Though I am at the advanced age of (physically) 52 and (mentally) around 25 I contracted diabetes when I was 14. I thought my life had ended. In those days, things were not so enlightened as they are now. I attended the diabetic clinic at Kings college Hospital where the doctors told you what to do and you had no input in the matter. The blood they took at the clinic was out of your ear lobe when they stabbed it with a needle, and the first time I had that done, I fainted as I was so terrified of needles. My mum told the doctors that they should try not to make me have daily injections as I had a needle phobia and I would never comply and give myself jabs.
Eventually, I had to go onto insulin and somehow they managed to persuade me to give myself twice daily injections. We used glass and metal syringes that were kept in a special case of methylated spirit to keep them sterilised. Each needle was used until they were too blunt to use any longer and they were very long! :shock: (When I went into hospital for an operation in around 2000, there was an elderly lady on the ward who was still using a glass and metal syringe - I can't imagine it now!)
When disposable syrginges became available in the eighties, I thought it was marvellous! We had to pay for them though. Then the government decided they should be free.
When the Novopen came out it was absolutely wonderful. Again, though, I had to buy my first Pen and I also had to pay for the needles until the Goverment again decided they should be free.
With the Novopen, I started on four jabs a day which changed my life beyond recognition and freed me from watching the clock, having to eat rigidly on time - and eating mid morning and mid afternoon snacks which I always hated having to do. It was wonderful. I felt so liberated. :lol:
AND just don't get me started on how fantastic it was when I got my first blood testing machine. It was so wonderful! No more trying to match the colours on the stupid test strips!
For young people who are discoveirng they have diabetes in this day and age, I think that things for them are so much better. Doctors are so much more enlightened about treatment and there are so many things to help make life easier Of course, no matter how many things you have to make managing diabetes easier, mentally, its tough when you are young to cope with all that having diabetes involves and I still remember this vividly.
Two small pieces of advice from an old hand:
1. Don't refer to yourself as "A Dabetic" or let others do so. This is NOT all that you are. You are someone who has diabetes - there's a difference.
2. Don't let diabetes run your life. Make diabetes fit in with your life.
I learned this from long experience because when I was young - it took over and my life was miserable. I was even suicidal at one time in my early twenties because of it. I couldn't deal with the whole thing - none of my doctors seemed to notice this and I didn't get any help in this regard.
Bren :wink:
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