Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates...Shit If You’re A Diabetic

Introduction:

Hello. I am JD from www.jdgallagher.wordpress.com I was invited to write something about Diabetes here on Black Box Warnings by Eric. I’m not a doctor or a nurse. I have no qualifications, just a lot of experience so please don’t take anything I say here as medical advice. Just don’t sue me, okay? I have nothing anyway.

My name is J.D. Gallagher. I was born in Limerick city (affectionately known as Stab City by everyone in Ireland) in the Republic of Ireland.

Diabetes:

When I was five years old I had what doctors called Whooping cough. I lost a lot of weight. I drank a lot. I urinated more often than an American soldier standing over a dead Taliban soldier. I was dizzy and fainted at least once a week. My mother took me to the doctor on a daily basis. He was sure it was just a bad flu.

After a few days it got worse. I was losing weight rapidly. My mother tells me I looked like one ‘one of those poor African children you see on television’. I was taken straight to Accident and Emergency. They had no idea what was wrong with me.

A few days later I fell into a coma. A student nurse passing by asked my mother what was wrong with me. When she described the symptoms, the nurse asked if a test for Diabetes had been done.

They started pumping insulin into my body.

Eventually I woke up on Valentine’s Day.  I was in a hospital bed next to a man who had been pulled from a burning house. He was wrapped in bandages and a machine was helping him breathe. I can remember listening to the sound of that machine all night, it made a shhhhhhh…….shhhhhhh sound every time he inhaled and then exhaled. It is a haunting noise that sticks with me to this day.

A nurse came to my bed with a love heart shaped balloon which she tied to the end of my bed and gave me my very first Valentine’s Day card.

I was barely able to move. So I just stared at the helium filled balloon. The next day the man next to me died and I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. The virus which had torn through my body had destroyed my pancreas which had stopped producing insulin entirely. I was given a packet of syringes and two glass Vials, one had a yellow stripe and was called Actrapid and the other one had a blue stripe and was called Monotard.

I would use these injections as a substitute for insulin. Blood sugar tests had to be carried out before every meal in order to determine how much insulin should be given.

What is Diabetes?

Definition: Insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (type 1) is an inflammatory autoimmune disease of the pancreas, resulting in a lack of insulin.

Description: Insulin is produced in the pancreas by beta cells of the islets of Langerhans. The main source of energy for all cells and especially for brain cells is glucose. Insulin is necessary for glucose to get into cells and be used for energy production. After eating, the glucose level in blood rises, which leads to insulin being released from the pancreas. In a person with IMDM, beta cells of Langerhans are damaged by autoimmune inflammation, leading to an insufficiency of insulin. The glucose level in blood rises and cells do not have enough energy for metabolism.

That is what is, what it does is much worse. It is an autoimmune disease which means it effects just about everything, your kidneys, your veins, your eyes, your feet, your hands and if you are a guy your penis.

Two words that strike fear into any living man: erectile dysfunction. And I know what all that guys are thinking once the panic attack subsides, but fuck it we have Viagra, that is well and good if you don’t have high blood pressure or heart disease and guess what Diabetes does? It gives you high blood pressure which has no symptoms and when left untreated causes heart disease, so don’t think science and medicine is going to save you now, when Diabetes is finished with you, you will look like a Christmas tree, your balls will only be for decoration.

So this little fucker has the potential to really screw around with your body. Constant care and attention has to be given in order to avoid blindness, amputation or death. Clinics and checkups are monthly in order to keep everything in check.

Adjusting To Diabetes

Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, is a common problem in people with diabetes

Hyperglycemia is the opposite, when your blood sugar is too high

Either one can put you in a coma so it is adjusting to the juggling act of controlling both at the same time that is the hardest aspect to adjust to. Exercise helps. A proper diet helps keep everything nice and balanced and sooner or later you will become in tune with your body and know where your limits are.

Life With Diabetes:

Sucks. It really does.

In ways you cannot even begin to imagine. Car insurance is a bloody nightmare. Not literally of course, I mean if you had a dream where you were a haemophiliac who had cut himself while shaving that would be a bloody nightmare, but I digress.

People always try to relate to you when you say you have diabetes. Like: Oh my dog had diabetes…then it went blind…. and one time the vet had to remove its leg….and tail…then it died…so how are you?

People will tell you of other people who had Diabetes and climbed Mount Everest while reading Ulysses backwards in Chinese in the style of Samuel L. Jackson.

You can lead a perfectly normal life with Diabetes they will say. That is a lie. There is nothing normal about injecting yourself four times a day until you develop Lipohypertrophy. And you can rotate your injection sites as if they were Lindsay Lohan’s pussy on a rotisserie inside a men’s prison for rapists but trust me you are still going to develop Lipohypertrophy, which basically looks like you have a small fat dwarfs arse hanging off your belly.  The guy below has a case of Lipohypertrophy.

 

Do ya think I’m sexy?

Today obesity is the main cause of diabetes, I was diagnosed in 1989 and the main cause then (in Ireland anyway) was old age. It is kind of ironic that I was neither obese nor old when I was diagnosed with Diabetes.

The symptoms of diabetes are quite common; craving for sweet foods, sweating a lot, drinking a lot, urinating a lot, nauseous and possibly fainting. The problem with the symptoms is they tend not to last very long and people say: Oh I’m feeling better now I won’t bother going to a doctor. But like with most diseases early detection is vital.

Conclusion:

So, yeah, stop feeding your kids rubbish, and go outside for a long walk because Diabetes is about as cool as a honeymoon handjob.

Thank you for reading.

Peace.

About J.D. Gallagher

Writer. Avid reader. Diabetic. Irish.

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