Mob member dodges a silent killer
My first day as a doctor on call, one year out of medical school, was to a New Zealand major gang convention.
It was in rural Canterbury, on the first day I was legally able to work on my own. It wasn’t really a house call but a paddock call.
A gang member was having a seizure for 40 minutes. Even as a fresh faced young doctor, I knew that wasn’t good.
The first comment was: ‘‘You don’t look like a doctor, you look like a kid’’ – which, in retrospect, I was.
In an equally non-friendly tone another gang member was pouring beer over the poor epileptic patient’s head, telling him to ‘‘harden up bro’’.
I felt bold enough to tell the gangster, ‘‘I don’t think pouring beer on his head will make any difference, bro!’’
‘‘What will?’’ he snapped. I told him I needed to shoot some diazepam up the jerking patient’s rectum.
I can’t print the response, but luckily realising I needed back up, I called 111. I have never been so glad to see a St John ambulance arrive (except when I was stabbed, but that’s another story).
Fast forward 25 years and I’m in my own ambulance at a clinic in Taita. I went to school in Taita and now I’m definitely not fresh faced. Neither is the guy referred to me for a diabetes check from Healthy Families Lower Hutt.
He has ‘‘Mongrel Mob’’ tattooed on his face and legs and his name is Anaru ‘‘Fats’’ Moke. He wasn’t happy to see me and was even less happy when I told him his HBA1C (which measures the last three months of diabetic control) was 90 – normal is 40.
‘‘Bro, you’ve got diabetes,’’ I said.
‘‘I hate doctors and I hate diabetes,’’ replied Fats.
‘‘If you don’t get it sorted you will get your legs cut off,’’ I told him, frankly.
‘‘I know, my dad died when I was 7 years old, I was the kid who had to dress his amputation stumps,’’ said Fats. ‘‘How many kids have you got?’’ ‘‘Eleven,’’ he beamed proudly. ‘‘So which one of your kids is going to dress your stumps?’’ I asked. ‘‘Bro, I want your help,’’ he said. I made a breakthrough. So help we have. Fats is not only a model patient, dropping 10kg since we Dr Tom Mulholland is an Emergency Department Doctor and GP with over 25 years’ experience in New Zealand. He’s currently a man on a mission, tackling health missions around the world. met earlier this year and his HBA1C, but he is a great bloke, a great dad and now, a good mate.
I’m glad we have helped Fats. Without his tattoos you wouldn’t know he was a mobster, and besides, maybe times are changing.
Plus my folks taught me not to judge a book by its cover, and that’s true of diabetes. We have found dozens of skinny, young kids with pre-diabetes from a diet of energy drinks. With diabetes, everyone is at risk, no matter what your cover.
It’s not your diabetes that will kill you, but your attitude toward it that will.