Being Diagnosed as Diabetic
By webViewr on Apr 30, 2009 in Health & Medical
When I was just 22, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I had been losing weight fairly rapidly for about 6 months, and I was experiencing a number of other symptoms that I didn’t notice as much as the weight loss thing, so in some ways it was a relief to be diagnosed. In other ways, though, it was really scary.
For starters, I spent 4 nights in the hospital because the doctors had such a difficult time getting my blood sugar down. I now know it was because they weren’t accounting for what I was eating in my insulin shots, but then I was wondering if I’d ever be able to live a normal life. On top of that, I had nurses telling me how my feet would change and all of these other horrible things. That only applies for diabetics who don’t take care of themselves, but I didn’t know the difference back then, and it was quite scary to hear all of these horror stories!
That was only the beginning of the fun. In the weeks after I got out of the hospital, my blood sugar was under control for the first time in months — perhaps even a year. As a result, I started noticing changes in my body. For example, I started losing hair like crazy. This continued for a couple of months before it finally tapered off. Now I know that it was probably because of stress or hormonal changes or both, but then it was kind of scary. I was afraid I was going bald and would have to have a hair transplant — and of course my health insurance probably wouldn’t cover the hair replacement cost. Luckily those fears turned out to be unfounded, as the hair loss was only temporary.
Being diagnosed as diabetic was definitely a life-changing event — or perhaps I should say an attitude-changing event, because now that I’ve lived with it for 7 years, I can’t really say that it’s changed anything except for my awareness of issues relating to the health care industry. I still live just like a normal person, and in fact consider myself quite normal and healthy despite my diabetes.