My Type 1 Diabetes Awakening Journey

In this week’s episode of Beyond the Brand, I’m taking you somewhere a little more personal—into the story of my nearly 10-year journey with Type 1 diabetes. After a beautiful, low-stress Thanksgiving (a rare win for the holiday season!), I felt called to share the truth behind living with a condition that affects every single part of my day-to-day life.

I open up about the moment everything changed back in 2015—from an innocent finger-prick “for fun” to a terrifying blood sugar of 417, to a misdiagnosis, months of feeling sick, and ultimately landing in ICU with diabetic ketoacidosis. I talk through the confusion, the fear, the frustration with the healthcare system, and the very real learning curve of being thrown into a world of meters, injections, insulin calculations, and medical contradictions.

But I also share the empowerment that came with it.

You’ll hear how becoming my own advocate reshaped everything—from the medications I chose not to take, to the nontraditional care team I built piece by piece, to the role this diagnosis played in launching EverythingBrevard.com, the Unwrap the Best You Women’s Health & Wellness Symposium, and the work I now do with passion and purpose.

Inside this episode, we explore:
 ✨ What really distinguishes Type 1 from Type 2 diabetes
 ✨ How 200–300 daily micro-decisions shape the life of a Type 1 diabetic
 ✨ The emotional journey of misdiagnosis, advocacy, and “starting over” at 49
 ✨ Why I ditched technology and went back to manual blood sugar management
 ✨ How DNA, lifestyle, and intuition play into long-term wellness
 ✨ The importance of building your care team before you think you need one
✨ Why sharing your story invites others to share theirs—and creates true connection

More than anything, this episode is about choosing empowerment over fear. It’s about asking questions, trusting your instincts, and remembering that wellness is not a destination—it’s a lifelong journey of learning, unlearning, curiosity, and courage.

If something in this episode resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you. Take a screenshot, share it to your stories, and tag me @tracystrader so I can connect with you personally.

Thanks for being here, friend. Let’s continue going beyond the brand—together.

Transcript

0:02

Hey friend, I'm Tracy Strader, and welcome to Beyond the Brand. I'm all about real conversations, fresh perspectives, and those little aha moments that help us grow in business or life. Over the years, I've built a multi six figure online community by doing one simple thing. Bringing people together through open, honest storytelling. I've been coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs for nearly three decades. My passion is helping others find direction, balance, and healing, and creating spaces where people feel safe enough to just be real. Each week, I'll sit down with entrepreneurs, community leaders. And everyday dreamers who are out there living boldly and inspiring others to do the same. My personal stories, business knowledge, and life experiences will be woven into this podcast as well. So grab your coffee, get comfy, and let's go beyond the brand together. Welcome back. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends. I know that mine was very fulfilling and rewarding, and I actually feel for the first time, everything went so smoothly and the stress. Was pretty much non-existent and that felt really good to me. I loved it. Today I wanna talk to you about my type one diabetic journey, and what brings me to this topic is that during this time of year, I find it really challenging to navigate. Living life with Type one diabetes, and it's important for you to know some of the differences because type one diabetes is way different than type two. Type one diabetes is not caused by diet or lifestyle, and there is no cure. Basically, my pancreas produces zero insulin. Type one diabetes can be diagnosed at any age, and normally you'll find that the diagnosis comes in adolescence. It can even come in infancy. I don't even know what that would be like to have a child with type one diabetes. It's hard enough as an adult. But to have a child that has it I'm not sure what that would be like. Here's a little fun fact people with type one diabetes on average make two to 300 decisions every day. Now imagine if you were a parent of a child with type one diabetes. I just think that would be crazy to navigate let's start with how this all came about. In the summer of 2015, my husband was feeling really tired and he had all of these crazy things going on. He went to the doctor and he got diagnosed as a type two diabetic one day in the fall. My dad was visiting and we were all having coffee, and I decided that for kegs I was gonna test my blood sugar. My blood sugar came back at 417, which is extremely high. Now I thought, oh, okay. I'd already had coffee and I love French vanilla coffee creamer, but I thought if this is going on inside of my body, I gotta take some quick action. So I immediately cut out all the obvious stuff like the coffee, creamer, bread, rice anything sweet. I cut all of that out. And made an appointment with my husband's doctor. And went to the doctor and it was an early morning appointment and he tested my blood sugar and it was 2 36 that morning and I'd had no coffee or anything and he said, yes, you are definitely a type two diabetic. He gave me a prescription of metformin and a prescription of glymeperide, and he said, take this, and then I would like for you to go get your labs done. So he also gave me a lab order, so I got the scripts filled, started taking the medicine. Went, got the labs done and went back seven days later. And during that seven day period of time, I was feeling horrible. Horrible, super sick. I felt like the medicine wasn't agreeing and I told him that. I said, doc, I just don't think this is. The medicine for me. I don't know what's going on, but it is not good. And he said here's the thing. He said, you have diabetes and my job is to keep you off of insulin. So I want you to suck it up. Take the medicine, you'll probably lose some weight and that won't be a bad thing. And I'll check back with you. Let's get together in 90 days. I think he said. That was in December of 2015. In January of 2016, my husband and I went on a ski trip out to Colorado. We were in Telluride having a good old time, and one morning I woke up and I. I was so sick, and I was dehydrated. I was drinking water by the pitcher full and I told my husband, I said, I feel like my body's poisoned. I'm not taking this medicine anymore. I don't know what's going on. So we finished our trip, we got home and it was my granddaughter's birthday party. And so that weekend we went to Disney and then we had a party and lots of friends came over. And I remember my friend Brittany saying, wow, you look so good. You've lost so much weight. But she said, you don't look well, you look sick. And I said, yeah, I am not feeling good. And I was home for five days from the vacation and I had a lot of stress and anxiety around going to the doctor 'cause I didn't wanna go back to the doctor. Who had put me on the medicine and one of my coworkers said, why don't you go to. Dairy Road Urgent Care. And I said, okay, I like the sounds of that. So I go into urgent care. They rule out all the basic things like I didn't have pneumonia, no ear infections. No, not like all the basic things were normal. And so they did some lab work and they said to me, call the doctor in the morning. And he's probably gonna wanna see you, so just give him a call and you can come in and go over all the labs. The next day comes around and before I could call them, they called me and said, Hey, the doc is in. He'd like for you to be here. And oh, by the way, can your husband come? And why don't you have him drive? And I was like, that's weird. And so Wendell and I got in the car and we went to the urgent care and, or not the urgent care, but the doctor's office, which is right next to the urgent care and. They put us in a room. The doctor opened the door and he's oh yeah. He said, I can smell the sweetness of your breath. He said, you have what we call DKA, which is diabetic ketoacidosis. I was like, what? Basically? All of my blood chemistry was completely thrown off and he admitted me to ICU. I was in ICU for three days, and that's when they determined that I was actually a type one diabetic, not a type two diabetic. So I've been on that journey now, this coming January will be 10 years and the first year. That I had the diagnosis, I was navigating a lot of things. And probably the biggest thing that I navigated was the healthcare system and learning how to be an advocate for myself because immediately they wanted me on cholesterol medication, blood pressure medication. Two different kinds of insulin and they just kept wanting to push the drugs. And I was like, I am not drinking this Kool-Aid. I'm not doing this. And I remember being sent home from the hospital with insulin and the insulin came in vials and at the hospital they. Expected me to know what to do. I'm, I said, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to do this, given myself injections. That was weird. Drawing the insulin into a needle from the vial that was all new. And anyways, they said, would you like the pharmacy to fill your prescriptions here? So I said, yes. And I said, that would make it so much easier. It was until it wasn't. It was convenient that they filled it at the hospital, but when I got home and decided I was going to eat food and figuring out how much insulin to take, I opened the pharmacy bag. I had the insulin and no needles or anything to withdraw it. So I go to Walgreens thinking, oh, it'll be easy enough to get the needles. And they're like, no, you have to have a prescription for them. And I'm like, I just got out of the hospital. I'm diagnosed as a type one diabetic. What do you mean? I need you give these out to drug addicts for free and I need a prescription. This is crazy. I was in tears, so frustrated. Luckily the pharmacist just gave me a box of needles and then I had to go to the doctor and, get all of that stuff figured out. But it was like that with everything. I remember asking my endocrinologist if she could give me a referral to take a diabetic education training class And she said, Tracy, I don't want them to unteach you. Everything that I taught you, I'm like, what did you teach me? I don't know. Like you, I know nothing. Turns out when I went to the diabetic education class, everything was so rudimentary in that class that I did know more than they knew and just. Being a diabetic a couple of weeks, I knew so much more than what the educators were teaching and I don't remember the exact point at which. I decided that my journey was gonna be different in the sense that I was going to use my situation that I was in to inspire and empower others to also advocate for themselves. And that is how the everything brevard.com magazine came about. How the. Unwrap the best you Women's Health and Wellness Symposium came about, and it's just been wonderful for me to actually use my voice to share the struggles, share the journey, share the joy, because there's been a lot of joy in this journey as well. I remember thinking I had a choice. I could become a victim and have a really bad attitude, and woe is me, and why is this happening to me? Or I could lean into it and believe that there is a greater purpose for me having this diagnosis and learn, and that's the path that I chose. Everything impacts your blood, sugar, sleep, hydration, the food you eat, exercise. It all has an impact. I've often said I could eat the same food at the same time for seven days, go to bed at the same time, get up at the same time, and I would have different numbers every single time. There's nothing consistent about managing your blood sugar. Early on in my diagnosis, I used an insulin pump. I had a continuous glucose monitor, and I found that I had the best control over my blood sugars. When I had to do things manually checking my blood sugar, not relying on technology. And although it was a little bit cumbersome in the sense of, being out at dinner and having to get your glucco around and check your blood sugar and go to the bathroom and take your insulin in that sense. It was awkward, but overall, I've managed to keep my numbers in line because I have to be more present in my day-to-day life. Is it stressful sometimes, but I've gotten used to it over the years and I'm inspired by the fact that I'm doing well. Navigating this diagnosis as a type one diabetic and keeping my A1C in check and doing all of my annual benchmark testing, like getting my eyes checked and bone density scans and calcium scores. I'm not over here. I'm trying to die or anything. But the doctors, and I know we need them. They play a very important role in our life, but they put so much fear in you about. The complications that can arise from diabetes and rightfully we should be afraid of heart attacks and strokes and neuropathy and amputations. Like I don't want any of those things to happen. But if you don't have any of the symptoms, why do you have to be on the medication for the rest of your life if you can manage and make sure that you have regular testing and be present in your life? My example is perfect. For 10 years they've wanted me on cholesterol medicine. But I don't need it. When we checked all of the I had a, what do they call it, an arterial ultrasound. The blood flows good. I don't have any blockages or anything like that. We also did this calcium score test and. It came back and said I had less than a 3% chance of having some kind of cardiac episode. So the doctor said, okay, we'll just keep monitoring then. But if I'd have said yes 10 years ago to cholesterol medicine, I would still be on it for the rest of my life and probably never be able to get off of it. So I've just been managing this from the sense of. You gotta ask a lot of questions. You've got to be knowledgeable about what's going on and develop your care team. It took me quite a while to put my care team together, but I've got a primary care physician. I've got a functional medicine doctor, I've got an endocrinologist. I have a personal trainer. I have a mindset coach and I have a mental health counselor all who play an intricate role in keeping me well and navigating my life as a type one diabetic. If I had one piece of advice to share, it would be this, develop a care team early on in your life. I was 49 years old when I got my diagnosis, and other than having my annual mammogram pap smear tests. I never went to the doctor. Literally, I never went to the doctor. So when I had my, I was 27 when I had my last baby, so from 27 to 49, I had no benchmark testing done, no labs done. I just, I didn't. When I got this diagnosis at 49 is when I realized the importance of having those things done and educating yourself now before something happens. So you know the questions to ask. As women, there's a history of the things that women navigate in life, right? So we should be proactive and have those. Benchmark testing things done, and I think it would've. Probably given me some insight into my life, possibly. I don't know if I could have avoided it or not. I'd like to believe I can. I did have, a few years ago, I had a DNA test done called My Happy Genes, and when I went over the results of the test, the doctor told me. That Type one diabetes was always in my DNA and I think that the Metformin and the GLA Glide was the event that happened that turned that gene on. She told me that we, our DNA is our DNA and we can't change that, but we can change the expression of our DNA. So when I heard that, I thought, I wonder if I could possibly reverse this type one diabetes. So I haven't given up hope on that, and that's why I call this my wellness journey because I keep learning, I keep growing, I keep asking more questions and. I would like to encourage you to do the same thing with your life, no matter what your journey is. We've all got something, and what I found is the more that I talk about my journey. The more other people feel comfortable to share their stories and the journeys that they're on. And so I hope that this episode encourages you to be a champion of your own WellCare and ask more questions and just be on that path to living your best possible life. That's what I got for you this week. Thank you for joining me. If there is anything about this episode that resonated with you, please do me a favor and take a screenshot of this podcast and post it on your stories and tag me at Tracy Strader. I would love to connect with you. So thank you in advance and I appreciate you. I'll see you next week.