Finding the chase and cutting to it

This year celebrates 90 years since insulin was first given to a type 1 diabetic: before then the only treatment for patients was a strict starvation diet which prolonged lives by not more than a year in teenagers and much less in younger children. Often these children died from malnutrion as well as complications from type 1.

I was diagnosed in 1977, I’d been ill for about three months, losing weight and energy and when I found it difficult to cross the lounge, my mum borrowed the family car and drove me and my two year old brother to Ipswich Hospital.
As a pharmacist, my mum suspected diabetes – she could smell the ketones on my breadth, but the diagnosis is never welcome.

As I waited to the results to come back, my mum told me about insulin. Insulin would make my body work and give me the energy from my food. As a four year old, who had constant pain from any physical exhurstion, an injection felt like a very small price to pay. Thankfully, my mum had got me there in time and I didn’t go into a coma and my veins hadn’t collasped.

I had an intravenous drip overnight providing insulin and saline and by morning I felt pretty good.

It took about two months to replace the muscle I’d lost but I got to go home after three days in hospital and did that recovery at home and school.
Insulin works: but it is stupid. Injected insulin lives in your body for about four hours and lowers your blood sugar throughout that time. If you haven’t got that amount right you then need an adjustment, either food or more insulin.  Sometimes this is easier to achieve than others!

It’s not easy running one part of my endocrine system, but I get to spend my life enjoying it (including working, spending time with my family and friends) rather than having some of the complications associated with diabetes.

I feel very lucky.