Diabetes Diagnosis is Deadly Serious
A friend revealed to me that she had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. She mentioned it in passing, as if she had stubbed her toe. No big deal. She had a prescription for medication but wasn’t taking it because she doesn’t like taking medicine. It wasn’t a problem, she told me, because she felt the same whether she was taking the medication or not.
I tried to explain why keeping her blood sugar level down was important, but I could tell she was only half listening. To appease me, she pledged to begin lowering her weight and getting daily exercise.
I began checking in on her to see how she was doing. Not well. She had any number of excuses for not being able to exercise regularly, even though there’s a company gym where she works and she can use it at any time. Too busy, she said. In response, I explained how brief bouts of exercise are helpful and could easily be fit into her work day in bits and pieces. Still no action.
Her eating habits are atrocious, especially at lunchtime, and she laughed as she recalled the lineup of horrible things she had eaten during the previous week.
I asked if she was monitoring her blood sugar regularly. Not regularly, but the last time she did it the number was over 200. The number meant nothing to her. A healthy level of blood sugar is 65 to 105 mg/dl. Her level was more than twice the upper limit. Worse, she said at times she was as high as 300.
Life is about choices
I’ve tried to be an effective change agent throughout my professional life. It has been rocky with more failures than successes, and one thing I’ve finally learned is to invest my time and effort only in those who want my help. She obviously didn’t, so I shook my head and decided to leave her to her fate.
Life is about choices, and she was making lots of bad ones that could cost her dearly in the future. But if she didn’t want to change, I was wasting my breath.
In frustration, and as a gesture to help me wash my hands of the situation, I sat down and wrote her a detailed e-mail. It was strong, and I was much more forceful with her than I had been.
I explained how she was playing with fire while holding an open can of gasoline. Until the can exploded, it would appear that she was getting away with it. She wasn’t. Too much sugar in the bloodstream can damage nerves and destroy the arteries, and the tiny arteries especially (the microcirculation), leading to blindness and amputations. Diabetes is an important risk factor in heart disease and stroke, and it can cause kidney failure.
I went on and on, emphasizing how this was going on in her body without her knowledge, without symptoms, and she likely wouldn’t be alerted to the danger until there was significant damage. Then I signed off and wished her luck.
Wake-up call
I was surprised to hear back from her almost immediately. She couldn’t have been more different from our previous conversations. She had no idea how serious diabetes could be, and no idea that her numbers were so elevated and that they suggested a condition that was out of control and doing damage day by day.
As I listened, I realized I had taken too much for granted. I assumed she knew how scary the beast was that was stalking her. She didn’t. Now she does, and I sense a commitment on her part to begin making the right choices.
Source: courier-journal.com
