When I was first diagnosed with type 1 diabetes I was 17. I remember the day like I’m still living it; the casual way in which the doctor told me my life was about to change, the dull looking leaflets I was given, the way I got home and stuffed my face with chocolate as a kind of middle finger to the world.
At 17, I was in no position to be told what to do. I was craving independence, desperate to move out of the family home, and dead set on doing things the way I wanted to, not the way I was told to. Diabetes put a halt to that.
Suddenly I was even more controlled than I had been before. My time was dictated by insulin injections and meals, my daily routine revolved around checking my blood sugar and listening to my parents worry. Oh god, the worry.
The worry was the worst part, because it wasn’t something I owned. The more concerned other people got, the more annoyed I felt. It wasn’t their problem, yet they were making it all about them.
And the most frustrating part of all? Being asked how ‘my diabetes’ was. Here’s why that use to irk me, and how I’ve come round to dealing with. Get ready for some angst.
It’s not my diabetes
Taking ownership of type 1 diabetes wasn’t easy, especially when I was a teenager and all I actually owned were a few pairs of jeans and some Playstation games. Whenever someone asked how ‘my diabetes’ was, I gave them the same bullish answer: I've still got it.
At the time it was a question that filled me with rage. I didn’t want this thing, I didn’t want it to be mine, I didn’t want to talk about it.
I wanted to deal with it in silence. Ask me about anything else other than the thing I can’t stop thinking about. The thing that feels like it’s ruined my life. The thing that makes it feel like all my dreams are over.
How I started taking responsibility for being diabetic
As it happened, dealing with diabetes in silence wasn’t the best way to move forwards. It led to me falling over a lot and being quite unwell. My plan of ‘ignore it and it will go away’ was short sighted at best, and very, very dangerous at worst.
It turned out, the only way to be a good diabetic was to accept that it was mine, and that I was the only one who could do anything about it.
The first step to learning this (and something I highly recommend you do) was to be in charge of my own prescription. At 17, my mum would order and collect this for me, meaning all I did was sit at home and be a passive diabetic. I didn’t know what was in my prescription, what it would do to me, or how I was supposed to look after it. That was all done for me.
While I’m sure my mum thought this would be helpful, it actually meant I distanced myself even more from the condition that was taking over me. I saw it as someone else’s problem.
As soon as I started ordering my own prescription, I was in charge. It’s proper easy to set up a repeat prescription, and most doctors will let you order it online or with a quick phone call. If you do that once a month, you’ll always know what you’ve got, what you need, and what each medicine does for you.
You’ll also get to know your local pharmacist, who are always up for a chat.
Learning to understand diabetic complications
Diabetes comes with complications, especially if you don’t look after yourself. Things like hypos and headaches are just the simple stuff. When you think about what it can do to your feet, your vision, your nerves and your kidneys, you start to realise that messing about with diabetes can seriously mess up (or end) your life.
This wasn’t something I ever cared about at first. It wasn’t until I was sitting in a hospital bed being told I’d just come out of a ketoacidotic coma that it started to bother me.
And it wasn’t even the medical problems that spoke to me: it was the social implications.
Imagine being that guy whose foot had fallen off. Imagine being the guy who couldn’t see because he’d eaten too much cake, who couldn’t feel because he didn’t work out enough, who couldn’t pee properly because he was too lazy to do a few simple blood sugar checks.
That would be embarrassing.
I started looking after my diabetes because I was ashamed of how rubbish it was. I didn’t want to be the guy who fell over - I wanted to be taken seriously, respected and invited to parties without people worrying if I’d make it to the end of the night or not.
What changed when I made diabetes ‘mine’?
When I started accepting that this condition was, in fact, mine, I gradually started giving it the respect it deserved. I became interested in the new technology that was being designed to deal with it, and started asking questions about how I could be doing better.
It saw me switch from an old, twice a day insulin routine, to one where I use fast acting insulin and can pretty much eat any food I like. Do you know what diabetics can eat? Honestly, it’s loads tastier than you’d think.
It saw me get a new blood sugar checking device that predicted where my levels were going, helping me detect pending hypos before they hit me. That in turn saw me qualify for early trials of the Freestyle Libre, which I’ve been wearing for over a year now.
Oh boy, was that a game changer.
And most importantly, it saw me stay healthy.
I’ve not passed out or been seriously ill with any diabetic complications in over five years. Hypos have gone being a regular, painful experience, to being something I know how to fix without any fuss.
That’s helped me gain a tonne of weight, put on muscle, sustain a healthy diet and enjoy much more of life stood upright. My estimated A1C (the average blood sugar score over three months) is 6.7%, which is pretty much as good at it can be.
I still don’t like being asked how it is, because frankly I’d rather people asked about my garden or my tomatoes, or my upcoming wedding, or my cats. But if people do ask, I can tell them with confidence that it’s actually really rather good.
It’s my diabetes, and I’m proud of it.