I was 57yrs old.
2018 for me was a pretty awful year. On July 28th, just before my birthday, my best friend dropped dead suddenly of a brain embolism. He was living in Sweden at the time, so the funeral was not until the end of August.
I think the stress of all of that further weakened my immune system, which had already been clobbered by repeated bouts of pleurisy I had as an infant. I spent much of the (damp Irish) autumn drifting from one type of chest complaint to another.
Finally, in early December I got a nasty virus which must have really sent my immune system into overdrive. On the morning of Dec 12th, a close friend was so worried at how I disoriented I was when she spoke to me on the phone that she got another friend of mine to pick me up at my home and take me directly to the local hospital.
After a short examination I was rushed by ambulance to a bigger hospital where I spent the next 5 days in a high-dependency unit, followed by another few days in a ward on what I now assume was a potassium drip. Once I was finally stabilised, a consultant and his gaggle of assistants told me I had Type 1 diabetes - a condition I did not even knew existed prior to that. Shortly after he left a nurse came by with a glucose meter along with some reading material and about 5 minutes of instruction on how to inject insulin.
Two days later I was sent on my merry way. My blood sugar in the discharge lobby was still quite high (19), so after checking with the staff I gave myself 2 units of NovoRapid. The first of many decisions based on scant information and a prayer I was doing the correct thing.
My ignorance was, I felt, something I really needed to correct, so I spent a few months educating myself about the condition.
Thankfully, for much of my professional career, I was a software systems developer and data analyst, so I set about writing my own software system to help me manage my condition. I knew I would need data in order to get a handle on how I was doing and to avoid repeating past mistakes. I also quickly realised that trying to do carb counting with a notebook was not viable for me in the long term.
It has taken me several years to get my software to where I wanted it to be. But now all that drudgery of carb counting, analysing the effects of certain foods on my system, rotation of injection sites and keeping track of on-board insulin so that I do not over-inject, is taken care of by my software. Essentially, whenever I learn something new, I spend time updating my system so that I do not have to repeat mistakes.
I am now coming up on my 7-year diaversary (is that the correct word?). My average blood sugar these days is 7.4 and my HbA1c has been 49 +/- 1 for the past 5 years. For me, given my age and the fact I live alone, that is probably exactly where it should be. To try to be more ambitious would, in my view, be counter-productive. The odds that I will depart this earth due to complications from diabetes are probably insignificant. I only put as much effort as I do into managing the condition because I only really feel myself when my blood sugar is in the middle of the range.
Well, for what it’s worth, that’s my story. Thanks for reading…
PS: Excuse any typos…
