My grandmother was a strong woman...
She raised two children on her own when her husband disappeared into the wilderness and never came home again. He was finally given up for dead many years later.
She ran the family farm out on the prairies, then moved across half a continent to give her family a better life. She started out all over again.
She was burned in a house fire, and survived skin grafts. She grew strong again, and rebuilt her home and her life, and planted a rose garden.
She was brave. Far braver than I'll ever be.
She taught me how to make bread, and told me stories of life on the prairies, and the old traditions.
She told me about my dad when he was a kid, of how much my parents were in love when they were young, of how different society was when she grew up.
She went from soddy, and horse and wagon, to telephones, and cable TV, but technology couldn't save her.
She died too soon, a brave, strong, passionate woman, taken down... by sugar.
Type 2 diabetes
Complications followed.
Comas, gangrene, surgery, more gangrene, more surgeries,
and suddenly, after surviving all that, a stroke.
She was gone.
Type 2 diabetes isn't pretty.
Its a horrible desease that kills the people we love. This is why I fight to impress on people that they need to get tested even if they don't have any symptoms.
Type 2 is a silent killer that sneaks up on you when you aren't looking. You can have it for 8 to 10 years before the symptoms start to appear from the complications and damage it causes. By then, you've already lost some of your nerve function and eye sight and may already have kidney disease. Your pancreas may have already lost much of its ability to produce insulin. As much as 80% or more of the beta cells that are responsible for insulin production will be dead.
Everyone should be tested for diabetes at every checkup. That's the only way we're going to give people a chance to fight this disease.
Tell your friends, tell your neighbours, tell your co-workers -- "Get tested at your next checkup, ask for an HbA1c and a fasting glucose test".
