“Now I take ownership of my health”
It’s no secret that diabetes can lead to a variety of health complications, but for Debbie Bryant, 64, diabetes was the complication
“When I was told I had type 2 in June last year, it didn’t faze me. To be honest, it was the least of my problems! “The week before, I’d been rushed to hospital because I was retaining fluid. I’d put on 26kg of fluid in 10 days and my doctor suspected I was in heart failure. Tests showed I actually had a kidney disease that occurs rarely in adults, called minimal change disease (MCD) and, sure enough, on my third night in hospital my kidneys failed.
“It took nearly three months of treatment with high-dose steroids to push my MCD into remission, and another two months after that until my kidneys recovered, but almost as soon as I started taking the steroids, I developed
steroid-induced diabetes. Both my parents had type 2, so my specialist warned me I was at a higher risk once I started MCD treatment but again, given how ill I was at the time, it didn’t really seem important.
“It wasn’t until I’d left hospital and started to feel better again that
I began to get my head around living with type 2.”
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
“Before developing diabetes, I’d always considered my and my husband John’s diet to be healthy, but once I had to consciously start lowering my sugar intake, I was shocked to realise we were eating more of the sweet stuff than I thought.
“I discovered most of the tinned and packet foods in the pantry contained a significant amount of sugar, as did many of the recipes I cooked. Together, John and I went on a bit of a sugar detox and I won’t lie, it wasn’t fun! But we eventually felt so much better and given my diabetes was purely diet controlled at the time, it helped me control my BGLs.
“These days we’re a ‘fresh everything’ household, avoiding tinned and jarred foods and sauces. I even make my own baked beans from scratch.
Partly, so I can feel confident that I’m avoiding hidden sugars, but also because I like to stick to a low-salt diet for my kidneys. Now that I know what it’s like to have them fail, I’m determined to help them out as much as I can.
John has also put a great deal of time and effort into developing diabetes-friendly sweet treats for me. When he noticed I was missing white chocolate, he developed his own version using copha, UHT milk powder, Natvia and cream cheese, with almonds and cranberries added. It’s divine! And eating one square actually lowers my BGLs.
“The other thing we did was change when we eat our largest meal. We started making breakfast our main meal of the day and dinner our smallest. As well as being beneficial for our digestive systems, it’s been good for my diabetes, too. Plus, after I was discharged from hospital, I found that I had the most energy in the mornings so it’s when I felt like cooking.”
A MOVING TARGET
“Sometimes I say I’ve got come-and-go diabetes. Every time my steroid dose changes, it moves the goal posts in terms of BGLs and what I need to do to keep them controlled. I’ve gone from being diet controlled to taking metformin and, just recently, back to being purely diet controlled. I’ve been told different things about what will happen to my diabetes when I can eventually stop taking the steroids altogether, but my hope is that it will disappear.
“The only spanner in the works is that I’ve also been warned my MCD could relapse at any time, which would mean going back on high-dose steroids and dealing with those shifting goal posts again. And not just with regards to diabetes, I’ve also experienced liver damage caused by another medication I was taking for MCD. “On top of feeling grateful that I enjoyed 60-plus years of good health before any of this began, something that helps me cope is doing my research. Being informed helps me take ownership of my health and I can ask questions of my doctors and have meaningful discussions with them. It’s my way of regaining a sense of control.” ■