Putting Diabetes In Its Place - Debbie Young's Writing Life

Not All Dreams Are Impossible (For Diabetes Awareness Week)

Posted on June 14, 2012July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

Sometimes, when you have what seems like an impossible dream, you just have to do what you can to try to make it come true – and then hope for the best. My dream is that a cure will be found for Type 1 diabetes. But it’s not really impossible. Clearly I’m not able to make this happen myself: I’m no Marie Curie. But there are incredibly talented, inspired and dedicated scientists in this world who, with enough money to fund their research, will find a cure one day. Of this I’m sure. And in the meantime, maybe I can help bring that day closer by raising awareness (and funds) through occasional blog posts here. You don’t have to read them. But I defy you to look my lovely daughter Laura in the eye here and say you don’t care. Because this is her story.

This picture was taken on Laura’s ninth birthday, at her party. That’s five years and ten days after she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

Type 1 Diabetes is a devastating disease. If you are unfortunate enough to get it, it is likely to strike you in childhood – and if you get it, you’ve got it for life.There’s no known cause or cure. It’s a life sentence.

Diagnosed at the age of 3, Laura cannot remember life without illness.

No, she will not grow out of it. (Exhibit A: my husband – he still has his Type 1 diabetes at the age of 58.)

Immediately on diagnosis, the daily routine must begin of frequent blood testing, which means pricking your fingers to draw fresh blood lots of times every day. You must give yourself an injection of insulin several times a day, or wear an electronic pump 24/7 that will deliver the insulin into your flesh via a cannula. Refusal is not an option: without this treatment, the patient will quickly die. Many do, all over the world, in countries too poor to provide healthcare.

My daughter is lucky – we get the treatment she needs.

She’s lucky – she has the sterile needles required to safely prick her fingers six times a day for her blood tests. (But just because they’re sterile, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.)

She’s lucky – from day one, she had the NHS to supply the clean needles and insulin needed to provide her four injections every day, and she had loving parents who were prepared to give the injections until she’s old enough to do it herself.

She’s lucky – she’s now got an infusion pump with a tube sunk into her flesh 24/7, to deliver her life-saving insulin subcutaneously. The insertion needle for this tube is long and thick and it hurts when we have to change it twice a week.

We’re lucky – she’s brave and uncomplaining by nature, but even so we have to bite our tongues when someone complains about having a one-off inocculation or flu jab. She’s a seasoned veteran of the hypodermic needle. Her fingertips are pitted with black dots from her multiple daily bloods tests. And yes, no matter how often you stick needles into yourself, they still hurt. I will forever mourn the loss of my daughter’s perfect health.

But I’m not after pity for my family’s plight. What I really want is a cure – not just for my darling daughter or husband, but for the generations of children yet to come, all over the world, who will continue to suffer from this wretched disease, until we find a cure. Please help me to help them.

For every penny that you donate to the JDRF, that cure comes a little closer.

(By the way, Laura sends hugs.)

Type 1 diabetes

What Would It Take To Make You Run 10km?

Posted on April 1, 2012July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

"Elk Bath" – A wildfire on the East ... — Run, Forrest, Run (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most of us will go through life never having run further than a few laps of the school field (usually under protest). But what would it take to make you run 10km?

advance warning that you’re standing next to a ticking time bomb whose debris will fall within a 9.9999km radius?
a race to pick up a jackpot winning lottery ticket that you know is lying under a stone 10km away?
a fast-moving forest fire that is chasing you towards a river 10km distant?

This may strike you as a hypothetical question – a bit like the old playground favourite, “would you rather run a mile, jump a stile or eat a country pancake?” I remember, in my unathletic childhood, aged about 8, falling for that one and choosing the country pancake – to the mirth of my interrogator, who revealed that “country pancake” is rural slang for cow-pat. (I must say that since I’ve been living in the country, never once have I heard it referred to as such. Though I still might not risk opting for the pancake option on a country pub dessert menu, just in case.)

But I daresay there is a cause somewhere close enough to your heart that might persuade you.

Laura with JDRF mascot Rufus — Laura with JDRF's mascot Rufus Bear - he has coloured felt patches on his body to remind children of the targets for their daily insulin injections.

I know I’ve found mine. In six weeks time, I’ll be running 10km, but not for any of those reasons (well, they’re not part of my plan, anyway). My reason is to raise money and fly the flag for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). My daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at the age of 3, and that day our lives changed for ever. Gone were the blissful days of being able to eat what she liked, when she liked. Gone were the low-maintenance days of being able to travel everywhere with a small handbag uncluttered with hypodermics and hypo remedies. (I’d only just got rid of the nappy bag, too.) Gone were the carefree days of visiting hospital only for the usual childhood A&E trips. Getting a doll’s shoe stuck up your nose is a walk in the park compared to the unmissable daily routine of blood tests and injections. Such ailments don’t put you at risk of serious long term complications, either, other than perhaps a fear of tiny footwear and long-handled tweezers.

For now, there is no cure for Type 1 diabetes. We’re stuck with the daily inconvenience, pain and stress of treating the symptoms, and the long-term angst about the eventual effects on her health. It has got easier with time: at least she no longer hides under the kitchen table and sits on her hands when we’re trying to prick her fingers for the blood tests.

But there could be a cure, if enough more money were thrown at the problem. There are many extraordinarily gifted and imaginative scientists who are poised to take their research on to the next step, if only funds permit. That their research is funded and cure found is important not only for my small family, but for the millions of children (and the adults that they become) who are suffering the potentially devastating long-term effects of living with diabetes. And for the many children who die before adulthood because they live in countries where the treatment they require is simply not available or affordable.

If I could cure this terrible disease just by running (and what a strange world that would be), then I’d run and run and never stop till I reached the cure. But at least running the Bristol 10k – and the sponsorship I might raise and the publicity I can attract – will take us a babystep along the road to a permanent solution.

And it beats eating a country pancake any day.

Please click here to sponsor me.

A cowpat - cow dung — Country pancake...

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like The Best Reason to Run.

Or indeed if you need an excuse to eat pancakes, you might like Something to Celebrate!

Family, Type 1 diabetes

Diabetes – Another Nice Mess for Laurel and Laura

Posted on November 15, 2011July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

On the eve of World Diabetes Day, as Laura and I watch one of our box set of Laurel and Hardy DVDs, I discover that the great Stan Laurel was diabetic.

I’ve learned this fact in my newly acquired pocket guide to their films. Laura is delighted to hear it: their shared illness provides a new bond with her comedy hero. (Watching the credits earlier, she wished aloud that his surname was spelt with a second ‘a’ instead of an ‘e’ so that it was just Laura with an ‘l’ at the end.)

It’s always good to discover new diabetic role models. It’s not that we’re rejoicing in their misfortune, but I’ve told Laura since her diagnosis at the age of 3 that diabetes won’t stop her doing anything she wants to in this life and it’s good to have proof. I may have over-played this point: she once showed me in a guide to adult education classes a picture of a lady doing an extraordinary gymnastic feat, saying “I think she must be diabetic, because you said diabetics can do anything”.

Laura loves old comedy films. Having watched Laurel and Hardy’s complete output, she’s now working her way through the Marx Brothers. Doting mother that I am, I wonder sometimes, whether, with her precocious sense of humour and her clever way with words, she will be a comedy writer or performer herself one day.

If that’s what she wants to be, diabetes won’t stop her. But had Laura been born into the era of silent movies, she wouldn’t have had the chance to even try. If diagnosed before 1928, she’d have been dead within weeks. The early silent films we have been watching predate the discovery of insulin and the development of insulin therapy. (Stan Laurel became diabetic in the 1940s.)

But even now, insulin doesn’t cure diabetes – it simply holds it at bay. Laura would die without multiple daily injections or infusions of insulin (and by infusions, I don’t mean a tea-type drink – I mean insulin injected into her flesh through a canula embedded in her stomach). She also needs many blood tests every day to help us decide how much insulin to give her. What we still need, so badly, is a cure.

Laura Young at Puxton Park — Laura, Type 1 diabetic since age 3

And maybe, just maybe, one day, if Laura’s name is up in lights as the 21st century’s answer to Laurel and Hardy, her biographer, unlike Stan Laurel’s, won’t need to mention her diabetes – because if enough people support the research into a cure, by then it will have been vanquished, edited out and left on the cutting room floor. Well, a mother can dream.

To help fund vital diabetes research on World Diabetes Day, please click here.

(Click here for more about Laura’s passion for Stan Laurel)

Family, Type 1 diabetes

The Best Reason to Run

Posted on May 15, 2011July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

While running the Bristol 10K this morning (she says casually), I couldn’t help but be moved by the very many runners in charity t-shirts. They raised money and awareness for a tremendous range of fabulous causes, from the local St Peter’s Hospice (one of the Bristol 10K’s two main charities) to obscurities that I’d never heard of till then – though if I see them again, I’ll be more receptive to their appeals for having seen them in this context.

I love to run, but, like many runners, I need a major race in my diary to make me do it. To train for and complete the Bristol 10K, I needed a formal commitment to a charity that deeply affects my family – the JDRF, dedicated to finding a cure for type 1 diabetes, which my daughter contracted at the age of 3 and my husband in adulthood. When I wavered in my training, my sense of obligation to early sponsors kept me at it. (Aaren Purcell and Bill Chapman, you were the leaders in that race and I thought of you both on every training run.)

Of course, for those who are more naturally athletic, the running is the thing. What keeps them going is the constant striving for a new personal best, the new medal to add to their collection, the smart new race finisher t-shirt to boost their wardrobe of running clothes. Running to them is as blogging is to me: it’s my favourite hobby and I wouldn’t dream of asking anyone to pay me for it. (Though there may be a few who’d gladly pay me to stop…)

But to me, no matter how fulfilling the run, it’s a hugely wasted opportunity if you choose to trek round the route in a top that advertises only your favourite sportswear manufacturer or your last year’s holiday destination. Without a charity emblazoned on it, the runner’s chest is a wasted opportunity – an empty billboard, a bare bus-shelter. There are plenty of charities who will be grateful to you just to fly the flag and raise awareness, even if you’re not able to muster a bit of sponsorship. This simple, effortless act could persuade wavering donors to stump up some cash next time they are asked by that charity. The crowd will cheer you on all the more because of it. And if people then offer you money for the cause, so much the better.

Well, I’ve flown my JDRF flag, and now it’s in the washing machine. If you haven’t sponsored me yet but would like to, please feel free! Here’s the link:

Debbie Young – Helping to Cure Diabetes

Family, Type 1 diabetes

Fourth Anniversary of My Daughter’s Type 1 Diabetes

Posted on May 9, 2011July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

Tomorrow my daughter’s diabetes will be four years old.

13 days before Laura’s fourth birthday, on 10th May 2007, I took her to the doctor’s, thinking she had a minor infection. My worst fear was that we’d come away with a course of antibiotics. I wasn’t looking forward to having to make her take a course of tablets. If only we’d got off that lightly!

Instead, we were immediately admitted to hospital as an emergency. The diagnosis: Type 1 diabetes.

“Are you in a fit state to drive?” said the GP as I sobbed silently behind Laura’s back. “If not, I’ll call an ambulance and we’ll blue-light you there.”

Neither of us was being over-dramatic. Without treatment, Laura could have become critically ill within hours – and dead before she could turn 5.

Type 1 or Juvenile Diabetes can strike at any age. My husband Gordon was diagnosed in his 40s. It strikes at random and without cause. It’s not lifestyle related. It’s no-one’s fault.

It’s a death sentence if you don’t take your insulin. And even if you do, it’s a life sentence, because you have to keep taking insulin, every day, for the rest of your life.

Unfortunately, you can’t take insulin as a tablet – it gets broken down by the digestive system before it can get into your blood. So you have to have it administered by injection (typically 4 jabs a day) or via a pump that is permanently attached to you via a canula, 24/7. And you need many blood tests every day, pricking your finger to get a sample, to check that your blood sugar doesn’t go too low (causing horrible short-term hypos) or too high (risking nastly long-term complications). It’s no fun at any age.

We’re lucky: we live in a country with a National Health Service and so Laura and Gordon are kept alive. In many developing countries, diabetes is still be a death sentence.

But there is hope: active research programmes run by the JDRF and other international organisations are on the verge of finding better ways of managing diabetes. They seek easier means of delivering insulin, less invasive ways of monitoring blood sugar, therapies to reduce the long-term health risks. One day, with enough funding, they may be able to prevent and even cure it.

On Sunday 15th May, 8 days before my daughter turns 8, I will be running the Bristol 10K race, raising money for research into a cure. £60 will pay for one hour’s laboratory research by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. I’m hoping to raise enough to pay for a whole day’s research: £480.

With enough funds, the day will eventually dawn when Juvenile Diabetes is cured. Please help me hasten the advent of that day. Click here to donate whatever you can spare. No amount is too small. Thank you.