Cyclone Tracy - Teresa

Me and Cyclone Tracy

Teresa Pitt

I'm so old that I was in a Melbourne hospital being diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes on Christmas Day, 1974, the day Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin. That must be ancient history for most of you guys, if you've even heard of it!

AND I was thirty years old - hardly a juvenile! - when I was diagnosed. (I'll leave you to do the sums and work out how old I am now.)

I had the usual symptoms - thirst, weight loss, tiredness, excessive urination -- plus a terrible case of thrush, so I went to my GP. She had no idea what was wrong with me and didn't try to find out. Instead she referred me to a gynecologist. He didn't have a clue either and referred me to a skin specialist. The skin specialist suggested I sit in a saltwater bath.

Not one of these three doctors thought of doing a simple urine or blood sugar test. In the end I was taken to hospital as an emergency case, and a junior nurse took my temperature, my blood pressure and a urine sample. She came back from testing the urine and asked, 'How long have you had diabetes?' That was the first time the word had been mentioned to me. My blood sugar level turned out to be 55 mmol/l!

I could do a rave about how diabetes devastated my life like Cyclone Tracy devasted Darwin, but that would be a bit obvious, wouldn't it? It certainly shook things up, but in a way it was a relief to have a diagnosis and to know that a) I wasn't imagining it, b) that I wasn't crazy, and c) that at least I didn't have cancer or some other fatal disease. I guess if you have to get a disease, diabetes isn't nearly as bad as som you could get, is it?

Still - bloody diabetes! I've been living with it for 27 years and it still gives me the shits. At least I look after myself better than I used to before I had it, but my biggest complaint is that it's so BORING having to think about it all day, every day. I'm on four injections a day (Humalog and Ultratard) and do blood tests at least three times a day, and my blood sugars seem to go up and down with very little rhyme or reason. For a few days I'll have lots of highs, and then for the next days the readings will be almost perfect, and usually I have NO IDEA what I've done differently to account for the change.

And then there are the hypos. I dread them. I can't STAND having hypos, I hate it, and I get very little warning of them, and afterwards I feel really, really terrible - so dazed and exhausted that I sometimes have to go home and sleep it off. And when I realise I'm having a hypo I always overcompensate and stuff my face full of jelly babies or licorice allsorts or whatever in a state of panic, and then my blood sugar is way up again, and it takes days to level it out ...

My hardest thing is refraining from desserts or bikkies or (especially) chockies in the evening after dinner. Just can't keep my hands off them sometimes -- especially chocolate-coated Teddy Bears. Oh, those gnawing pangs! I stand at the fridge or the pantry trying to talk myself into something non-sugary, but it's no good ... the only palatable alternative is cheese, and I'm supposed to controlling my weight, so that's no good either. Carrots just don't do it for me. Damnation! Oh, well, just ONE chocolate-coated teddy bear ...

And what about the well-meaning friends and rellies who ask, 'How's the diabetes going? Have you got it under control?' AAAARGHH!!! No, I haven't got it under control and I probably never will - I think they imagine that once you get it 'under control' it stays that way forever. If only ...

Luckily for me I've got no complications, even after 27 years. My eyes are fine, my kidneys are fine, my feet are fine - don't ask me why. Just the luck of the draw, I think.

Well, if anyone knows of a website for us oldies, please let me know. In the meantime, good on you all for starting up realitycheck -- I think it's terrific.