Diabetes, a Patient's Story (eBook)

Diagnosed with diabetes

-my first symptoms

Diabetes is a disease that sneaks up on you. It's not like you wake up with a pain somewhere, and then you say to yourself, “damn, I’m now a diabetic”. Personally I knew nothing about the symptoms of diabetes, nobody in my family or circle of friends had diabetes. But with perfect hindsight, I had two symptoms that anyone knowing about the disease would clearly have spotted. I was 33 years old at the time.

Firstly, thirst had become different. I could get up in the middle of the night and drink something, and it tasted better than ever. But drinking is good for you, so why worry? I also remember that we were on holiday in a warm country, and after a typical day at the beach or something similar, just the thought of getting up to our hotel room, buying a cold soda from the vending machine outside in the hall, and then sitting on the veranda and drinking it, that feeling was priceless. It was almost like an addiction. When I now think back on the number of soft drinks (not “Light”) that I drank back then, and what my blood sugar level might have been, I think I abused my body.

Secondly, I lost weight. I've never been overweight, but my weight has always been fluctuating no more than 4–5 pounds, so when my weight went down a couple of pounds, it was no cause for alarm. Not something to be concerned about, actually I saw it as a good thing, as I looked nice and trim. But I kept on losing weight, not fast and nothing very dramatic, but I definitely had more hollow cheeks than ever before. Some people started to comment on it, and at first I took it as a compliment in this world where being thin seems to be the norm. But as it continued, finally I myself thought I was too thin. I looked sick.

I decided that I would put on some weight. I started eating more; pizza and large soda for dinner became the norm rather than the exception. My poor body. But even though I clearly ate more, I continued to lose weight. For those out there who know what it’s like to eat almost nothing and still not be able to lose weight, I can tell you it’s just as frustrating to eat a lot and not being able to stop losing weight. I was beginning to realize that I was not in good health, something was wrong. But I still had no idea what it could be.

-the diagnosis

Shortly before Christmas 1993, I had the flu and was away from work for about a week. When I got a little better, I informed my boss that I expected to be back soon, but I didn’t recover from the flu as you would expect. When I was vertical and mobile again I decided to see a doctor, I’d had enough. So I went there with the hope you always have, when you suffer from something unknown. The hope of a firm diagnosis, a few pills maybe, and then you’re well in less than a week. That’s what doctors are for, right? To cure you…

But that was not in the cards for me. The doctor probably noticed I was thin, and I took a chance and told him about my thirst and gradual unstoppable weight loss. He was probably already then pretty sure of the diagnosis, but he didn’t say anything yet. He suggested a blood test then and there, probably a blood sugar test, and after a few seconds of looking at the result, he turned to me and said the words I'll never forget: "Does anyone in your family suffer from diabetes?"

Diabetes? What on earth was he thinking? What is diabetes? As a child I had met a poor child who was diabetic. Was he still alive? One thing I was acutely aware of was that if the doctor’s “suggested” diagnosis was correct, then the word “chronic” was part of it. Chronic is an overwhelming word, it is not eternal in relation to the lifespan of the universe perhaps, but for me personally it would of course mean always, forever, eternally. I could never get cured. And my new chronic disease, would it shorten my life? And if so, by how much? Not having any diabetics in my family or among my friends, not ever seeing people that I knew were diabetics, I concluded that diabetics didn’t live very long.

The doctor must be wrong. Classical denial. But this denial only lasted a few minutes. The doctor explained to me what diabetes was, that there was no doubt that I was a diabetic (right there I moved from “having” a disease to “being” a patient, a disease). He spent some time telling me that this was a disease that many people lived with happily for many years, but also that it was a disease that should be managed. He might have said more than that, but my brain was in overdrive to assess the new situation, primarily concerned with thoughts on how long I would live and with what quality of life? That’s somewhat typical of me, problems like this do not leave me paralyzed, I immediately go into assess and problem-solving mode.

I’m also the type that doesn’t mind questioning authority. So when the doctor told me that I immediately should be transported to a hospital, and that he would arrange transportation, I said no thanks. My car was in the parking lot at the doctor’s clinic, I didn’t want it there during the night. No, I would drive home, and he could call an ambulance to my house, if he really thought it was really necessary…

When I got home I couldn’t remember anything from the short drive home, I was in a haze. I drove safely but my thoughts were elsewhere. One concern right at that time was to call the office and tell them that I wasn’t coming to work right away, and I didn’t want them to know about the doctor’s diagnosis of my disease. My career aspirations would not be helped by having a chronic disease. Could I ever seek and get a better job? Could I hold on to the current job?? Another and perhaps even greater concern was that I had to call my wife. "What did the doctor say, honey?" Well, not the usual stuff, that’s for sure. I wondered how I could arrange it, so I could tell her face to face, but the ambulance would arrive any time soon, so I had to call her at work right then and there.

And so I did. And I told her as comforting as I could, the doctor had said that maybe I had diabetes and that I had to go to the hospital to get checked. And by the way, I had to pack for a few days… She handled it very well, at least while she was talking to me, a little quiet and timid. I later heard that she went to pieces right after the call, she started crying right after we had finished the conversation. And she had to be comforted by her colleagues, that minutes before had seen her happy and carefree. They gave her a cup of coffee, in an attempt to get her to stop shaking. There is no doubt that such a diagnosis can be a punch in the face, not only for the patient but also for his or her loved ones.

I packed some clothes and a few books. I had no idea what would happen, maybe the doctor had told me, maybe he hadn’t. Was it just to be a few blood tests and a few pills, and then I would be sent home again? I was hoping it didn’t involve syringes, because I wasn’t too keen on needles back then!

When the transport arrived, it was not an ambulance with horns and flashing lights, it was more like a normal small bus used to transport the sick and elderly to their checkups. As a young boy it was considered cool to have been transported in an ambulance with sirens and all, so totally irrationally (at age 33) I was a little disappointed. I had to sit in a small bus with other people and we had to pick up one more patient on the way. Were they not aware that I had just been diagnosed with a life-threatening chronic disease?!

As you can probably sense, I was still totally confused about how seriously ill I was. It could also just be a bad dream; maybe I would wake up in a few seconds? But it wasn’t. The rational side of my brain told me, that if they were not in a big hurry to get me to the hospital, then it couldn’t be that bad. And my morbid humor concluded that because the disease is chronic they needn’t hurry, there was no risk to them that I might recover before I got there.

-why?

Before I talk about the next steps I will share some thoughts I've had about the "why me?" question? Life is unfair, I concluded that pretty quickly. When you consider that there’s no diabetes in my family, I’m not overweight and have not eaten more candy than any other normal child, it might seem even more unfair. But if you think thoughts like that, then you also have to accept the logical consequence of these thoughts.

Namely that if someone overweight gets sick, then they have themselves to blame, it’s fairer that it happens to them. I don’t buy that. This disease is not fair for anyone to get. I would not wish this on my worst enemy. And since it would not be fair for anybody to get diabetes, I can’t say that it is more unfair that I got it than others. It just is what it is. Don’t spend your life being bitter about the cards you were dealt, and don’t blame yourself.

In many other situations in life I've been exceptionally lucky. At the age of 8 years I ran through a glass door and got deep cuts in my face, I had to have stiches on both cheeks. I could very easily have lost both eyes that day, and if really unlucky an artery could have been cut open. Incidentally, it was on my 8th birthday. Today, being a father myself, I can imagine what a day my parents must have had. My father was the one that reached out and stopped me, when I was about to fall further, as I stood in the middle of the frame and sharp broken glass....