Just get on with it!! (life)
Hi – don’t you just hate the media coverage of Type 1 diabetes…..poor little Jack….he has to have needles…..test his blood sugar…. well sorry Jack but what about the teenagers and adults? Even Jack will be an adult with Type 1 diabetes one day!!
Living in a world obsessed with Type 2 diabetes, giving you side ways glances, just knowing that you somehow contributed to giving yourself diabetes. The only difference is that Jack has the loving, concerned care of his parents but – as an adult you are often sent on your way to manage by yourself with no support. Your parents, siblings and friends do not understand the omnipresent reality that is diabetes – test, walk, eat, assess, adjust, plan, document- it goes on and on.
My story is unremarkable, I wasn’t a little child, I was just a young woman who had the misfortune to develop Type 1 diabetes. I was 26 years of age, not long married and hoping for a baby when diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. I was admitted to hospital, and discharged days later with NO education. I guess everyone thought.. she will know. Well I didn’t.
On my admission the nursing staff avoided me and I had to look after my own IV….. I was too scared to sleep as I thought the pottasium in my drip could kill me if I did. I tested my own urine for the ketones that took days to get rid of. No one seemed to notice….. I still remember sitting in A&E and a medical student poked his head around the corner and said “How long have you had diabetes”, I looked at him and yelled “5 minutes”….never saw him again.
Luckily my twin sister {No – she doesn’t have diabetes} contacted DAQ and had information for me in a couple of days. Since then I have read everything I can about diabetes, always making sure it is from reliable sources. How many of us know people who have said to us….Ï have the good diabetes, not the bad one like you”- hey wake up!! High blood sugar is high blood sugar – doesn’t matter how it gets that way.
I continue to work and have had only several days off that can be attributed to my diabetes, including when I got my Insulin Pump following a long series of “surprise” hypo’s. Time and hypoglycaemic unawareness necessitated this move. Once again lots of work…test, walk, eat, assess,adjust, plan …and now extra stuff to carry around. At least now my poor children don’t have to worry that they will come home and find me….broom in hand, still in my uniform, out cold ….
I have had 2 uneventful pregnancies. I must admit I felt a little cheated ….my obstetrician told me I would need to deliver at 38 weeks …but I was “So Good” I was allowed to go to term.
I just go one day at a time but sometimes its great to get things off your chest. We must all remember to look out for number 1 – ourselves -and don’t be scared to ask for help and support. I am the first to admit that sometimes you just get “sick of it”- I love my pump but admit I do get sick of being connected to it ALL THE TIME. But better that than a trip to the A&E and a post hypo headache that nothing can shift.
I feel in my heart that we will see great advances in insulin delivery systems in the future. Let’s hope we will all be well enough to benefit.