A Life with Diabetes
"The first thing I had to change was my attitude"

(If you're just joining us, this is a story about a woman coming to terms with diabetes. Read the rest of her story.)

New York, New York
Wednesday, March 9, 2005

In the big city I continued to live my life ignoring my diabetes as much as I could, giving it some attention for a short time after I had a seizure. Eventually, though, I would again become bored with the tedium of taking my blood sugar four times a day, counting my carbs, and eating on a schedule.

When sitting down to a meal I usually just guessed how much sugar I was ingesting and gave myself the shot. Then, later in the night if it felt high (if I was extremely thirsty or couldn't breathe) I would take some more insulin. Sometimes I would wake up with a blood sugar of 395, other mornings I would wake up soaking wet and shaky with a blood sugar of 31.

This entire time I am still going to endocrinologist on a regular basis. Because of my extreme lows, my hemoglobin A1C (a test given to determine a diabetic's average blood sugar) was usually really good. Also, my body was showing no signs of any complications. I looked like a healthy woman in her twenties. On more than one occasion, relying totally on my A1Cs, a doctor would say, "I don't know what you're doing, but you're doing something right."

This of course only helped with my rationalization that I could continue to ignore my disease; often recollecting what my doctor told me when I was 14: "A cure is right around the corner; they will probably find one in less than 10 years." While I was 25 now and no cure was in the works, I still held out great hope for a cure at least before my body suffered any complications. I was sure I would be just fine.

To be sure I was one of the first in line for that imminent cure, I started researching which doctors in Manhattan were involved with studies looking for a cure. With the help of my boyfriend's mother, I got a hard-to-get appointment with a leading doctor at the Diabetes Center at Mt. Sinai. He was working very closely with a study looking at the possibility of an islet cell transplant. Islets are insulin-producing cells around the pancreas that are damaged in type I diabetics, causing the pancreas to shut down.

The short version of the theory was that by replacing those cells the pancreas would work again. While this technique is being used to some success today, a patient still has to take immune suppressive drugs for the rest of their lives, which is usually more taxing than the typical insulin treatments. So it is a long way off from really being considered a cure. No matter, I held on to this glimmer of hope tightly and continued my hazardous lifestyle.

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Early Days

02/10/2005: The Diagnosis

02/19/2005: My First Seizure

Independence & Denial

03/03/2005: The College Years

03/09/2005: New York, New York

Unfamiliar Revelations

03/13/2005: Home Sour Home

03/29/2005: Taking Responsibility

04/02/2005: My Search for Control

11/01/2005: The Final Chapter