Hi, thanks for having me here!
At the moment, I am worried about a good friend of mine. He's a bit older than me (in his mid-50's), highly overweight, and has what I think is type 2 diabetes that has progressed to needing insulin injections.
The thing is, he always says that his blood sugars are "fine" and that he has been told he doesn't have to measure his blood levels. He also tends to eat and drink what he wants, including chocolate sometimes. He complains that big meals leave him feeling very woozy for a while afterwards but doesn't see it as a problem.
He has recently been in hospital. The day before I had lunch with him. He didn't eat excessively or anything particularly bad that I saw, but afterwards he had to pee twice in five minutes. Next morning he was throwing up, I asked if he should see a doctor and he said he'd just work it through. When his wife came home that evening, he was in a terrible state and she called an ambulance. They measured his blood sugars as being very high (i heard the figure "25" mentioned, I have no idea of scales or units) despite not having eaten all day. He was admitted to the high dependency unit for pneumonia. There had been no trace of a cough the day before, I would hazard a guess that it doesn't progress that quickly unless your system is badly weakened by something else.
He's now back home after ten days in hospital. He hasn't covered himself in glory, I overheard him asking his wife to bring him in sweets while he was in. I'd been hoping this might be something of a wake-up call.
I gave him a lift back, bit the bullet and tried to talk to him about looking after his health. He wasn't angry or unpleasant in a way, but it seemed like water off a duck's back. He maintained that he had acutally been told to stop measuring his blood sugars. It also came out that he believed insulin is simply excreted by the body if you have too much, and he had no idea what a "Hypo" was. At that point, I shut up because I couldn't deal with it.
Had a video chat with him today. He says there is no follow-up planned of any form, that he is on same medication as before and his doctor will be getting a letter. Given my experience of the overstretched NHS these days I don't find that too hard to believe, but then I also find it hard to believe nobody has told him to arrange a diabetes review or manage it better, or that it wasn't a big factor in him nearly dying.
Things are a little more complicated in that he has manic depression. It's well controlled these days but when his mood is high he has said he feels invulnerable and infallible, and I think this has stuck as a sort of defence mechanism in some ways. I have autism, and I find it very difficult to challenge people, or to deal with uncertainty. In this case, I of course can't see his medical records and haven't been a fly on the wall at meetings, so I have no idea whether he's telling the truth or not (I have to remind myself that he might not by lying as such, more likely anything difficult goes in one ear and straight out the other).
It's probably worse for his wife, but she's not very talkative and their relationship seems a bit pathological to me at times. I strongly suspect she has undiagnosed autism as well (what a rum bunch we are!)
Anyhow, I'm dead worried. I don't want to lose a friend, either because he dies or because I can't deal with him being likely to bring about his death. After this chat, for example, I am stewing because I am wondering if I should have challenged him again about the diabetes.
Any advice would be appreciated please!
James
At the moment, I am worried about a good friend of mine. He's a bit older than me (in his mid-50's), highly overweight, and has what I think is type 2 diabetes that has progressed to needing insulin injections.
The thing is, he always says that his blood sugars are "fine" and that he has been told he doesn't have to measure his blood levels. He also tends to eat and drink what he wants, including chocolate sometimes. He complains that big meals leave him feeling very woozy for a while afterwards but doesn't see it as a problem.
He has recently been in hospital. The day before I had lunch with him. He didn't eat excessively or anything particularly bad that I saw, but afterwards he had to pee twice in five minutes. Next morning he was throwing up, I asked if he should see a doctor and he said he'd just work it through. When his wife came home that evening, he was in a terrible state and she called an ambulance. They measured his blood sugars as being very high (i heard the figure "25" mentioned, I have no idea of scales or units) despite not having eaten all day. He was admitted to the high dependency unit for pneumonia. There had been no trace of a cough the day before, I would hazard a guess that it doesn't progress that quickly unless your system is badly weakened by something else.
He's now back home after ten days in hospital. He hasn't covered himself in glory, I overheard him asking his wife to bring him in sweets while he was in. I'd been hoping this might be something of a wake-up call.
I gave him a lift back, bit the bullet and tried to talk to him about looking after his health. He wasn't angry or unpleasant in a way, but it seemed like water off a duck's back. He maintained that he had acutally been told to stop measuring his blood sugars. It also came out that he believed insulin is simply excreted by the body if you have too much, and he had no idea what a "Hypo" was. At that point, I shut up because I couldn't deal with it.
Had a video chat with him today. He says there is no follow-up planned of any form, that he is on same medication as before and his doctor will be getting a letter. Given my experience of the overstretched NHS these days I don't find that too hard to believe, but then I also find it hard to believe nobody has told him to arrange a diabetes review or manage it better, or that it wasn't a big factor in him nearly dying.
Things are a little more complicated in that he has manic depression. It's well controlled these days but when his mood is high he has said he feels invulnerable and infallible, and I think this has stuck as a sort of defence mechanism in some ways. I have autism, and I find it very difficult to challenge people, or to deal with uncertainty. In this case, I of course can't see his medical records and haven't been a fly on the wall at meetings, so I have no idea whether he's telling the truth or not (I have to remind myself that he might not by lying as such, more likely anything difficult goes in one ear and straight out the other).
It's probably worse for his wife, but she's not very talkative and their relationship seems a bit pathological to me at times. I strongly suspect she has undiagnosed autism as well (what a rum bunch we are!)
Anyhow, I'm dead worried. I don't want to lose a friend, either because he dies or because I can't deal with him being likely to bring about his death. After this chat, for example, I am stewing because I am wondering if I should have challenged him again about the diabetes.
Any advice would be appreciated please!
James
