Youth talks about living with diabetes

by Abby Sabean

Linda MacDonald, 21, has lived almost her entire life dealing with an often misunderstood disease. Most people donšt even realize she has it and most don't understand how she could have gotten diabetes.

She was diagnosed with the disease when she was six years old in Grade 1, on April Fool's Day. Her parents took her to the hospital after her grandmother noticed she had some of the common symptoms of diabetes. When she arrived at the hospital her blood sugar level was 41. It's supposed to be between four and 10.

MacDonald clearly remembers this.

"I really should not have been conscious. I should have been incoherent at best,˛ she says. "They stuck me full of needles and my mom and dad had to learn to give me needles. They had to practice on oranges."

At the age of six, she didn't really understand what was going on and what diabetes was. When she was younger she had to get a needle stuck in her vein every three months, now she only has one every six months.

"Every time we went my mom had to buy me about $15 of plastic bracelets before I'd go in," she says. "The funny thing was I wasn't scared of them."

Some of the symptoms of diabetes are extreme thirst, going to the washroom a lot and feeling tired, like getting out of breath from walking up stairs.

"You know when you get the flu and your bones almost ache, that's what it feels like really," MacDonald says.

Her aunt was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes which is not insulin dependant, meaning they take pills. MacDonald is type 1, juvenile diabetes, which is insulin dependant.

When she found out about having the disease, her parents took the news well. She's considered a stable diabetic, which means her blood sugar doesn't fluctuate a lot. There are two types: stable and bridle. When sugar levels get high, it can cause blindness, kidney failure, heart disease and heart failure.

The doctors told her she would have to be poked with needles for the rest of her life and she threw fits in the hospital.

"But I got a lot of presents," she says.

When she was young, MacDonald took two needles a day: at breakfast and supper. She tested her blood sugar three-four times a day at breakfast, supper, bedtime and sometimes lunchtime. She started giving herself needles, without help from her parents, when she was seven.

"I was allowed to get my ears pierced when I gave my own needles."

She has to eat at 10 a.m. every morning. Diabetics are suppose to have breakfast and then a snack, lunch and then a snack, supper and a bedtime snack.

"They want us to constantly eat," she says. "When I was in school I always had to eat, a snack, crackers and cheese or a banana, actually it was half a banana or half an apple. My diet was pretty rigid for awhile. I had to eat about half an hour before actual recess."

Once she found out, her candy intake was massively reduced.

"I missed hot chocolate before I went to bed at night," says MacDonald. "I don't drink regular pop. I don't like regular pop. I've drank diet pop since I was six years old."

Most people haven't noticed she's a diabetic.

"I don't go out of my way to tell people but I also don't go run and hide when it's time to take my insulin."

Insulin is a hormone that's produced by the pancreas to regulate blood sugar. Scientists haven't discovered if diabetes is genetic or not yet. MacDonald is the only one in her family with type 1. A person's lifestyle depends on if a person develops type 2 diabetes. It depends on things such as obesity or high cholesterol.

"The way it's understood, it skips a generation. Not my mom's generation but my grandmothers generation, one of them had diabetes. One of them died when they were very young, he could have had diabetes."

MacDonald has to take two types of insulin. One is called Humalogue, which is the fastest acting insulin on the market today. It takes a half-hour to kick in but before it was developed, the fastest was between two and three hours.

"Which meant if I was feeling miserable because my blood sugar was high, I was bad for two hours."

She used to take two different types of insulin and a combination of the two in the morning and at night. Now she takes the Humalogue when she eats and she takes between 12 and 15 units each time. At night she takes Humalogue L, it's slow acting and keeps her blood sugar level throughout the night.

A cure for diabetes is being researched. Six months ago scientists were trying to find ways to transplant the pancreas. They also have a system where they place a small box about 4 cm by 6 cm in your side, which constantly regulates blood sugar.

"It leaves a bump and I don't want a bump," says MacDonald.

In the early 1900s the lifespan of a person with diabetes was as low as 10 years. Nowadays a diabetic, as long as they take care of themselves, can have a lifespan as long as a healthy person.

MacDonald uses a pen- shaped needle to give herself injections. She pays $2 for two weeks worth of insulin. The injections have become a part of her life and she has gotten used to having them every day.

"I think it would be a lot stranger to not have to now, because this is part of my life," she says. "It's probably why I don't have any cavities and have never had a filling."

Since she was seven, she has been attending a diabetic camp, which is run by the Canadian Diabetic Centre in Charlottetown. The camp is five days long. After she became too old to attend she was a counsellor for three years.

Everybody at the camp is a diabetic; counsellors, campers and staff. There's an on-site doctor for medical purposes.

"The camp's great. I hated it until I was about 14 years old. Just because there was really nobody there my age, but the whole thing in itself is really good. The camp is the first place I gave myself my insulin," says MacDonald. "That's usually where most kids give their first insulin injection."

A lot of diabetics come from below average income families.

"A lot of these kids' families don't have a lot of money," she says. "The Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA) provides everything. They provide strips, which are $50. They are $1 a piece to buy and I use three or five a day."

CDA pays for the supplies the children need to manage their diabetes.

"The kids don't pay for anything there.

"They go through so much work for the kids and you don't realize how much work goes into it when you're a kid," she says. "It's a way to make a diabetic feel normal.

"I've done every kind of camp possible and diabetic camp is the only place I ever felt normal. You're not the same when you're at another camp. You're different and everybody knows it."