Diabetes shouldn’t stop you living life to the full
I UNDERSTAND Justin Webb’s concern about his son’s type 1 diabetes (Mail) but, from my experience, I think he’s being overly negative. Our daughter, Allison, became diabetic when she was just three years and nine months old. But from the very beginning, we had a positive attitude about her diagnosis. Learning to inject her with insulin, watching her intake of carbohydrates, and so on, wasn’t a chore. She was our beautiful daughter. She had the same positive attitude when taking control of her own injections and looking after herself, such as doing finger prick tests to check her glucose level. We’ve travelled abroad many times — insulin comes with us — with no fuss. Allison was sports girl of the year in her junior school and still enjoys outdoor activities. She has now travelled widely by herself, including visits to Japan and South Africa. We thank God that she hasn’t had any significant side-effects. She will be 40 this year and our mindset from the start about this condition has been: ‘We rule it, it doesn’t rule us.’ Mrs PAULINE HUCKrIDGE,
Worcester. DON’T be too downbeat about type 1 diabetes. Lots of children are diagnosed with this problem. One of my grandsons was found to have diabetes in 1998 when he was about nine. The doctors and nurses were very helpful and supportive. He was old enough to understand and was very interested when they explained what diabetes was and how they were going to work with him to keep him well. My son and his wife learned how to look after him and never made a big thing of the injections. My grandson is now married — to a doctor — and they have three lovely, healthy children.
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