Hello. Please walk with me. I need your help.
I have insulin-dependent diabetes. I don’t mind pricking my finger to test my blood sugar. I don’t mind wearing an insulin pump, which most folks mistake for a pager or a cell phone. In fact, the pump is a great tool that essentially replaces having to give myself several shots per day. Compared to 1983, when I was diagnosed, the management of diabetes has substantially improved.
So why do I need help?
Walk in my shoes, just for a day. Better yet, try to fit your feet into the shoes of the babies, toddlers and school children — the nearly 1 million people in this country who have insulin-dependent,diabetes. I can guarantee a rude awakening.
Without insulin, we would die, all of us.
With it, we buy time to keep the wolf at the door, but the lecherous creature is never banished. Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness, kidney failure and limb amputation in this country.
Despite the advances in treating diabetes there is no cure. Insulin is not a cure! It’s a treatment. It’s one part of a very complex balancing act that requires extreme diligence and discipline. The respites from the daily tightrope walk are brief.and the wolf always waits patiently beyond the door.
Please walk in Jessica’s shoes. Jessica is a teenager with insulin-dependent diabetes. She’s been told by grown-ups that she’s irresponsible and recalcitrant. She’s expected to give herself an insulin injection during school, and to check her blood sugar multiple times per day.
If her blood sugar is too low, she has to excuse herself from class, right in front of everyone, and go to the school nurse’s office for a snack. If she waits too long, she’ll pass out. But that’s not the worst of it. What’s worse is being judged by people who care, but who have no clue about the complexity of this disease.
In the spirit of caring, friends and relatives toss out well-meaning, but accusatory questions: “Why did your blood sugar drop so low, why is it high, did you eat something you shouldn’t have, have you exercised today, why aren’t you taking better care of yourself, what was your last blood sugar, what time did you take it, what time did you eat, why don’t you take better care of yourself?!!”
Jessica retreats inside herself. She feels demeaned, blamed, worthless. She gives a wry laugh when her parents remind her that the doctor calls diabetes a “manageable illness.” It’s a thief – an insatiable thief of time and a stealer of youth. Diabetes is like the Berlin Wall. You can’t get over it, and getting beyond it isn’t an option for most. It will take a monstrous effort by thousands of people to break this wall down.
A cure. That’s what is needed. Without a cure, there are 1 million people whose ability to live to their fullest potential is severely battered, obscured, blunted.
Walk with us.
Having diabetes is harder than you can imagine, more frustrating than almost anything else in my life. Because no matter how hard I try to balance the correct amount of insulin with the right amount of calories and exercise, despite the fact I check my blood sugar up to a dozen times per day, there are no guarantees. No guarantees I won’t go blind, or need a kidney transplant, or have a foot ulcer that leads to amputation. Last week on one day my blood sugars ranged from a low of 41 to a high of 333. Normal levels range from 70 to 150. I dare you to say I’m not doing my job well.
Walk with me. Walk in my shoes. Walk in Jessica’s shoes. Literally. Join us for the annual JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) Walk to Cure Diabetes at 9 a.m. on Aug. 6 in Elmwood Park. The UNMC Pediatric Endocrine group is assembling a team of walkers. Please sign up with Team Captain Terry Gagne. Call 559-7466 or e-mail at tgagne@unmc.edu, or register online at www.JDRF.org.
With your help, we can find a cure.