Lucky to live in the modern world

[Phil65]

My wife and I were discussing earlier how lucky that we diabetics are living in the modern day, less than 100 years ago I would have died a horrible death gradually starving or from dka. If must have been so grim before the discovery of insulin and more recently improved diabetes treatments. ......so thankful, it brings my wife to tears thinking about it.

 

[fencesitter]

Yes indeed. The story of the discovery of insulin is so moving too. This from Wikipedia:
Children dying from diabetic ketoacidosis were kept in large wards, often with 50 or more patients in a ward, mostly comatose. Grieving family members were often in attendance, awaiting the (until then, inevitable) death. In one of medicine's more dramatic moments, Banting, Best, and Collip went from bed to bed, injecting an entire ward with the new purified extract. Before they had reached the last dying child, the first few were awakening from their coma, to the joyous exclamations of their families.

 

[trophywench]

Talking elsewhere today about a newish T2 drug. people saying oh I'll wait to see what side effects it has on people in 5 or 10 years cos it isn't proven yet. Although of course it does have to be tested on people but count me out.

And I made only the following comment;

At the end of the day, this always comes back to Banting and Best's dogs, doesn't it?

Phil, it scares the sh!t out of me, so I try to avoid thinking about it.

Just after I was diagnosed, a colleague of my first husband - T1 since age 11 very kindly sent me quite a pile of 'Balance' s he'd collected. Broadsheet format in those days!

Yes they were interesting, thanks Jeff. I mean that.

However one very nearly finished me off. The BDA were celebrating their first 50 years, would it be? And it was looking back at the last 50 years. Think about it, 50 years back from the date of my own diagnosis.

Yes Will's mum. Potentially if I'd been my mother (born 1914) instead of the next generation .........

And that still upsets me now, 40 years later. I just want to weep.

 

[Caroline]

I think we all have to be thankfull for others efforts and endeavours. Since we are here and now we are also contributing to future helping to ease things and future generations to come may even have a cure

 

[MargB]

I think that in relation to heart disease. British Heart Foundation was started in 1961 which is only 51 years ago! No blood pressure tablets. After my dad's second heart attack the cure was 6 weeks bed rest.

So, I am grateful to still be here. Just think - transplants!

Yep, we are lucky

 

[Northerner]

I'm lucky because my Mum was offered thalidomide when she was pregnant with me. She turned it down. I would really recommend reading Taking the Medicine by Druin Burch if you want to see just how lucky we are where medical matters are concerned! 😱 I wrote a little review of the book here:

http://www.diabetessupport.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=16316

 

[Ellie Jones]

It's not just the availability of medicine but how we access it as well..

The weekend I was reading an inquest of a relative, who died in 1896 aged 21 months old...

Poor lad, never thrived, his death was put down to Rickets and Bronchitis. But what makes it all seem a lot sadder, is that yes 6 months previous they had taken him to be seen at the hospital, which he had some medicine but his mum wasn't told what the medicine was..

They had sent a message to the doctor to come, the day before he died. But the doctor never turned up...

The doctor explained that he couldn't find the address he'd been given so he went home! When he heard the boy had died the next day, he assumed that the father would admit to giving the wrong address, but the father hadn't given the wrong address..

I've come across several what would be now in our modern world, be called unavoidable or untimely deaths..

 

[DeusXM]

At the risk of politicising this thread, I would also say that we are all extremely lucky to not only have the medicines to treat diabetes, but our modern society has developed in such a way so that we can all have access to those medicines, regardless of our income.

We are truly lucky. But for all that, I hope that the future will be even bright so that in 100 years' time, people with diabetes will look back on our time and be able to say 'thank goodness I didn't have diabetes in 2012'.

 

[Catwoman76]

I read a book from the library, a few years ago now and I remember something about Opium being used!!!!!!!!! Poor, poor people, what they had to go through back then was truly devastating.

 

[trophywench]

Hee hee Catwoman, there was an old fashioned tummy upset remedy in a brown bottle, called Collis Brown's mixture which contained opiates. Shedloads of peeps had that as and when before 1960 something when they stopped putting it in.

Likewise I know for a fact most babies including me and sis were routinely given alcohol, some of them could have had quite a lot. It was in gripe water until I dunno, 1970's! Did the trick though.

 

[DeusXM]

Don't knock opiates. The bright side of having a bad hangover is I'll allow myself to take codeine, which is BRILLIANT.

 

[PhilT]

Hee hee Catwoman, there was an old fashioned tummy upset remedy in a brown bottle, called Collis Brown's mixture which contained opiates. Shedloads of peeps had that as and when before 1960 something when they stopped putting it in.

Likewise I know for a fact most babies including me and sis were routinely given alcohol, some of them could have had quite a lot. It was in gripe water until I dunno, 1970's! Did the trick though.

I used to love the taste of gripe water when I was a kid.