“There are bars on the windows in the hospital. This is the first thing that catches my eye. “God, that’s my cell!” – I think. I am overwhelmed with panic. I don’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone, or hear about injections – I am afraid of them to this day. It has been going on for 14 years – Milena Drabik tells Agnieszka Fedorczyk how to live with diabetes.
Diabetes mellitus is currently one of the greatest problems of modern medicine. In Poland, the number of diabetics is estimated at 3 million and this number is growing dynamically. On the occasion of World Diabetes Day, we remind you of the text by Agnieszka Fedorczyk.
Diagnosis. I’m 16 years old. Normal day. I am sitting over a geography book, a test awaits me. I’m getting hungry. I open the refrigerator. I eat, eat, eat … I go back to the couch, go to sleep. Mom wakes me up. He takes to his aunt who has been suffering from diabetes for 20 years. Aunt takes out a blood glucose meter. My Score? 314 mg / dL! The norm of fasting in a healthy person is 70-99 mg / dl. “Take her to the hospital!” – he throws. I come to the Children’s Ward in Konin. The next day they transport me to the clinic in Poznań.
Life in a cell
The first thing that catches my eye in the hospital is the bars on the windows. “God, it’s a cell!” – I think, I am overwhelmed by panic fear. I don’t want to talk to anyone, see anyone, or hear about injections. I’ve been afraid of them since I was a child. I hear that I have to sting every day for the rest of my life. “Will I die?” – I ask doctors, nurses and parents. I have no idea what is wrong with me, what kind of disease it is. Shocking. I feel like an animal driven into a cage. I need time, a lot of time to recover, to get used to the situation.
Diabetes symptoms. Check if this does not apply to you
From that time, I remember the feeling of overwhelming loneliness. I don’t feel any support, not even from my parents. I learn myself how to calculate insulin doses, what it means “carbohydrate exchanger”, how to make an injection, how to operate an insulin pump. A psychologist and a therapist help. Today I know that with properly treated diabetes you live and function normally. Oh, a chronic disease. But then? Terrified and the thought, “Why me ?!”
For the next ten years, I give myself injections – several times a day. In the thighs, stomach, buttocks, shoulder. Could use a third hand … Sometimes a friend helps – I grab a fold of skin, she injects insulin. I asked my dad once, he “shot” me in the shoulder. “Dad, it hurts … you’re aiming at me like a horse!” I have finally had an insulin pump for four years.
I see mothers saying to their children, “Don’t eat the candy bar, it’s sugar!” “Don’t eat a burger – too greasy! After that, the sugar will “jump” to you. ” I envy these children, I want someone else’s concern, and I want someone to look after me sometimes. It was like that then, but I still feel like that, after fourteen years! I’m an adult but
I was left with a poorly cared for child. I know I’m on my own.
Night shift
I feel discriminated against, I think most diabetics do. It was like that at school. I am finishing high school in administration and economics. Then post-secondary school. I am getting a technician – carer diploma in a social welfare home. I intern at a Nursing Home, I check myself, I get a job. And I lose her right away. Because … I have diabetes. I hear that I am sick that I will not be able to cope. “We need an employee for three shifts,” I cannot work at night. I want in the day, very much. I don’t get this chance.
I am finishing subsequent courses, training of a career counselor, and participating in the training of young leaders of the Polish Diabetes Association. During the sign language course, I am the only one in the group that does not have a computer. I make detailed notes on how to arrange my hands, he imagines it. I succeed – I get the next grades of the course. “Migam.” Without a certificate, because you have to pay almost a thousand zlotys for each exam. I need insulin and strips. This is the most important thing – I will die without it.
I’m looking for a non-stop job. They don’t want me anywhere permanently. Because I have diabetes, because I’m supposed to collapse, because there will be trouble. A three-month internship – here you are. Because an intern can do anything. I am successively: an economic worker and the paperwork in an accounting office. I play kids on a casual basis. The internship is over, earnings are running out. And what next? Every month I leave what I can earn at the pharmacy. I take comfort in volunteering. It is work with disabled children – they do not want to admit those with diabetes to kindergartens, they are afraid of them in schools.
On the scene
I meet Ms Beata Stepanow, she is my diabetes educator, I help her in preventive and educational campaigns that she comes up with and introduces to schools. I tell her my story and Ms Beata writes a play. It contains my experiences with hypoglycemia and discrimination. Two people join us. Together, we are preparing the performance “From the diary of an angel”. I play the main role, Mrs. Beata is my mother, Monika (also suffering from diabetes) – an employer who
fires me. Tom (he is healthy) – an angel. The one I can’t see but hear. It tells you what to do, how to deal with life and dilemmas. With this spectacle, we want to show what patients like me struggle with. Because people don’t know it. They do not know that the level of glycemia is influenced not only by what I eat, how much insulin I take, but also by the emotions I have, problems at work and in life. I get pissed and I see that the sugar on the meter jumps to three hundred. Our Diabeteatr © is created in honor of the late president of the Branch of the Diabetes Association in Konin, Józef Wiatrowski. We continue his idea – showing healthy and sick people what diabetes is. That they would stop being afraid of her. Education and therapy through art. I am glad that someone believed in me – Mrs. Beata, a nurse. I know that I can finally give something of myself to others, selflessly. I believe this comes back to me twice.
My dreams? It’s mundane – my own corner to life, I lost it a year ago and ended up in the Crisis Intervention Center. I’ve been there for nine months, I feel bad. I also want people to know how to help someone like me when they collapse. I am afraid because in a few months, in November, my pump warranty ends. And if it breaks down, I’ll be doomed to injections again. Because the pump cannot be repaired. I live with diabetes 24 hours a day, it’s like a full-time job all the time. Life with a watch in hand. Time is precious – every minute. Because the pancreas is waiting. For the hormone. “Feeding time” is what I call insulin delivery. What else do I want? So that people know that we – diabetics are the same on the outside as others. And only others inside. “Inside I’m sweet” – this is how I want to think about myself in this disease. I try to joke about my illness.