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Living and ranching with diabetes

Kathy Parker
for Tri-State Livestock News
Jan contends that diabetics can do anything they want and need to do to get the job done, but it's crucial to stay on top of their blood sugar in order to have the maximum control over the condition. Photo by Amber Wentz.

Jan’s Pancakes

Jan Swan Wood has many diabetic recipes, but she’s developed her own pancake recipe. She eats these with one tablespoon of dark Karo syrup. Although it pushes the carb count for one meal, Swan Wood said since she will go right outside to manual labor, those carbs will be worked off.

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

3 heaping tablespoons ground flax meal

2 or 3 tablespoons chia seeds

mix well with whisk then add:

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 egg

1 cup milk

mix until biggest lumps are gone

let stand for about 15 minutes before frying as usual

Jan says she sometimes adds 1/2 cup of quick cooking oats and more milk. She lets it rest a little longer before frying. This recipe will make about seven six-inch cakes depending on thickness.

Jan Swan Wood was exhausted all the time. No matter how much sleep she got, she was still tired. The rancher, cartoonist and columnist from Newell, South Dakota could hardly stay awake while driving or working around the ranch. She felt slightly nauseous all the time and couldn’t focus on even simple tasks.

A friend finally badgered her into seeing a doctor, who ordered a full blood panel and identified the culprit—type 2 diabetes.

The human body uses carbohydrates to make energy. The pancreas produces a hormone called insulin, which makes the carbohydrates usable. When the body’s ability to produce or respond to insulin is impaired, abnormal metabolism of carbohydrates and elevated levels of the sugar glucose in the blood can result in diabetes.



There are three types of diabetes: type 1, type 2 and gestational. Gestational diabetes is brought on by pregnancy and the resulting changes in a woman’s body. Type 1 is when the body produces little or no insulin. Symptoms usually appear quickly, within days or a few weeks. Type 2 is when the body does not respond normally to insulin. It is the most common and the warning signs may be very mild. In fact, one out of four people with diabetes does not know they have it.

“I’m sure I had it for quite a while before being diagnosed. It’s a roller coaster to manage. My pancreas makes insulin, but my body can’t use it, so that’s what I take the medication for. One of these days, my pancreas will just quit, then I’ll have to take insulin and the medicine to make my body use it.”Jan Swan Wood, on living with diabetes

There is no cure for diabetes, so it must be managed through medication and diet.



Frequent or ongoing high blood sugar—one of the most serious problems for diabetics–can cause damage to nerves, blood vessels and organs. It can lead to other serious conditions such as a build up of acids in the blood called ketoacidosis. Type 2 diabetes can cause extremely high blood sugar and lead to a deadly condition where the body cannot process sugar.

“I’m sure I had it for quite a while before being diagnosed,” Swan Wood said. “It’s a roller coaster to manage. My pancreas makes insulin, but my body can’t use it, so that’s what I take the medication for. One of these days, my pancreas will just quit, then I’ll have to take insulin and the medicine to make my body use it.”

Early signs of diabetes are increased thirst, headaches, trouble concentrating, blurred vision, frequent urination, fatigue and weight loss. These signs appear when a blood sugar level is approaching 180 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) or higher, but it’s different for everyone.

Swan Wood wasn’t overweight, but she lost 10 pounds as she dealt with the diabetes and medication, trying to learn how to manage her new lifestyle.

“The first medicine I took was Metformin. It worked fantastic, until I went septic.”

In 2015 she had shoulder and hand surgery.

After the surgery Swan Wood was hospitalized due to complications from what they suspected was that oral medication. She became septic. Sepsis is a severe infection, which often results in death.

Eight weeks after the surgery Swan Wood’s blood sugar was not yet regulated on the new medication. She had resumed drawing, but had no recollection of it. “When the medicine got straightened out, I found six weeks of cartoons I didn’t recognize. I didn’t remember drawing them at all.”

She’s been through several medicines, with varying levels of success.

“One of the more recent medicines I took was made from lizard saliva, That’s how they kill their prey, the saliva is toxic and makes the prey hemorrhage.

“My son got a kick out of that. Medicine made from lizard spit. Take something that makes me sick to make me better. The side effects were terrible. My eyes and nose watered all the time. I didn’t know if I had a cold or hay fever. I couldn’t keep my eyes and nose wiped.”

“Management of the medication has been a nightmare since then.”

She’s now on Metformin again, and it’s working. “I feel normal for the first time in two and a half years,” she said.

Just being diagnosed and given medicine won’t manage diabetes.

“I have a friend who was diagnosed,” Swan Wood said, “they gave him some medicine and sent him on his way.

“When I talked to him, he said this is not working.” The symptoms were still hanging on, and the cowboy was having trouble keeping up with ranch work.

“Medicine by itself is not enough,” Swan Wood said. “You have to manage your diet. So I went to his kitchen and we went through all the food in his refrigerator and pantry and he told me to sort out everything that was bad.

“He didn’t have much left when I was done. Now he reads labels. He calls me from the grocery store and asks, ‘Can I eat this?’ He’s making an effort to get himself educated and take control of his diet. It’s up to each person to take control of their diet and lifestyle. Diabetes can be managed.”

Eating becomes a daily counting exercise for diabetics. Carbohydrates, which contain sugars the body uses, are the key because they affect blood sugar levels faster than protein or fat. Foods are full of carbohydrates. Some of the most loaded ones are sweets, fruit, milk, yogurt, bread, cereal, rice, pasta and potatoes. Diabetics must count carbohydrates and split them evenly among meals to match the available insulin, which may or may not come from the body.

“Go to the salebarn cafe and try to find something on the menu you can eat. No potatoes or bread. And corn – if I’m gonna eat corn, I might as well eat a handful of M&Ms. They look at me funny when I order a hamburger with no bun. You can kind of manage eating at home, but eating out is a challenge,” Swan Wood said.

“The diet’s not bad at home. I just make stuff I can eat. You do get sick of grilled chicken salads. I eat a lot of lean meat. I deer hunt, so I eat a lot of that.”

Swan Wood has also adapted many of her favorite recipes to her dietary requirements, making whole-wheat breads and scones. “At least then I know what’s in it,” she says.

“You have to realize fat content affects insulin. Cheese is a good protein, but it’s high in fat. Eggs are good protein. I eat a lot of eggs.

“Everyone’s different on what sets them off. Corn and beans are trigger foods for me.”

Swan Wood has a diabetes counselor who urged her to have a free day and eat some things she normally wouldn’t. She picked Sunday, because that was a day she might go out to eat. Monday morning her sugar is high, but she gets back on the routine.

“I try to keep carbs under 40 grams per meal,” Swan Wood said. “The learning curve is tremendous. For breakfast I may have one slice of whole wheat or sourdough toast, two eggs and some lean meat. I don’t eat bacon.”

If more carbohydrates are eaten than the available insulin can process, blood sugar goes up. Eating too few carbohydrates will cause blood sugar to fall too low. Many aids are available to help diabetics count carbs, including food exchange lists.

Carbs cannot be cut out of the diet, but diabetics must balance them with protein, fiber and healthy fat.

“Working outside is hard, too. If my blood sugar gets too high, I can’t think. If it gets too low, I pass out. It causes heart palpitations. If you’re setting an H brace by yourself and one of those happens, it can be dangerous. So I have to carry all this stuff around. If my sugar gets too low I can drink Powerade, but it’s so full of sugar, I have to eat some protein to counteract it. You’ve got to be ready to deal with whatever your body throws at you.”

Like most diabetics, Swan Wood deals with some pain associated with nerve damage. Her feet feel hot and as the day progresses, it gets worse. “It feels like they’re in molten lava with a slight electrical charge. Soaking them in ice water feels good, but they still hurt.

“If I go somewhere and am coming home in the truck at night, I will have to stop and take my boots and socks off. I can’t stand anything on my feet any longer.”

When her blood sugar is in balance it’s not as bad.

While her feet have this sensation to some level nearly all the time, they also aren’t sensitive to external pain, so she has to check them every morning and evening to make sure they weren’t injured without her knowing it. She tells of one time she thought she had a little rock in her sock, but when she took her sock off she found out there was a staple in her foot.

Another drawback to ranching with diabetes is the healing process is very slow. Sometimes wounds won’t heal, especially on the feet of diabetics. Gangrene can set in and the limb be lost. Since small wounds happen all the time working outside, this can turn into big problems for a diabetic rancher.

Swan Wood said she’s learned that there’s no one-size-fits all answer for diabetes.

“Get educated. Don’t just take the bottle of pills from the pharmacy and think you’ve got it fixed. It’s your responsibility, not your doctor’s, to manage your health.”