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Category: Diabetes Done Right

Dear Jay Cutler – Letter to Jay

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Some of you have seen lately that I have been tweeting about Jay Cutler and my dream and goal of interviewing him.  So here is an open letter to Mr. Jay Cutler himself.

Dear Jay Cutler,

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.  It is not very often that somebody considers somebody else close to their own age a role model.  I can honestly say that I am one of those people.  I am truly inspired everyday by your actions of being an NFL quarterback with type 1 diabetes.  Why is this so inspirational to me?  Here’s a little background.

I played QB my entire life.  Had scholarship opportunities to Rutgers before a serious knee injury and ended up playing D-3 ball for a year.  During that year, towards the end of the season, I had began to feel extremely tired and drained of all energy.  I was also drinking a lot of water and gatorade and just didn’t have an appetite.  I started to see a big drop in the output I was getting on the field and in the gym.  Long story short, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes a few months later.

So, I understand playing QB with diabetes, but can’t understand doing it at such a high level of the NFL.  For the fact that I am a type 1 QB, and you are an NFL type 1 quarterback has intrigued me to have a goal of interviewing you since you were diagnosed.

I am a Jay Cutler fan, except when you play the Eagles because let’s face it, I’m from Philly and you know nothing comes between Philly and the Eagles.  I believe that the media judges and puts you out to be something you are not.

As “groupie” as this letter sounds, it is an honest letter coming from a guy who is inspired by your hard work ethic and what you do for the diabetes community.

So, I end this letter with, Jay Cutler, will you grant me an interview opportunity?

Thank you.

Chris Stocker

Medtronic Wins Another Customer Service Award

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

So a few months ago I wrote a post about Medtronic winning a customer service award from me because how well they handled my situation when my insulin pump was not working.  I was scared, clueless, and had no idea where to go to for help.  Medtronic was there to ship me a new pump the next day and I was ready to go.  And they even sent me a new Carelink, because I’m an idiot and threw mine away when I got a Mac because it didn’t work.

Anyway, I was trying to log into my Medtronic account online because I needed to re-order test my infusion sets and din’t feel like doing it on the phone because it takes too long.  Well, I couldn’t log in and I couldn’t reset my password because it kept saying that my username and e-mail did not match or exist.  I knew that was not the truth because I had my username saved.  I had to call in my order to Medtronic and it went pretty fast.  I told them about my username and password not working and not being able to reset it.  They put me on hold for like 10-15 minutes and I’m starting to think…ok, here we go, nothing is going to happen.  So I hung up.

About 30-45 minutes later I received an e-mail from Medtronic and I thought that it was going to be a default e-mail to follow up on the call or to give a status update of my order.  Nope, it was a personal e-mail from somebody in customer service to follow up with me on the online login issue.  I did what they told me to do and it still didn’t work, so I let her know.  She had the IT department do some sort of reset on my account and told me to log in with a temporary password.  So I did, and it worked.  The customer service experience was not over yet.

I was waiting on my doctor to fax a prescription in for my order to be shipped, so the customer service agent who was e-mailing me  back and forth faxed another request to my doctor.  This happened on Friday, so I e-mailed today to follow up with her and see what the status of the order was.  She said that they got a prescription, but it wasn’t enough for what I had ordered, so she said that they could only ship what the prescription said.  That was fine with me.

So, after this experience, Medtronic has officially won me back over.  This is two times in a row that they gave me the best customer experience that I can ask for.  This is a diabetes company doing things right.

Where Are You Obama?

Chris Stocker

Today’s post is going to very short and simple.  Today, a letter to President Barack Obama was published asking him to take a leading role in the UN NCD Summit in September of 2011.  This letter has over 80 signatures from people all over the diabetes community.  Below is a link to the slideshare version of the letter for you to easily share.

I encourage you to do the following with this letter:

  1. Post it on Twitter and anytime you see somebody else post it, Retweet it.
  2. Post it on your Facebook account and ask others to share it
  3. Share it with colleagues
  4. Share it with friends and family
  5. Print it and mail a copy or two yourself if you want
  6. E-mail it to your local representative and ask for their help in moving it up the chain
  7. E-mail your state reps and do the same
  8. E-mail it to the Diabetes Caucus
  9. Once you reach this step, go back to Step 1

And here is the link:

We ask President Obama to take a leading role in the UN NCD Summit, Sept. 2011 

 

How the International Diabetes Federation Gets It

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Last month I wrote a follow up post to the Roche Social Media Summit about the International Diabetes Federation and how at that time I did not feel a deep connection with them and just didn’t know for sure if they got it.  Well guess what?  I stand here today to say…. they do.  And they get it pretty damn good.  I think that Isabella Patton has done an incredibly job taking what we told her to heart and really putting it to work.



I have had more communication with the IDF in the last month than I did the first 7 years of me having diabetes.  I have been able to work with them on the O is for Outrage campaign, use their resource to meet with local representatives and be involved in the planning process of some events.  This is what makes it so exciting to be a part of this.  A month ago I felt a disconnect, now I feel connected.  If this can be done with the IDF then it can be done with JDRF, ADA, DRI, local governments, HCP’s, etc.

I now want to work more with the IDF.  I want to be involved in all of their projects.  I want to fly across the world and spread the message of the IDF.  I really wanted to feel this way about the IDF, so thank you.  Thank you for allowing me to feel this way.

Finally, thank you for changing my mind about the IDF.

Medtronic Wins Customer Service Award with Pump Error

Chris Stocker 3 Comments

This has been an incredible 24 hours.  Well, maybe a little more than 24 hours.  Last night at dinner my Medtronic pump starting making that bad beeping noise (any Medtronic user knows the difference between a normal beep, and those bad news beeps).  I thought maybe I hit a button or something.  Nope, “Button Error”. I felt like Michael Bolton in Office Space (PC load letter, F*ck does that mean?”) I was freaking out.  I normally don’t freak out about things, but last night this scared the shit out of me.  I didn’t know what I was going to do, I have no back up supplies.  No syringes, no Lantus, no insulin pens, #screwed!

Amanda saw the concern on my face so I let her know what was going on.  Fortunately, I was able to get about 1.5 – 2.5 units of insulin each time I bolused before the pump would make the error.  Since I was eating pasta, I had to do this about 10 times, (4:1 ration, 100 carbs = 25.0 units).  Wow, good to see that I can still do math.  After I bolused enough to cover my food, I decided not to eat anything else the rest of the night, just in case.  The pump did not make any more noises the rest of the night because I didn’t bolus at all.

I called Medtronic first thing in the morning, explained what happened. “No problem, we’ll get another one overnighted to you”  As simple as that.  The customer service rep was awesome.  He asked me a bunch of questions to make sure that the pump went to he best address since it was going to be overnighted to me.  He asked me if I had the Carelink USB device and I explained to him what happened.  I tossed 3-4 of them away when I moved because they weren’t Mac compatible.  Look who the idiot is now!  “No problem about that either, we’ll get one out with you so you can easily transfer all the data over to your new pump.”

Talk about great customer service, not customer dis-service like I’ve had with others in the past..  Medtronic, I thank you.  I may have said some bad things about you in the past, but I think that you have totally changed your game.  I believe that 5 years ago when I first went on an insulin pump, you had no competition so you can do whatever you wanted.  Now there is some good competition and a customer can change, not easily thanks to insurance, but there is still an option.

So many other things within this 24 hour period, but we will save them for another post.

Tomorrow I am going to talk about diabetes first responders.