When my wife was diagnosed with Adult onset Diabetes, it turned our lives upside down. We chose to use a non-standard treatment plan, using the Pritikin Program as its basis, with some help from herbs.
In 1996, Maria lost her sight and began losing weight very quickly--losing a total of 50 pounds. She was tired all the time and just didn't seem to have any energy at all. She was sad, depressed, and lethargic.
There is a financial component to this, too. I wasn't earning very much at the time, and we had no medical insurance. We had just bought our second house, and were a bit overextended. "What will we do?" is a question that occurred to both of us at the time.
We saw an optometrist, who told us that her vision problems were caused by caraeacts, and referred us to an opthalmologist. The opthalmologist performed cataract surgery on her, and Maria recovered her vision. this made us very happy.
About that time, we got a diagnosis of diabetes, and started the Pritikin program. For us, the diagnosis was a good thing, because now our opponent had a face. Fortunately, once we knew what we were dealing with, we knew what to do. She ate a no-fat, no sugar, no salt diet exclusively for 6 months, and embarked on an exercise program.
At first, we didn't have a family doctor. Later on, we developed a relationship with one, but there was never a large element of support on his part. He was cautiously tolerant of our efforts, but not really supportive at all. He didn't think we could do it until we had actually done it.
Maria had been very active in the church, but they abandoned her completely. No one from the church ever visited, or even called. In some ways, this was also a trial of our faith. Although we believe in divine healing, we could see no evidence of any kind of healing happening at all. Maria had trouble understanding why this should be happening to her. After all, she had been faithful. What kind of reward was this? She was depressed and also a little angry all the time. Anger is a normal reaction to a situation that seems unfair. We were on our own, in more than one way. It looked like God had abandoned us, as well. We felt isolated, lonely, and not a little bit frightened. As we learned more about the usual outcomes of diabetes, it got even scarier, especially when there were setbacks. There were moments when we doubted the wisdom of our choice. I remember thinking: "Can we do this?" And the enormity of what we were up against hit me. The answer, of course, was "We have to do this!" Failure was not an option. Throughout this time, I was acutely aware that we were in a life-and- death struggle. This was serious. Failure was unthinkable.
Diabetes brings with it a lot of uncertainty. Even if you are doing all the right things, poor outcomes are always lurking in the shadows, a constant threat.
Fear is a normal reaction to a situation that is threatening. The message of fear is" Run away! Run away!", but we had already learned to never obey fear. Fear is a liar, and there is no way to run away from diabetes.
This experience was really not much fun, at all.