#diabetesandme
This week is Diabetes Week and as a proud and thoroughly experienced type one diabetic, I feel passionate about campaigning for an overhaul in the care diabetics receive post diagnosis. I strongly feel that the NHS is the most incredible asset to our nation and I don’t know how I would cope if free healthcare wasn’t available. I realise that diabetes places a huge strain on an already drowning NHS but let’s face facts, Diabetes costs the country just shy of £10 billion a year and that is a rising figure, but this expense could be cut considerably in the future if more money was spent on educating the diabetic and giving them the tools to take control of their own condition thus preventing further ill health, diabetic complications such as blindness, kidney damage, limb amputations., stroke and a wider range of issues such as depression, low confidence and feelings of dependence.
My diabetes journey has lead me to expose some of my own painful and difficult experiences in order to prevent this happening to more people in the future, I have had diabetes for almost 20 years and I was diagnosed at the age of 17 when my attitude was quite negative towards the whole thing.
I remember doing quick fire maths questions at school and usually scoring 3 or 4 out of 10 feeling embarrassed, ashamed and stupid. Well that was how I felt when I tested my blood sugar and the meter would read 17.7 instead of 5.7 and that was a painful experience, so I avoided at all costs. I always felt like I was failing a test and it made me feel self-conscious and humiliated. The thing is it’s natural to feel that way and there are so many reason why your blood sugar could be out of target. Something so simple like you being a bit stressed or in pain, having a headache or having just run for the bus can affect your blood sugar, I didn’t know any of that and I didn’t know that by treating my other conditions with steroids would put my sugars up and also by being dehydrated which I frequently am due to my Addison’s disease. So I would berate and chastise myself for something for having out of target sugars. I did not understand my own disease so I couldn’t control it. I have gone through years of this self-hatred and shame because I couldn’t get it right. I know it’s hard to believe and far-fetched but my diabetes diagnosis went like this “You have Diabetes and the diabetes nurse will come round tomorrow to explain” I was told by my doctor on his morning ward round and I didn’t have my parents there. I was alone scared, and utterly bereft. The diabetes nurse did come round and explained the basics, gave me a prescription, an insulin pen and blood glucose meter a leaflet about Kid’s diabetic camping excursions (which went straight in the bin) and I was sent home, I never saw that nurse or heard from that nurse after my diagnosis. The one thing I can remember her saying is this “Don’t worry they will have found a cure for diabetes in 10 years” This was the worst thing she could have told me because the way I perceived it (and I’m not blaming her, she was just being positive) is that this meant, it’s not that serious, you can get through ten years and it will be all over. Well ten years came and went and still there is no cure. Well if she had told me, this is a lifelong condition that won’t ever go away, maybe I wouldn’t have been kidding myself, who knows?
Now I know everyone’s experience will be different and hopefully mine was a one-off and I do know that doctors are a lot more clued up nowadays about the impact of diabetes on life and the emotional aspects. I learnt more about my condition over the years and take it more seriously than a career or a degree and believe you need one. It so complex and it never gives you a break! It’s a 24/7/365 pain in the arse! But you can’t ignore and if you do you will end up like me. I tried to ignore, tried to live life like my friends, pretended it wasn’t a biggy. I can’t go back erase the years I let my sugar run so high I had a trail of honey bees following me around or how I would go for days without testing my blood sugar or not taking my insulin. I can’t turn back time and now all the complications I heard about but didn’t think would happen to me, are happening. I have diabetic neuropathy (complete dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system), diabetic retinopathy (damage to the eyes) and chronic diabetic kidney disease and I have been told that I will need a full kidney and pancreas transplant very soon in the future. I don’t know if by shoving a picture of a gammy toe or a bloodshot eyeball would have made any difference to me when I was a teenager but I think if someone had said sat me down and said “it’s not your fault” I would have lost the guilt that hung around my neck and let me start over.
I think it will be different for everyone but I believe that every diabetic has gone through a stage of feeling overwhelmed and lost, even hopeless. If you are told the truth and given the facts, taught everything there is to know about your condition then you can take control.
Education is key.
When we look at the annual spending in the NHS for diabetes it's clear that we are failing to give diabetics correct and sufficient education. Diabetes is preventable. Diabetes complications are.
Treatment for diabetes such as insulin, blood glucose monitoring equipment cost 2.1 billion pa
Treating diabetes complications cause by uncontrolled diabetes costs 7.7 billion pa
Graphs taken from Diabetes UK Cost of Diabetes Report CLICK HERE TO VIEW
So isn’t it perfectly clear that uncontrolled diabetes leads to complications and that leads to huge expense not to mention the human cost.
Give the diabetic the tools to take control of their own condition and they will prove that they can do it.
Diabetes Week is 14th-20th June and Diabetes UK invite you to tweet about your experiences with Diabetes just tweet using the hashtag #diabetesandme and don't forgot to use my hashtag too #tracyluckystars
Thank you for reading and as always sending you a LuckyStar