'I went blind and feel partly to blame'

[Northerner]

Leonie Watson lost her sight in her 20s after ignoring doctors' advice about her diabetes for years. Here she charts her journey into blindness, and the frustration of feeling partly to blame.

I became blind over the course of 12 months from late 1999 to the end of 2000. It was mostly my fault. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was a little girl - the type where your body stops producing insulin. At the time they explained I would have to eat a precise amount of food each day, and that I would need to inject a precise amount of insulin to handle it.

When I was a little older I asked my paediatrician why it had to be this way, why I couldn't work out how much food I was about to eat, measure my blood glucose, and then calculate the insulin dose myself. To this day I don't know whether he actually did pat me on the head, or whether my subconscious has added a memory based on his reply ("don't be so ridiculous"), but it doesn't really matter in the scheme of things. That was the moment the rebellion started.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-34847776

A very sad story But is she to blame? As a young child it appears she was not given the information and support she needed and her questions dismissed

 

[Annette]

A very sad story But is she to blame? As a young child it appears she was not given the information and support she needed and her questions dismissed

I'm taking a bit of a guess at the exact points in time here but given that she has recently celebrated her 40th and says she was diagnosed as a child, her timescale pretty much mirrors mine.
And yes, this is what the situation was back in those days.
It was less that 'she wasn't given the information' and more that 'the information was not there to be given'.
No, she is not to blame. But I don't think that you can really blame the HCPs at the time either. (The bedside manner, well that's another matter.) She was asking for MDI, in effect, years before that therapy was developed.

I was quite impressed by the summary of T2 though - even said glucose testing should be used!

 

[Northerner]

You're right Annette, I got the timescales a bit befuddled in my head

 

[Redkite]

Heartbreaking and frightening