Michael Micone, a sophomore nutrition major at the University of Nevada, Reno, aspires to become a guide for people who have been diagnosed with diabetes. As someone who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 12 years old, he finds it important that people are well-educated in the matter. On Jan. 28, I had the opportunity to sit down and speak with him on his personal experience with the disease and his plan to aid in the effort against it.
Below is the full interview with Micone with the full transcript.
Nevada Sagebrush: Michael, why did you initially choose the University of Nevada, Reno?
Michael Micone: I decided to go to the University of Nevada to study nutritional sciences, albeit my first choice was engineering, but I did switch because that was boring.
NS: So, you said you were an engineering major at first when you first came to UNR. What chose you to become an engineering major at first?
Micone: I think the most appealing aspect to being an engineering major for many people– even some of my close friends have mentioned this, of course– is the pay and the application to the real-world environment in terms of career choice. It’s very versatile. You can legitimately point in any direction, and I guarantee you there’s going to be a company that will probably hire you in some way, shape or form. And that was obviously very appealing to me. I mean, who doesn’t like money, to be entirely honest? And it’s also just, like, a very nice major to have. It’s filled with mathematics,complex physics and engineering. It’s just a nice source of knowledge, and it also teaches you ways to think and problem solve in a very practical way. And that was the main reason why I was attracted to that major to begin with. The money’s great, of course, but I also liked how it could teach you to problem solve more effectively, real-life skills.
NS: What led you to change your major, then?
Micone: Well, after my first semester of taking engineering, I thought it was very interesting, and I did see myself doing it like, being like I said, before I could trooper it out and take it through, but I wasn’t passionate about it. And after my first semester, you know, getting familiar with how college works and the resources that are presented and who I wanted to be in my life, I decided to make a decision to switch my major towards an area where I’m more passionate. Because you can be interested in something but you can also be passionate about something, like engineering is very interesting. You can just talk about engineering, but when you’re passionate about something, it’s something that you can go on for hours, like, you have to ask yourself this question: what is something that I can genuinely talk about forever– something that I can just go on and on and on about? Right? And for me, that was dieting and nutrition and just overall health. I’m very passionate about health. I’m very passionate about biology and chemistry, how the body works, and it also ties into the brain and how people think. I think that’s something that I can have a conversation with anyone and talk about for hours.
Micone: I already have a really good background in that via practice and experience, which also ties into my Type 1 diabetes, because it’s sort of forced. It forces you to either adopt this new lifestyle or literally suffer. That is basically the ultimatum Type 1 diabetes gives you. And I felt like I could use this knowledge and my discipline in new nutrition as a career. And plus, it’s something I’m super passionate about, not just interested, but passionate. And so that’s why I chose nutritional sciences as my major.
NS: Could you talk a little bit about what life was like before you were diagnosed?
Micone: That’s a great question, because I feel personally for that question, not many people, especially now in my life, don’t really know me before college and even high school to some degree. So many people have never met me before I had diabetes, and before I had diabetes, I would say I was a pretty standard, traditional American kid. I used to play a lot outside. I just eat a lot of junk food. But, like, any kid does this, you know, like I would play foursquare, kickball, football, soccer… I went to school. I went on my bike, played video games and, you know, just the normal, not a care in the world.
NS: So, then when you got diagnosed, what was the very first thing you thought when you got diagnosed?
Micone: If I’m being entirely honest, I was 12, and I didn’t know much about diabetes. I don’t know, this might be very niche, but there’s this stupid video that came out years ago, this guy saying diabetes in a funny way. He goes, like, “diabetes” or whatever, and that’s the first thing that came to mind because I knew nothing about it. I just knew that it was a thing this old guy on YouTube said in a really funny way. That’s literally all I knew about the disease. And then I decided to spend more time, you know, researching it on YouTube and various government sources and all that, and actually took time to learn more about the disease. The worst thing I ever had as a kid was I got sick every now and then, like any other kid, but in terms of health, I was very regular, you know– just normal, I should say. And when I got diabetes, that really changed the trajectory of my life forever.
NS: How did people treat you after they found out?
Micone: I think people don’t see diabetes as a characteristic of me. I think when people first found out, they saw [it] more as like a joke; they’re like, “oh, this kid, diabetic kid”. And it was so annoying, because I would genuinely have a good thing to say in an argument, a good point, “like, oh well, you have diabetes”. That just countered everything, because in middle school, if you can make an excellent point, and then someone will make, like, a stupid “your mom” joke, or a stupid joke out of random. You lose that argument, you lose that entire conversation, and diabetes was like the ultimate trump card, and it was annoying, and people would make diabetic jokes a lot personally. I mean, as any normal person could tell, you know what the difference between just joking around and serious bullying is. I was never bullied for having diabetes. Fortunately, I never had that experience in my life, but the jokes on some days were almost constant.
NS: Diabetes definitely has a lot of educational points– a lot of lows, some highs. However, could you go a little into detail about what every day would look like, what a good day would look like, and then what a bad day would look like? Just a regular week for you.
Micone: I would say a good week for me is, I mean, to put it simply, everything is just going to plan, right? You count your carbohydrates, your sugar. You know when you’re going to exercise, you’re staying hydrated, you take the correct amount of insulin before and after you eat food, before you go to bed, and your blood sugar levels are not just consistent and good, but predictable. You can look at your phone, or your Dexcom, or glucometer or whatever you’re measuring your blood sugar [with], and you can think [to]yourself, “I know exactly what you’re going to do”, and that is a good week– just having that control, knowing that you are in control, knowing that the numbers are exactly what they should be based off your actions. And you feel good, like, “Wow, I’m actually managing this disease that kills people.
Micone: You know, it’s a huge problem. I mean, as many people know, it’s a huge problem in the United States right now; nearly 1/10 of Americans are diabetic right now,and they’re predominantly Type 2, but diabetic nonetheless, and they’re struggling. And it’s good to know that I am a very small percentage of those people that I’m handling this disease with great care, concentration and attention. I was looking for attention, and everything’s going well. And that’s generally [like] a good week. I feel confident about having this disease. I feel confident that I can take care of it, that it doesn’t affect me in a negative way. Because diabetes can’t affect you if you take care of it properly, right? You might as well live a normal life in terms of age, health and overall, you know, happiness.
Micone: A bad week… a bad week is the antithesis of what I said before, in which you feel like you don’t have control. Every shot of insulin either is way too strong in terms of dosage and makes your blood sugar crash, or it’s not enough and your blood sugar stays high. And you look [and] you’re following your glucometer, however you measure it, and you think, “I have no idea what you’re going to do. I have no idea where you’re gonna go. I don’t know how the rest of my day is gonna go, and I hate you for that.” You hate a number on your phone. It’s stupid. It’s really irritating, just because in that way, it feels like, like I said, how it’s the antithesis, it makes you feel like you don’t have control, and makes you feel like you “don’t got this”, that it’s controlling your life, and that you’re a part of the majority of diabetics that can’t control their diabetes. And it makes you feel less, and it makes you feel really sad, makes you feel angry, it makes you feel like that you are just terrible, and you feel terrible for that too, because everybody’s relying on you. You’re relying on yourself to take care of this disease, and to live a long, happy life, and you’re not doing it. And the term you have to learn with diabetes, that forces you this lesson every day, honestly, is that you have to be patient. Some of this stuff, no matter how many injections you take, no matter how much attention you give it, there is a degree of randomness to it, genuinely. I genuinely mean that. You know, these endocrinologists and scientists would be like, “Well, if you know, there’s always randomness due to human error and just some stuff you could have literally never foreseen.” And I experienced that quite regularly.
Micone: And so to summarize, a good week is when you have control. You know what your blood sugar is going to do, and you can foresee it, you can understand it, and you realize it doesn’t affect you, like how it works for other people, and that makes you gently feel good inside. And a bad week is when you feel like you’ve no control, and it makes you angry and sad, and it makes you feel unhealthy, and that, you know, sometimes, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much effort you put into this disease, sometimes it just kind of kicks your butt for no explicit reason, and it can be very infuriating. And like I said before, with the lesson that it teaches me every day, you gotta be patient with it, because sometimes it will. Just like a kid that cries all night, like a little baby that cries all night, you got to get up, you got to take care of it….[but] you can’t kill a disease, you can’t kill diabetes. It’s just something you just got to take care of, and it’s really infuriating.
NS: Being a nutrition major, could you go a little more into what you would want to do with your degree, especially given your personal history?
Micone: I predominantly would like to be a diabetes educator, because what I mentioned before is that there’s millions, [really] millions of diabetics in the United States that are either ill-equipped, [they’re] uneducated, or they simply don’t know how to manage this disease, you know. And I want to be one of those people that can help, that can show them the path, like how I discovered the path in treating this disease, because with certain healthcare providers like endocrinologists, {if you don’t know, an endocrinologist is a specialist that deals with diabetic patients”, an endocrinologist can tell you things and show you things that are genuinely helpful, but a lot of them don’t have the experience. They don’t. They don’t experience diabetes. They just read it off of a book or see it, but they don’t experience it.
NS: Why would you not want to go into that profession (Endocrinology)?
Micone: It’s hard, but with nutrition; nutrition is a huge portion of how your diabetes will be overall. You got to eat healthier foods in terms of healthy carbohydrates, complex carbohydrates, reduce your sugar, increase your intake of protein, have proper exercising, eat more vegetables. Fruits are kind of weird, because fruits are good for you, of course, but there’s also sugars. They’re natural sugars. And you know, I want to combine with the knowledge of nutrition, with the biology, chemistry and a more scientific background with my personal experience, because there’s millions of diabetics who go to healthcare professionals, but like I said, they don’t experience healthcare professionals. [They] Don’t experience diabetes. They just see it or read it. While I could be the bridge between those two; I could be somebody who actually lives it, has lived it, is living it, and will continue to live with it for the rest of my life, while also having the knowledge and the practice of medicine and science that can assist people in treating this disease. You know, because there’s always certain levels and perspectives on how to help someone, and a lot of it’s just what you read and what you see, and a lot of it is also experience, right? And I feel like I can provide both. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. I can provide both and I think that’s where I can come in.
To contact Michael Micone for more questions, he can be contacted via Instagram @m_j_m1987.
Alex Psak can be reached via email apsak@unr.edu or on Instagram @alexandrapsak
