During the fifties in a very small town called Port Clinton, Ohio, when I was small, I overheard my parents talking about a friend of theirs who had a strange disease called diabetes. I soaked up all the information and dwelled on it and feared it intensely every day. At six years old, 1951, I got Scarlet Fever -- and never got well. I was very ill for five years, missed a lot of school and fun. I thought my saliva was poison, so I spit a lot. I couldn't stay awake and was always thirsty and peeing. I wanted to eat weird food combinations and cravings. (Self prophesy?) In that little town, the one old doctor there never had any idea what was wrong with me, so I wasn't diagnosed until I was eleven, when we moved to Phoenix, AZ.
In early September, 1956 I had trudged my always tired body home from school with horrible pains in my back. My parents took me to St Joseph Hospital's ER in Phoenix. I had double pneumonia in the middle of a fall heat wave (Indian Summer). I was admitted, and of course they found I had Juvenile Diabetes -- big time. I was in that hospital for six weeks, again missing a lot of school. (Made me a math dummy! lol) Back then, it was glass syringes and thick, dull needles which had to be boiled on the stove to sterilize them, urine testing for blood sugar, which was totally inaccurate and calamity-causing. And there was very little understanding from others for a kid having insulin reactions, etc.
It's been quite a challenge for me to live on this blood-sugar roller-coaster, but now I've been a pumper for years, and at nearly 68, a retired office slave, I am going strong as a volunteer on two therapeutic riding ranches, helping mentally challenged kids and taking care of horses. (I had a horse named George when I was a kid in Phoenix.) And horses are great therapy for us volunteers, too. And I needed that. ("My therapist lives in a barn.")
Lakeside, CA
