An Independent Mind
Nurse overcomes her own disabilities to help blind patients with diabetes

By Phil McPeck
June 10, 2002

Talk about walking a mile in someone else's shoes. Certified diabetes educator Barbara Bodzin, MSN, RN, does it every day. And she does it with a cane as she covers the northeast quarter of Ohio to help blind people manage their diabetes.

For most of her 30-year career, Bodzin has worked with the disabled, first as an arthritis specialist, then in home health. "I never realized how difficult it was to get the services you need and how persistent you have to be until I was the person who needed them," Bodzin said.

In 1999, her shoulder was shattered in a car accident, so much so that she cannot perform CPR and consequently, despite a master's degree from Wayne State University in Detroit, cannot find employment in more traditional nursing settings. "Even in a nonpatient care area such as risk management, if you have an RN after your name, you have to be able to do CPR," Bodzin said. The accident also left her with a brain injury, although routine conversation doesn't give that away.

Nonetheless, Bodzin, 50, landed on her feet and, if all works out, she may find herself in law school. She plans to combine law with her nursing experience to become an advocate for disabled people.

The state of Ohio refers to her as many as 10 blind diabetes patients a month who live within a couple of hours of her home in South Euclid, a Cleveland suburb. In the first of three or four visits to each patient, Bodzin takes a diabetes-related medical history and assesses the person's learning methods and desires. "Then I pull out all my various devices and toys and we play with them to see which ones feel best to them," Bodzin said.

Among her options are talking devices that describe what a person would see. For instance, the blood monitor that Bodzin prefers has a reagent pad recessed into a curved strip that the patient can find by touch. The device draws blood from the finger inserted into the recess, Bodzin said, and the monitor iterates the reading.

For diabetes patients with congestive heart failure and other cardiac problems that require them to watch their weight, Bodzin orders talking scales. Also at her disposal are thermometers and blood pressure monitors that talk, and eye-drop guides and oral medication boxes, all manufactured with the blind in mind.

Generally, what health insurance won't cover, state programs will, Bodzin said.

Diabetes is at epidemic levels for a variety of reasons, she said. One is genetics: It's more common in the non-Caucasian population and the number of diabetic Hispanic and African Americans is growing. Another is that Americans in general, even children, are sedentary and don't eat well, which accounts for a rising incidence of Type 2 diabetes in teen-agers and preteens.

For nurses, diabetes is an ever-changing field. We have come up with more new drugs and more new things in the last five years than in the 50 years before that, Bodzin said.

Some people are content having family members draw their insulin or to call a neighbor every time they have a low blood sugar reaction, she said. They like to be dependent. They like the control it gives them over other people.

Most, though, prefer independence and checking their own blood sugar level rather than sitting and fretting about what's wrong when they don't feel well and there is no one to help, she said.

Bodzin falls into that independent category with her disabilities.

Activities that she began as therapy after her accident have become part of her life. Painting ceramics and making glass mosaics promote dexterity and coordination. She said she also spends a lot of time doing logic puzzles and games to rebuild her knowledge base in the hope of one day passing a law school entrance exam.

Then there are the 10 hours a week as a volunteer at the Peter B. Lewis Aquatic & Therapy Center in Beechwood, Ohio, the rehabilitation center where she was treated. Being a nurse allowed her to overhaul the aquatic center's home exercise program, which largely had been photocopied from books and was written for therapists. She formatted it and rewrote it into patient-friendly language.

"I think it's a good motivator for other patients to see me running around with a cane doing things, even if it's volunteer work," Bodzin said.

Contact Phil McPeck at getpjm@aol.com.