3°c Partly cloudy
11°c Light rain
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
What's diabetes GOT TO DO WITH IT?
'You girl' Mary Tyler Moore dismisses concern about Supreme Court nominee's health
WASHINGTON — "Do we ask people when they got their last colonoscopy?" the physician demands, his temperature rising.
"Would we ask those questions of a paraplegic? Would we ask those questions of a triple-amputee war veteran? We don’t ASK those questions anymore!"
The physician has just listened to his wife read a funny, poignant speech from a large-print teleprompter to an audience of business types, worshipful boomers, and Capitol pundits. The wife is 72, a little shaky, clearly not an ingénue, yet still full of spirit and fun. She's not wearing capri pants or a tam o'shanter, but she IS Mary Tyler Moore.
The topic of the speech -- and of the moment in Washington -- is Type 1 ("early-onset") diabetes, which afflicts Ms. Moore, one of the three Jonas Brothers, three million other North Americans, and Sonia Sotomayor, Barack Obama's no-surprise, no-nonsense nominee for the United States Supreme Court.
When Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearings begin in the Senate next month, this daughter of working-class New York City will be compelled to refute accusations from across the special-interest spectrum that she is an anti-white racist, a law-bending radical, a token Latina, an obdurate witch, a pro-choice baby-killer, or -- it's hard to tell from her record precisely where she stands on legal abortion -- a pro-life Papist. Partisans will parse her most obtuse decisions, trying to prick her composure, striving to gauge her political glucose.
It will be ugly, as it always is these days. The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee will dance the divorced, childless "New York-Rican" down the Yellow Brick Road of Diversity, and they will be opposed by the sniggering Simon Cowells of the irrelevant Republican rump. But what cannot be argued, in the Senate chamber or the doctor's office, is that Sonia Sotomayor's pancreas doesn't pump as a pancreas ought, and it hasn't for 45 of her 54 years.
Neither has Mary Tyler Moore's, since about 1970, when an examination following a miscarriage clocked her blood-sugar level at 750, when 110 is considered high. That was back when she was a role model for millions of young women, even though off-screen she was a three-pack smoker and drinking like a fish.
"They did not know how I was still alive," the actress says, seven Emmys later.
She tells us how she tried to hide the truth of her disease at first, her insistence on "not letting the world know that behind the smile that could turn it on was an independent woman dependent on several shots of insulin a day."
This allusion to her old theme song gets all of us in the audience of sufficient age to begin humming: "Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile...."
Snapping us back to reality, the international "Chairman" of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation calls Type 1 diabetes a "metabolic derangement." She warns that it carries "life-threatening and long-term life-limiting consequences." She lists blindness, heart disease, amputation, kidney complications and stroke as among the condition's grim bequests.
She notes that she was scheduled to speak to the same audience a year ago, but her "diabetes-limited eyesight" caused her to get tangled up with her pet schnauzer and she took a "not-so-graceful tumble" and broke her kneecap in three places. Sober (and married to her mother's cardiologist) for a quarter-century, and no longer as enslaved by Valium as she was by booze, Ms. Moore has had to give up driving and dancing, but not working.
Still, limited eyesight and potential amputation do not sound like a particularly comforting prognosis for a Supreme Court justice, especially when the American Diabetic Association admits on its own website that the risk of death among patients with Type 1 diabetes is double that of the general population.
"It is a difficult life," says Mary Tyler Moore. "Even after 40 years, it is a very difficult thing to live with."
But the governor of the State of New York is nearly sightless, and a triple-amputee from the Vietnam War was elected to the Senate from Georgia. And Mary Tyler Moore's (third) husband, Dr. S. Robert Levine, is adamant that Type 1 diabetes should not even be mentioned as the Senate weighs Sonia Sotomayor.
"This is an extraordinary individual with an extraordinary life story," he chides me, as if I were a ranking Republican. "Can't we just focus on that?"
I excuse myself and walk up to Mary Tyler Moore and ask the 72-year-old Brooklyn girl about the now-famous judge from up in the Bronx.
"What is important here is her knowledge of the Constitution," she says. "I've seen all stages of great people do great things."
Allen Abel is a Brooklyn-born Canadian writer and broadcaster based in Washington, D.C.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 31, 2009 A10
More Columnists
- Back to Top
- Return to Columnists
Poll
Proudly brought to you by:
Most Popular Columnists
- A life much too short won't be forgotten
- Penner's in a good place
- If it's on a stick, I'll eat it
- Sounds like he's still 'the baby'
- His life made our world a better place
- Bonds provide stability not offered by stock market
- Leaders refuse to give up on plan to improve ugly stretch of Route 90
- Nothing wrong with reliable Blue-print
- Nani bringing skills to Manitoba
- Strong growth in rural retail
- Leaders refuse to give up on plan to improve ugly stretch of Route 90
- Good things come in small packages
- Jets could be greatly affected by deal
- His life made our world a better place
- It's a 'disease,' the studies agree
- For Tim's mother, the issue is safety
- Shy, kind and soft-spoken -- with the power to infuriate
- Take a page from the European playbook
- Strong growth in rural retail
- Football owes players some medical answers
- If we build it, look out
- Common courtesy decreasingly common
- Leaders refuse to give up on plan to improve ugly stretch of Route 90
- Majumder surprisingly frank -- and funny -- in HBO special
- Empty inside
- Katz versus Ford
- Can't share a vision when no one asks
- Some can't afford humane thing to do
- 'A special kind of sad'
- Riding changes could make Green blue
- His life made our world a better place
- A life much too short won't be forgotten
- If it's on a stick, I'll eat it
- It's a 'disease,' the studies agree
- His life made our world a better place
- Strong growth in rural retail
- English language rules the world
- Long haul 'family' Every employee is a spoke in the wheel at Bison Transport
- Gluten-free doesn't mean bad taste
- Shy, kind and soft-spoken -- with the power to infuriate
- Try cheese toast, caesar dressing at Like Hy's
- Where's our piece of N.D. oil boom?
- Rob Lowe shooting Casey Anthony story here
- It's a 'disease,' the studies agree
- The birth of a banana republic
- His life made our world a better place
- Rail firm looks to grain
- Play's the thing to catch conscience of Parliament
- Hope turns to dust in Niger
- The prince and the paper
- You've got a Target? We're in
- 'A special kind of sad'
- Common courtesy decreasingly common
Ads by Google
You can comment on most stories on winnipegfreepress.com. You can also agree or disagree with other comments. All you need to do is register and/or login and you can join the conversation and give your feedback.
The Winnipeg Free Press does not necessarily endorse any of the views posted. By submitting your comment, you agree to our Terms and Conditions. These terms were revised effective April 16, 2010; View the changes. New to commenting? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.