Diagnosis of Diabetes: Diana’s Story

We have a great guest blog today from Diana who is sharing her journey so far with type 2 diabetes. She is a very newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, currently on Metformin and managing her diabetes with diet and exercise, and says she still has a lot to learn!!! We love to share our community’s stories no matter how long you have lived with diabetes. Please get in touch if you would like to write a guest blog post.

Diana’s Story With Diabetes

The reason I responded was that it seems the universe and friends are directing me in this area.
Since I have been diagnosed Mid August 2015, I have motivated 2 friends who both have diabetes in their families and who both were, like me, living unhealthy lifestyles. The sports physiologist I have been seeing has mentioned more than once, that she wished I had been blogging my journey.

Since my diagnosis I have “attacked” diabetes full on with a complete overhaul of my eating and exercise habits.

I was admitted to hospital (unaware I was diabetic) with a badly ulcerated foot, the wound being on an existing scar line from two previous surgeries going back 35 years for a bunion, initial procedure and follow up surgery a year later after getting an infection.

The infection had reached the bone and there was a chance I could lose my foot. I was grossly overweight, (still am but not nearly as bad) and had no energy to even look after myself (which I thought was stress/depression related due to work and family issues).

But I made the decision that I was in charge and that I could control the diabetes. Within days I had seen a dietitian, diabetic educator and Endocrinologist – not to mention I was also under the care of a surgical, orthopaedic and vascular team.

Due to my lack of energy and work schedule (odd hours) I made the decision to start immediately with Lite and Easy food – that is another story , but it has been very helpful in teaching me portion control again and helping me identify what foods raise my BGL’s. I now have emergency meals in the freezer but basically cater for myself.

My pantry/fridge/freezer is now healthy and in fact not even a treat for the grandchildren – If I can’t eat it they can’t!! Teaching them about “Nanny’s” diabetes has also been an interesting time – they are 6 year old twin boys and almost 3 year old girl.

The support has been phenomenal and a friend (one of the ones I motivated, whose husband is T2) recommended the Diabetes Counselling Online Facebook pages to me, which I have found very informative and helpful.

The good news is that 12 weeks on, my foot has healed and I can finally wear proper shoes, (only yesterday I invested in some shoes, designed for diabetics, so that I can begin my regular walking programme). I’m due to see my Diabetic team for checkups within the next 2-3 weeks!  My BGL was 17 mmol in hospital and for the last two weeks has settled from 5.4 to 7.1

I have lost in excess of 15 kgs already – can’t be more accurate as I didn’t know my weight going into hospital and oddly no one weighed me till 3 weeks later when I had a follow up appointment with the Diabetic Educator – now everyone – (Endo and sports physiologist) wants to weigh me. They all know that I don’t want to know my weight – just how much I have lost in between visits – but I keep losing my pants 🙂 so guess I’m doing well!

I am also looking at trying to establish a local community support group (face to face) – I’m on the Northern Beaches in Sydney, because whilst the Facebook pages/groups are great I feel there is a need to have a more physical support network for walking/activity buddies etc.

The information on initial diagnosis is very overwhelming (in fact I took an extra week off work just to process it all) and I believe many people struggle to really understand how they can manage their diabetes even with the support from their team.

Kind Regards
Di