably because that’s basically what they’ve been doing, but they’ve figured out that people are giving those profiles to people in other houses, and surely if they put a stop to that then those people will pay for their own accounts! (they largely won’t, but that’s a separate issue.) they aren’t going to be satisfied with anything that doesn’t restrict people by location, because according to their logic that’s what’s “losing profits”.

Sums up the PM mindset nicely

[parismiki]

“How is Paris?”

Hello readers! Welcome to my blog. I’ve been meaning to write a blog for some time now, really since my days in Chicago, but I never felt this urge until now. Currently I feel like I am being tested to my limits and I have so many thoughts about so many different things. Writing has always been an outlet of mine (have kept journals since I learned how to hold a pen basically) and so here it is - a window of insight into my thoughts about a variety of different things. 

I don’t really have a theme for this blog, but I know it will touch on issues that are important to me: race, activism, Japanese American and Asian American identity, feminism, mental health, radical politics, etc. Given that I’m currently also in France with the generous help of a Fulbright scholarship (a lot will be discussed soon about this), my posts may be more focused on my current experience in France and how I have been navigating this foreign country. 

So, to start, many people have been asking me how Paris has been. There is some sort of illusory expectation that people have of my time here in Paris - that I’m happily eating baguettes every day (I am not -- I eat only rice and noodles), that I’m picnicking by the Seine, and I’m going to all these cool art galleries and museums on the daily. 

This could be farther from the truth. 

I am struggling. 

This is not the same experience that I had studying abroad through UChicago three years ago, where I took classes in English taught by UChicago professors at the UChicago Center in Paris with UChicago classmates. I had a huge safety net while I was here, which enabled me to go out and explore the city and meet new locals while still feeling rooted to a community of American students. I didn’t need to get a visa because I was here for less than 90 days, the housing situation was largely taken care of by the study abroad coordinator, and I was used to the UChicago pedagogy. The huge difference here is that I am going to grad school in Paris, working towards a professional degree, which entails a large degree of responsibility, self-reliance and resilience. 

However, this past month has been incredibly difficult for me. The workload is intense, unlike anything I saw in my quarters with the heaviest workloads at UChicago. I am taking eight classes that meet once a week. For one of my core classes, I must read four books for the midterm, which is less than a month away. Work is always on the back of my mind and I fear that I may miss an assignment.  There is rarely any time to be resting or relaxing, because I tell myself, well you could be using this time to study. 

As someone prone to anxiety, the workload and the added stress of being in a new country has taken quite a toll on me. There have been days where it has been hard to get out of bed and days where I feel like I’m just dragging throughout the day. Sometimes I wonder, “is this program worth it? Should I drop out?” but am quickly reminded that if I do, I lose my Fulbright scholarship. Additionally, Sciences Po is not the friendliest when it comes to their students’ mental health - their psychological services are minimal, and they fail you if you miss more than 2 classes (yes, attendance is taken in even the biggest of lecture classes.) I could go on and on about Sciences Po as an institution, but I can save that for another post. I have had to resume sessions with my therapist in Chicago because the French national healthcare system does not cover therapy services! 

Despite all this, I’ve managed to find small pockets of joy during my time here and have really forced myself to practice self-care. One could say that my most recent FB status asking for self-practice tips was a cry for help - surely I couldn’t be the only one who has gone through this. So here’s what has been working for me so far - and you don’t have to be in grad school either to abide by them!

1. Rely on your family and friend networks back home

Thank god for technology - I remember my dad telling me that when he was in college he had to wait in line in his dorm to use the landline to call his parents. I can’t even imagine how my mother kept in touch with her family back in Japan when she immigrated to the US (will write another post on my newfound appreciation for my mom as I transition to life here.) 

That being said, I text regularly with my friends and keep them updated about what’s going on in my life. Some others are also living abroad and it’s nice to know that we have each other’s backs -- one of my dear friends is doing her JET program in rural Kumamoto. She is 7 hours ahead of me, and always texts me a nice meme or a cute gif that I have the honor of waking up to. Last night I felt especially horrible and called one of my friends (who is going to start her master’s in philosophy at Oxford and we’ll be reunited soon!) who helped me calm down. As people starting new lives in new countries we often forget that we have a support system back home, but don’t forget - they helped to get you where you are. 

2. Read books that nurture your soul

I have always loved to read in order to learn new perspectives, but reading now serves a different purpose: it touches and nurtures my soul. When I first got here, I devoured Ruth Ozeki’s novel A Tale for the Time Being - it was a charming and quirky story that whisked me away to British Columbia/Tokyo. I didn’t know how much I needed it at the time. Currently I’m reading a sociology book called Redefining Japaneseness: Japanese Americans and the Ancestral Homeland, which is so comforting and keeps me super rooted to my own identity. 

I was pretty strategic when packing books and spent a good hour deciding which books to bring with me. I knew that I would be reading a lot of dry public policy and urban theory (I even discussed with my roommate, also an American woman of color, which books we would both bring should we want to borrow from each other’s shelves.) So I brought with me Matthew Desmond’s Evicted (which, luckily enough for me, I ended up having to write a paper on), Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor’s From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, and Louise Erdrich’s The Round House (Erdrich is a Native American fiction writer who writes heavily on Native American issues.) I’ve found that conversations surrounding racial justice are quite lacking in French academic discourse, so these books help to fill that gap in my life. In addition, I brought with me some Japanese language books, including ”コンビニ人間” and “君たちはどう生きるか” to practice my Japanese, because I don’t have access to Japanese TV anymore. 

3. Keep yourself intellectually accountable

One of the best pieces of advice I received from the director of the Humanity in Action fellowship I did this past summer was to keep yourself accountable by writing down your own thoughts and critiques of grad school readings in the margins when taking notes. I’ve found that a lot of the readings we are assigned take on a very neoliberal approach to cities and urbanism, and I am incredibly cynical. Sometimes, I just downright disagree. And instead of feeling exasperated by the content, I write down my critiques and will try to bring them up in class, sometimes daring to bring them up with the professor during lectures. This is how I try to stay engaged. 

4. Travel! 

Paris is pretty accessible to many other European countries by plane and train. In fact, just last weekend I was in Madrid visiting a few friends. I was not feeling my best and and even now I still feel awful for my low energy and that I was not as cheery as I hoped to be - but being around people you already know is comforting. In fact, I had a chance to reconnect with a friend from college who is a current Fulbright ETA in Madrid, who told me that he was feeling the same way as me during the same time last year. Knowing that other people have gone through the same motions while transitioning to life abroad makes you feel less alone. 

All in all, to those of you reading, I’m sorry if I have disappointed you with this blog post. However, I do think I need to be honest about my experience here and share with other folks who may be thinking about studying abroad. If anything, I am giving myself all the time I need to breathe, go through the motions, and eventually settle in. This will be a long process, but I am trying to be patient with myself. 

I cannot end this post without acknowledging the people who have been there for me. I’d like to extend a thank you to Keilyn, Sarah, Elisabeth, Gino, Crystal, Brenna, Shirley, Joe, and Amanda. And to my new friends at Sciences Po, I am looking forward to getting to know you and let’s finish this semester strong :) 

Okay and now some photos!

                   This is me in front of the Museo del Prado in Madrid

                    Hard to see but I was really feelin’ my outfit this one day

                                                   Really cute doggo 

              Colorful olives sold at the March�� Saint-Denis, a banlieue of Paris

[weezly14]

Book Questions

I was tagged by my buddy @drolshakes for this fun game. 

Which book has been on your shelves the longest? God, probably Harry Potter? It’s hard because I’ve moved so many times (25+ times, the majority of those in childhood, plus the 3 cross country moves since college), so a lot of my books are in boxes in storage. But like, we still own all the books I owned as a toddler? So probably those would be the oldest? Technically? So if not the golden books collection, probably Harry Potter. I dunno, this is a tough question. 

What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next? Not counting books for class - The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in WWII by Svetlana Alexievich is my current read (that I haven’t read in a while because of classes). Next book is probably The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon because @drolshakes recommended it and it’s sitting on my coffee table so. Yeah. 

Which book does everyone like and you hated? Hmmm. I really fucking hated The Magicians by Lev Grossman but I dunno that everyone loves that? It was well rated on Goodreads but I loathed it. Does that count? Oh, I wasn’t super fond of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Didn’t hate it but certainly didn’t see what all the fuss is about. 

Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t? Probably War and Peace or something similarly long and acclaimed. I know I should read it to be well read and cultured and shit, but probably I won’t have time. 

Which books are you saving for “retirement?” What does this mean? Is it books you’ll read when you have time? See my previous answer: long “great” books that cultured people read. 

Last page: read it first or wait till the end? Wait until the end, obviously. Why would I spoil it for myself?

Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside? I don’t mind them. If I wrote a novel and it got published, I’d absolutely want to have the space to thank people and talk about my cats some more. 

Which book character would you switch places with? Hmm. Hermione Granger maybe? 

Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)? Harry Potter reminds me of my childhood - each book reminds me of a specific moment, and I reread them so often that it feels like growing up was littered with references and pages and quotes. (The fact that I escaped into HP as my life was changing and things got shitty is part of it, probably.) The Chronicles of Amber reminds me of middle school and my best friend from back then, Allison. We read them together and got super into RPG stuff related to that universe. The Star Wars novels remind me of winter and loneliness and the gas station job. Lexicon reminds me of the airport. Bean Trees reminds me of my Yale interview. I could keep going but I’ll stop. 

Name a book you acquired in some interesting way. My mom had this friend from work - a “friend,” you know - and this one summer he spent a lot of time with us. I was 11 or so, I think. He burned me a copy of Fellowship of the Ring to watch on my computer, and he convinced my mom to let me have a Super Soaker, and he lent/gave me a copy of The Hobbit that he’d gotten from the library and never returned (stolen). They stopped talking before I had a chance to read the book or give it back, and then I was pissed at him for reasons I won’t get into here, so the book sat, unread, on my bookshelf for years and years. I might still have it, or I might have donated it out of spite. When I finally read The Hobbit, it wasn’t his copy. 

Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person? I’m trying to think about if I have and I don’t think so, actually. Which surprises me. I donated my paperback Sorceror’s Stone to the school library when I was 8, because I’d gotten the hardcover for Christmas, and I loved the series so much already and it wasn’t big yet and I just really, really wanted other people at school to have the chance to read Harry Potter. So I donated my old copy. That’s all I can think of. 

Which book has been with you to the most places? Harry Potter. I took the series with me to Chicago when we went on vacation; I read OotP for the first time on vacation in Hawaii; I got a paperback set specifically to take to college since it’d be easier to travel with paperbacks. Yeah. Harry Potter. 

Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later? Nope. I imagine I’d still hate The Scarlet Letter and Wuthering Heights if I read them again today, and honestly, I loathed them so much that I’ve no desire to reread them ever. 

What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book? I’ve only ever found writing in the margins of books, never items. 

Used or brand new? Used. I like new books, too, but I love used bookstores. 

Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses? Eh. He’s a good writer but not my cup of tea, I think. 

Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book? Maybe Fight Club. Maybe. 

Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid? Something Wicked This Way Comes. Christ, that movie made me actually hate the book, so way to go, Ray Bradbury. 

Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question? The Night Circus, actually? I dunno. 

Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take? I’m not sure. Even when I get recs I check to see if I actually think I’ll enjoy it or not, or if it’s something I would read anyway. I’m more likely to take recs from friends, I think, but it depends - depends on the person but also their track record with recs.

I’ll tag @jadeddiva and @swallowedsong and @ohmyohpioneer and @artielu and @this-too-too-sullied-flesh? And anyone else who wants to play. 

[noorhasanme]

Ode to my first one way ticket and the journey that will follow.

I have found that the rigid structure that life demands we adhere to from age 0 through 22 is inversely proportional to the disorienting and unclear freedom that follows.

There is no blueprint for life after college. Since wrapping up my undergraduate experience at Northwestern three years ago, I’ve watched with curiosity as my peers, some methodologically and others more sporadically, have made different decisions. Some took fellowships, others took corporate jobs, many went on to graduate or professional school, and a handful traveled. 

The plan in my head had always been to go to law school immediately after, but I put this journey on hold while I got some valuable work experience, paid off my undergraduate loans, adopted a healthy lifestyle, and adjusted to a new, quiet routine that didn’t ask anything of me after 5 p.m.

For the first time in my life, I actually found comfort in my indecisiveness and the possibilities that exist when the immediate future is fixed and predictable and the long-term future is malleable and uncertain. 

This experience has made my dreams bolder, my vision more open, and most importantly, challenged me to set out and achieve goals proactively rather than as a knee-jerk reaction to being in a professional or even personal rut. 

As I look back on this time, I found these notions instrumental:

Hit pause and trust what happens after.

When I was unsure of something professionally or personally, I hit pause and let go of the need to decide or make a move on something - like applying for a new job or quitting a social/professional organization. Taking a break helped give me clarity. Inadvertently, it also reminded me of what mattered most. I thought I would be overcome with guilt for quitting something, but I was pleasantly surprised to mostly just feel relieved and recharged.

If a 40 hour workweek leaves you wanting more, invest your extra time/energy into something you care about.

For me, this was non-profit, volunteering and social justice work. I also took on a brief freelance writing stint and did a part time paid tutoring gig for the ACT/SAT and high school academic subjects. This helped me keep my work ethic and time management ability sharp. 

If you’re good at learning from your own mistakes, challenge yourself to learn from other people’s mistakes and experiences.

Working in a corporate setting exposed me to partnering with people from very different generational backgrounds than my own and it was curious to observe and make note of their life satisfaction, trajectory, etc. If you get to know people and how they’ve navigated decisions professionally, you may come to learn about their regrets or other pieces of wisdom that could help you arrive at a decision you want to make. I find other people’s choices fascinating and sometimes, very influential and resourceful as I navigate making choices of my own.

I stopped comparing myself to other people and I discouraged other people from comparing themselves to me.

The only experience I have control over is my own. And even then, there are some things I can’t control. When it comes to big professional and personal decisions, my conditions differ from others in so many ways - financially, socially, culturally, emotionally, and practically. Seeing where other people are working, traveling, or going back to school can make you start to question if you should be doing something differently and that stress is worthless. I also found that people often reached out to me for professional advice and assumed that our situations or goals were similar. I knew someone who recently got married who was inspired by my interest in law and thought he may want to pursue it. After discussing it further with him, he realized that from a financial and personal standpoint, it was not the right time nor the right career path based on what him and his wife were trying to decide. What’s right for you is right for you and what’s right for me is right for me. 

As I look ahead at law school and my career, I have a deep gratitude and respect for the process this has been. If it weren’t for my grandmother’s hustle and my mom’s sacrifice, I wouldn’t have ever had the courage or confidence to make it this far. I have nothing but unabashed admiration for what they have achieved for themselves and for our family in the U.S., and by extension, for me.

Since buying my first one way ticket, I’ve had all kinds of feelings. A few months ago, I panicked and wondered if I had made a mistake by leaving a very solid company to go back to school. Several weeks later, I went on a Pinterest marathon and excitedly imagined how I would decorate my first ever studio apartment. Mostly, I binge-watched Silicon Valley and set out to complete a Chicago bucket list that consisted primarily of eating things.

When my mom put things into perspective, I finally found some ease. “Noor, if we could make it across the Atlantic and call a new country with unfamiliar cuisine, a confusing language, and a different culture home, you’ll move from Chicago to California just fine.”

Here we go.

[nicosroom]

2017: habits, goals, achievements

Professionally, this is a big year for me. I’ll wrap up my qualifying exams this Spring and then over the summer get going on my dissertation prospectus. And by August, for the 2017-18 academic year, I’ll be on a fellowship; ideally, making significant progress on my dissertation. 

With all that in mind, I think I’ll keep the rest of my life fairly simple in 2017. Or, as simple as it can be. 

Goals:

My 52 List.

Habits:

Color for 15 minutes before bed - free of electronic devices 

Health and wellness:

Be responsible with my caffeine sensitivity. In 2011, my doctor weaned me off the iron supplements I was taking for anemia. In the first few days, I noticed I was extra jittery whenever I drank coffee (plain coffee from the dining hall, with a splash of soymilk). That year I switched to tea, and relegated coffee to a once in a while treat. As of 2015, I was drinking decaf coffee, and still only seldomly. 2015 is also when I read that hormonal contraceptives can slow down the way your body metabolizes caffeine. I love the smell and the taste of coffee, so I can’t bring myself to to quit altogether. I don’t find myself craving cups of tea at all times of day, so coffee is certainly my weak spot. Decaf coffee still has about 3% caffeine. A lot of people brush it off (how many times have I heard, “caffeine doesn’t effect me”?), but I know that even the smallest hints of caffeine (from an afternoon decaf latte or an evening bite of dark chocolate) will keep me awake. In 2017, I want to be more conscientious and responsible about my caffeine intake. 

Travel:

February: Los Angeles (for Critical Mixed Race Studies conference + visiting my sister/aunt/Lola)

March: 

Cleveland (visit Tiffany w/ Jen + Joe) 

home (visit Mom)

May: 

Avon Lake, Oh (Alex + Rachel’s wedding) 

Kenyon  (5 year reunion)

November:

Chicago for American Studies Association

TBD: 

Phoenix (visit David)

Columbia, MO/St. Louis (dissertation accountability w/ Ai Binh)

Change:

Since I won’t be teaching in Oxford during fellowship year, this summer I plan to move to Cincinnati or Hamilton or Fairfield for a change of scenery. I guess I could go just about anywhere, but I chose Cincinnati for mostly practical reasons: it’s an affordable city at my stipend level; of places, I have the highest concentration of friends in this area; I’ll be near Miami in case I need the resources (Read: library) and so I can meet with my advisor/committee; it’s a city I’ve liked and that I want to spend more time with it. It’ll be a really new feeling, though. Other than growing up in Toledo, I’ve only actually lived in small, vaguely rural college towns. But, it’s (ideally) only for a year and now seems as good a time as any to try that out. 

It’s hard to believe its been four years since I was last single. So this year, I’ll have to navigate the world of dating once again. I have never used a dating app before, but you’ll notice it’s on the goals list. I’m not against the apps, I just haven’t had to use them before - Kenyon was its own awkward network of flirtations, hookups, and longterm couples; I started to date Tony just a couple months after I moved to Oxford, and then suddenly it was four years later. Hand-in-hand with moving to Cincinnati, dating in a real-life (not a school-related) setting will be an interesting experiment. I probably won’t start for a few more months, but I have started joining various groups with the Meet Up app so I can start practicing networking in the 21st century. 

I’m a person first. The latter half of 2016, and especially the fall semester, were tough. As I’ve written elsewhere, being out of course work got me stuck in a place where I always felt I had too much time on my hands and was not doing enough, even as I was hitting my self-imposed productivity marks each day. In the few weeks since my advisor gave me bit of a wake up call on that, I’ve felt much, much better mentally, emotionally, relationally, physically. But, letting go of being super busy and thriving on adrenaline is also hard. This year, I have to prioritize taking care of myself holistically over “doing it all” every single day, hopefully arriving at some place where that feels natural and normal rather than new and foreign. 

[mamajotes-blog]

I am more than a mom

I feel like I get easily labeled as “just a mom” (i cant even get into that little statement atm), but I am much more than a mother. I had a life before they existed that I continue to live today. Yes, most of my days revolve around mothering just as most of my husband’s days revolve around being a doctor etc but we all know he’s more than that right?

I want to encourage my mamas out there to share their stories. Tell me how you’re more than a mom because I know you are! Use the hashtag #morethanamom with your post!

Here are some facts about me you may not know!

-->I have a bachelors and masters in creative writing because writing is my true passion that I ignore on a daily basis (but I’m writing right now… duh!

-->I was a stand up comic for two years in LA and performed at the Hollywood Improv, The Comedy Store, Haha Cafe, Flappers and several other places. My longest set was 20 minutes when I opened for a popular local comedian. 

-->I graduated high school in 3 years when I was 16 and college by the time I was 20.

-->I recently learned how to sew and it quickly became my favorite hobby, but I also knit and crochet. 

-->I love to cook and be creative in the kitchen as well. Love experimenting.

-->I’m a wino, but also love me a good stout

-->I didn’t really get into skin care until a couple years ago when I started to age =P

-->I backpacked through Europe with my best friend summer of 2013 and made some amazing friends!

-->I’ve lived in LA, NY, Baltimore and Chicago

-->I was trained in the Indian classical dance, Kathak, which I really want to get back into soon! I also was on the drill team in elementary and junior high and color guard at the start of high school. Then on the bhangra team in college!!! I love dancing!

-->I played badminton in high school and was on the swim & water polo team

-->I'm from West Covina, California but also lived in Hollywood, Korea Town, Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Inglewood and Marina Del Rey.

-->I can pretty much fix anything, my husband calls me his handy man

-->I wrote a full length play and workshopped it at East West Players, where it was read in front of an audience by some pretty cool actors.

-->I worked at a vineyard in Baltimore, Maryland — best experience ever!

-->I nearly became a doctor. I almost went straight to the Caribbean after high school, but then went to UCR pre med. I was even part of the medical scholars program, but I knew it wasn’t meant for me. 

-->I was an Uber driver for one day in Baltimore

--> I have my own in-home/online tutoring business (started in Beverly Hills when I was 21) that I took a little break from, but I’m back! I was actually the bread winner while my husband was in residency and fellowship <3

-->I was also a medical clinic manager, men’s warehouse sale’s associate, barista, bartender, sandwich maker and assistant to talent manager.

-->I love yoga and trying to incorporate it into my daily life whenever I can.

-->My brothers are my best friends (I have two of them and they are awesome)

-->I love country music and line dancing in the cowboy boots

-->I’m a self care advocate!

-->I love math and will literally take a math test for fun. I also really enjoy chemistry and science in general

-->Jeopardy is one of my fave shows to watch. Wheel of Fortune a close second.

-->I am a major book worm, but watch my fair share of movies too

-->I don’t do cardio 

-->I practice Buddhism and mindfulness on a daily basis

-->I have a deal with Hubby that I don’t do snow! So I don’t clean it, shovel it or really play with it. #LA 

-->I am a stay at home mom, but I still hustle and I’m damn proud of it. 

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Meet Dr. Whitehouse: Historical Endo Extraordinaire

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/meet-dr-whitehouse-historical-endo-extraordinaire/

Meet Dr. Whitehouse: Historical Endo Extraordinaire

It's not often you get to meet someone who actually worked directly with Dr. Elliott Joslin, "the father of diabetes care," back in the day. But lucky for us, fellow D-blogger and journalist Mike Hoskins lives in Indiana, very near the Eli Lilly HQ and a gentleman who's made an incredible impact on treating diabetes over the past 74 years. Don't miss his (somewhat lengthy) historical perspective today:

Special to the 'Mine by Michael Hoskins

You might call him an Endo for the Ages, someone who connects the past to the present and moves us toward the future in the world of diabetes.

For Dr. Fred W. Whitehouse, his first encounter with diabetes came at the age of 12, when his 8-year-broth

er was diagnosed during a family car trip from Arizona and California. This was long before the idea of adding "Dr." to the front of his name was even on the mind -- before a career in diabetes, and before he'd find a place in the diabetes history books as an endocrinologist who's been at the forefront of D-care for more than a half-century.

Now 85, Dr. Whitehouse practices three days a week at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

He took some time recently for a chat with us at the 'Mine, and our 90-minute discussion hit on just about every topic in the diabetes world, from his own family connections, to his humble medical career beginnings at the Joslin Clinic — working directly with the legendary Dr. Joslin himself! — to the evolution in care and research he's observed and helped shepherd in through the decades, his American Diabetes Association presidency, and even D-Camp, the Diabetes Online Community and his thoughts on how close we are to a cure. I'll do my best to summarize his exceptional journey here for you:

In fact, his journey unofficially began in August 1938 on that summer drive with his family, when his younger brother Johnny suddenly needed frequent stops to use the bathroom. Mom knew it was diabetes because one of her cousins had been diagnosed young and died in 1919 after slipping into a coma in Connecticut while on the way to see a "famous doctor" in Boston. Thankfully, Whitehouse's own brother's diagnosis came more than a decade after insulin's discovery, and a young Fred was determined to help take care of him.

"I was the resident chemist in our family because I had an amateur chemistry set and would boil the urine, trying to get the color blue because that meant no more sugar in the urine," he said. "That was my initiation into diabetes."

But then, years went by and he didn't think about diabetes as a career-influencer. Instead, he wanted to go into obstetrics. "There's nothing more delightful than delivering babies," he says. But Whitehouse soon found himself at Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago, where Dr. Rollin Woodyatt was the leading physician for patients with diabetes, who most docs of those days weren't comfortable caring for. His own days caring for his brother Johnny came back, and his destiny seemed to fall into place.

After a stint as a Navy flight surgeon in the Korean War following his residency in Detroit, Whitehouse took a fellowship in Boston, MA, at the New England Deaconess Hospital — which shared space at 84 Bay Street with the Joslin Clinic at the time, about three miles from the site Joslin would later make its home. It was there that Whitehouse spent 15 months, working not only with a lineup of trailblazers from diabetes history but Dr. Eliott P. Joslin himself.

At the time because of his age (mid-80s), Dr. Joslin and spent most of his time in his office, but Whitehouse and the others would accompany him on the rounds when Joslin did see patients. Whitehouse recalls talking with Dr. Joslin about his entry into the D-field in the late 1800s, how his aunt had diabetes and motivated him to focus his medical career on the condition. And thank goodness he did!

"The old gentleman was still hale and hearty, and worked every day at the hospital doing his rounds every Saturday morning starting at 8 a.m. He really was a remarkable man," Whitehouse says of the legendary Joslin.

Whitehouse actually practiced with the "Big Four" of the time — Drs. Joslin and Howard F. Root who administered the first insulin delivery in the '20s, Priscilla White who revolutionized pregnancy and diabetes care, and Dr. Alexander Marble who focused on DKA and research. Later, Drs. Robert F. Bradley and Leo P.Krall and Joslin's son Allen joined the historical group that Whitehouse witnessed firsthand.

"Really, the strength of Joslin was the distinguished group he accrued who were high-quality, experienced, and specialized people in diabetes, not just some physicians who saw it on the side," Whitehouse says. "That team approach, the idea of focusing on high control of treatment, was what Joslin became known for. There were no clinical trials then and the thought was that complications may be hereditary, but that it could be controlled by intense care. But that wasn't proven by data for almost 40 years."

Back then, about three decades before home blood meters came onto the scene, it typically took about an hour to take a BG test in a clinic. At Joslin, Whitehouse said one could get that done in as quickly as 30 minutes. In those days, the color blue (dark blue, to be exact) was the goal because it suggested "normal blood sugar" and no glucose in the urine. He laughs now how many in the diabetes community advocate for the color blue and the International Diabetes Federation's Blue Circle, since it has a significant part in the pages of diabetes history!

Whitehouse left Joslin in September 1955 and went to work at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, where he remains today. He served more than 30 years as chief of the Endocrinology Diabetes Bone Mineral Disorders Division from 1962 to 1995, and has long been regarded as one of the nation's leaders in the field of diabetes. He served as ADA president in 1978-79, and during his presidency the concept of ADA professional section councils — subgroups of members focusing on such specialties such as foot care, youth, pregnancy or complications. His honors include: the Banting Medal, Outstanding Clinician Award and Outstanding Physician Educator Award from the American Diabetes Association, and the Master Physician distinction from the American College of Physicians. The Henry Ford endocrinology division website says this about him: "Over the course of 60 years, Dr. Whitehouse has helped change the face of diabetes management and treatment." The Detroit hospital has even named a distinguished service award after Dr. Whitehouse!

He was involved in testing human insulin in the late 1970s, and along with one of his colleagues in Detroit, treated the patient who was the second-ever person to take human insulin (the first was in Kansas). He also treated some of the earliest patients ever treated with insulin who would utilize new tools such as the first-ever blood meters and insulin pumps, as well as those who had transplants of various natures. The first patient with diabetes to receive a transplanted kidney at Henry Ford Hospital did so on Oct. 31, 1974, and he says it was a great success — that woman lived a full life for 14 years before succumbing to a massive heart attack.

One of his other D-patients was Elizabeth Hughes Gossett, diagnosed at age 11 in 1919 and one of the first to ever receive insulin from Dr. Fredrick Banting in 1922. She married William T. Gossett, who was general counsel for Ford Motor Company and lived in southeast Michigan. Before her death from pneumonia in 1981 at the age of 73 (totaling an estimated 42,000 insulin shots before her death), she saw Dr. Whitehouse but actually kept her health and diabetes a secret from the world. She was a "closet diabetic," Whitehouse says.

That was perhaps the way then, but now with the advent of the Internet and the diabetes online community, PWDs tend to be more enthusiastic about sharing their stories and are looking to connect. Whitehouse thinks support and mental health is important, and though he's not sure if there's enough follow-up data to judge the clinical significance of something like the diabetes online community, he does think it sounds like a positive influence — much like diabetes camps.

"There are far less closet diabetics than there used to be, and people are more open. That's a good thing because you can learn from others who are going through similar experiences."

(DBMine: EXACTLY!)

Whitehouse was also one of the initial endos participating in the Diabetes Control and Complications Trials (DCCT) in the 1980s — government-funded clinical trials that led to the proof that better managed diabetes could delay or even eliminate complications. Whitehouse says not everyone in the medical field supported that theory or thought the study was worthwhile. Those naysayers got a big "I told you so" years later when the A1c became the standard to gauge a person's management.

"They thought the question had been answered in their own mind and they didn't want to be bothered," he said. "But we had to be able to prove this with science and data for everyone, rather than it being one doctor from one or two places saying this was their opinion. The time for scientific proof had come."

Looking back, Whitehouse describes the DCCT as the most remarkable study ever supported by the NIH, which is ongoing and now in its 30th year. (See the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) study that has continued following most of the original DCCT participants).

Whitehouse says he's amazed to have witnessed all the technological and daily care changes that have happened since he began in 1955, and that patients and physicians have much more basic knowledge about management. He believes the next leap forward will be just as amazing — prevention of type 1 and helping type 2s avoid complications with better management.

As far as moving toward a cure, Whitehouse has some thoughts on that, too.

"I think prevention of type 1 diabetes will come first," he said. "Then, better control of daily swings in blood glucose and better control over low blood sugar spells. Perhaps third will be better control of overweight and obesity. Last in my view will come the 'cure of the insulin-dependent diabetic person.' This will require stem cells from the diabetic's own tissues developing into beta cells, then preventing these 'personal' beta cells from being killed off as they initially were. This will be the crowning achievement. That's all coming, but I think diabetes will be around for a spell."

Unfortunately, that seems pretty clear. But we hope there'll be new Dr. Whitehouses in each generation, to help us take leaps forward in research and improving D-care.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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