Hi there. I was diagnosed T1 on 16th January 1974. I was 24.
We had 2 young children and were both self-employed at the time so I didn't have time to be unwell
I initially went to the docs, March '73, 'cos I was constantly thirsty. He told me he thought it was diabetes
but took a blood sample to check. 10 days later it came back clear! He asked how I felt and I said Ok, thirst wasn't as bad as it had been so we left it.
I ended up going back every 3 or 4 weeks with various problems, thirsty again, weakness, weight loss, always needing the toilet etc. The doc took blood samples every time checking for kidney failure, liver failure, cancer and various other problems that I can’t remember now but blood sugar every time. Everything came back clear.
By Christmas I thought I was dying but didn’t know what from. Neither did the doc! By this time I’d lost over half my body weight and was down to just under 4 stone from just aboutr 8 stone.
The last time I visited the doc was the morning of 15th Jan. he told me he was going to make an appointment with a specialist (turned out it was a psychiatrist
) but took another blood sample anyway. He gave me a sedative, though I didn’t know or care what it was so long as it made me feel better.
When OH got home from work I was ‘like a robot’, is how he described it. Luckily we had a nurse living next door so he asked her to come look at me, she did, she called the doc and told him the condition I was in so he came to see me and phoned the diabetic specialist at our local hospital. He was off duty and, by the time they found him, he was at a dinner/dance. But, bless him, he came out to visit me at home.
The ambulance drivers were on strike at the time so he told OH to take me up to the hospital, through A&E, that he would phone to make arrangements for me to be admitted. Hubby left the neighbour looking after our girls and took me up. I remember getting into the van but don’t remember anything after that until next morning.
It would appear that I went into diabetic coma about 2o’clock in the morning of 16th Jan.
If I hadn’t been taken in that night when I went into coma hubby would have thought that I was getting a good night’s sleep at last!!!!!!!!!
When I came round there was a ***** of a nurse TELLING me to get my insulin injection. I told her I didn’t have any insulin so she asked me why, as a diabetic, I’d come into hospital without my insulin. I told her I didn’t know I was diabetic so she looked at my charts, huffed and took off to send another nurse along with insulin, a syringe and a HUGE needle.
There were lots of blood sugar tests and, one day, the young girl who came to take the sample said my GP had been in and wiped the floor with the path lab technicians for letting well over a dozen blood sugar tests, in the last 10 months, go through without double checking at least one of them.
I was in there 10 days and never gave myself an injection before I came out. They offered to get a district nurse to come give the injections but, when I asked what time that would be and, as there was a 2hr window with both injections, I told them I’d manage, thanks. I was still self-employed, I didn’t have time to hang around waiting for them to turn up..
We weren’t given any literature or told about hypos
so , the first morning after I arrived home and hubby couldn’t wake me, he phoned our GP who told him to give me sugar dissolved in milk and that I needed to go see him.
He explained everything to me, gave me lots of literature and helped so much with cutting my insulin to the correct level, less than half what the hospital started me on. They hadn’t asked about my lifestyle, whether I worked, exercised or anything. I’ve always been fit and active, still am actually.
I’ve always felt that I owe that GP my life. The hospital was useless.
I don't celebrate being diagnosed. I don't understand why anyone would, sorry
