Every night before Jay Cutler goes to bed, he puts a can of Coke on his nightstand. It usually sits next to a Reese’s peanut-butter cup.
Cutler keeps the junk food close in case he feels woozy in the middle of the night and needs a sugar fix due to his glucose level dropping suddenly. Like many afflicted with Type 1 diabetes, Cutler injects himself five times a day with insulin to prevent anything like that from happening.
Still, Cutler knows it could.
It might be in his bedroom on a weeknight or on the field on a Sunday afternoon. But Cutler lives every day knowing it could.
That is among the messages Cutler delivers in a webisode to be released later this month — National Diabetes Month — that the Tribune previewed Wednesday. The revealing, three-minute video is the fourth in a series that began appearing on the Web in mid-October. The final two, all produced by Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical company that hired the Bears quarterback as a spokesman, are in the works.
“The worst thing imaginable is to get really low and pass out in the middle of a play or in the huddle or something,” Cutler said in the latest video. “I think that would scare a lot of people — not only myself but fans and the public in general. We try to avoid it as much as possible but it’s still a reality.”
Appearing more vulnerable and candid than anybody in Chicago has seen him, Cutler looked into the camera, his eyes darting back and forth, and talked about the kind of pressure that has nothing to do with getting sacked.
Seeing Cutler discuss injecting an insulin pen into his stomach put into perspective hearing him answer questions Wednesday about how sore he was after the Browns game. Bruises go away after a couple of days. Barring a cure, his diabetes never will.
“Living with diabetes in the public eye, it makes it harder,” Cutler continued in the video. “There is no real room for error. Every day I have to be on. If I go out and have a bad game and my numbers are way off I’m going to get criticized for it. I can get real low and not know exactly what’s going on and get hit the wrong way and hurt myself. There are definitely dangers out there.”
Initially after being diagnosed in April 2008, Cutler didn’t want to discuss those dangers publicly. He told the Tribune he first needed to figure out how to live with the disease before he felt comfortable educating others.
“It was a very personal battle so I needed to take some time,” Cutler said in an interview. “I knew there would be a time when I would want to do something, especially with kids. It’s hard enough growing up these days without having to worry about an insulin pump or pricking your finger. I wanted those kids to know I was like them.”
In the video sessions shot in the offseason with a relaxed Cutler in a white button-down shirt and khaki pants, he recalled the diagnosis bringing relief because he wasn’t dying as he feared after he lost 33 pounds. He also shared how difficult it was to tell his parents, especially his mom, Sandy, who “cried for two days straight.” When Sandy Cutler wanted to come to Denver the night he had to start injecting insulin, her son intervened by saying, “Mom, I’m 24 years old.”
The biggest mental hurdle Cutler had to clear? Jabbing himself with a needle.
Seeing Cutler discuss injecting an insulin pen into his stomach put into perspective hearing him answer questions Wednesday about how sore he was after the Browns game. Bruises go away after a couple of days. Barring a cure, his diabetes never will.
“Living with diabetes in the public eye, it makes it harder,” Cutler continued in the video. “There is no real room for error. Every day I have to be on. If I go out and have a bad game and my numbers are way off I’m going to get criticized for it. I can get real low and not know exactly what’s going on and get hit the wrong way and hurt myself. There are definitely dangers out there.”
Initially after being diagnosed in April 2008, Cutler didn’t want to discuss those dangers publicly. He told the Tribune he first needed to figure out how to live with the disease before he felt comfortable educating others.
“It was a very personal battle so I needed to take some time,” Cutler said in an interview. “I knew there would be a time when I would want to do something, especially with kids. It’s hard enough growing up these days without having to worry about an insulin pump or pricking your finger. I wanted those kids to know I was like them.”
In the video sessions shot in the offseason with a relaxed Cutler in a white button-down shirt and khaki pants, he recalled the diagnosis bringing relief because he wasn’t dying as he feared after he lost 33 pounds. He also shared how difficult it was to tell his parents, especially his mom, Sandy, who “cried for two days straight.” When Sandy Cutler wanted to come to Denver the night he had to start injecting insulin, her son intervened by saying, “Mom, I’m 24 years old.”
The biggest mental hurdle Cutler had to clear? Jabbing himself with a needle.
“That’s where it gets a little iffy,” he said.
To get him in the proper frame of mind for his new reality, Cutler thanked his quarterbacks coach at Vanderbilt, Jimmy Kiser. Kiser, 51, is one of the 3 million Americans afflicted with Type 1 diabetes and has lived with it for more than 20 years.
“The first thing he said was, ‘You’re going to be fine,’ ” Cutler said.
John Holcombe, a research physician for diabetes care affiliated with Eli Lilly, was more effusive given Cutler’s line of work.
“People like Jay Cutler are phenomenal,” Holcombe said in a phone interview. “Exercise is critical in treating it but it also plays havoc with your blood-sugar level.”
It is why Cutler pricks his finger so often to make sure his level is between the acceptable range of 90-120 or 130-150 during games. It is why Cutler might be prone to mood swings after exertion. It is why it’s hard to look at No. 6 the same without thinking of the numbers he checks five times a day.
“I’m still struggling with this,” he said in one of the webisodes. “Over time you get used to and it becomes part of you. I’m not to that point yet.”
Showing a sense of humor, Cutler recounted cleaning out his refrigerator within days of the diagnosis. Type 1 diabetes prevents the pancreas from producing insulin required to metabolize sugar from food and convert it into glucose the body uses for energy.
“I miss a lot of foods,” he said. “I used to love desserts. I miss sweet tea, lemonade. Do I ever cheat? Yes, I do. Reese’s peanut-butter cups is my cheating food.”
Sounds like a commercial pairing. But for now, Cutler is more interested in education than endorsements — a point he made directly into the camera.
“I’d love to use my story to inspire kids who get diabetes at 4 or 5 years old and they think it’s the end of the world, they can’t have dreams or do what they want to do in life,” Cutler said. “It’s entirely false.”
The truth? We have marveled at many Cutler highlights since he became a Bear. But he never has been more impressive on video than when discussing his life as a diabetic.