Diabetes 101 Type 1

 As I approach 50 years of being a type 1 diabetic I thought I'd share some of my experiences of living with this disease. This is not meant to advise on how you manage diabetes or your life but to show how diabetes, or any other ailment, does not need to hold you back.

Way back in 1975 in Johannesburg, South Africa, I was a normal active teenager. I spent a lot of time outdoors, hiking, camping and travelling. In July 1975, I hitch-hiked with friends to the Makadikadi Desert and Okavango Swamps in Botswana and back home via the Namib Desert in the then-called South West Africa, now Namibia (that trip is another story). A few days during six weeks of hitch-hiking I felt ill but put that down to running out of food and/or hangovers.

By September 1975, after short time in hospital, armed with a vial of insulin, a glass syringe and some needles (huge, long and painful) and scant knowledge, I was giving myself daily injections. I remember thinking "what just happened?" Very few teenagers had even heard of diabetes, I certainly hadn't. It was nearly 10 years before I knew of someone with diabetes. 

Treatment was primitive then. Inject in the morning, test for blood sugars using a colour-coded strip dipped in urine, eat the same each day, use the same amount of energy each day and DO NOT EAT ANYTHING SUGARY. Keep the insulin in a fridge. Emotions were simply not mentioned and I was unaware that these things impacted blood sugar control.

Ok, I can do this, I thought and three months later I left home and started university nearly 1,000km away, armed with my scant knowledge. What my parents went through I have no idea. But I was happy to be starting my career as a wildlife biologist. Perhaps that comforted them?

There were very few diabetes-related events that I remember from university. I knuckled down and worked harder than I had ever worked in my life; lectures and practicals all day, study in the evenings mixed with rugby practice and girlfriends. I gave up drinking alcohol - at least for a while!

I do remember the hassles of keeping insulin a fridge. I was in a university residence and the warden kindly let me to use his family's fridge. I recall the embarrassment every morning knocking on the door of a family preparing for work and school, to get my insulin. Then taking it upstairs to my room and having to go through the whole process again to return the vial to the fridge. No wonder I stopped doing the urine checks!

Another recollection was a period about two years after being diagnosed. I suffered a few days of constant hypos - really bad ones (for non-diabetics a hypo is low blood sugar and causes severe confusion). I still knew nothing of diabetes and barely had spoken to a medical person about diabetic treatment. I wasn't prepared for the total confusion and lack of understanding of what was happening, feeling lost and alone, unable to speak. These severe hypos made me think that I was cured and I stopped my injections! That soon changed when I experienced a day or two of very high blood sugars!

I remained at university for six years all the while under the same treatment as I was first given in 1975. I had great fun and had moved into digs which was always home to strays, be they musicians, mates or dogs. But I was keen to travel and a hitch-hiking trip through Europe beckoned. I had a year to do it. 

My next blog explains how I managed diabetes, major surgery, comas, attacks by weirdos, speeding on autobahns all while having a wonderful time.