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Listening to the murmurs outside my examining room, I waited impatiently for the doctor's voice. Why hadn't his nurse simply phoned in another antibiotic prescription for my urinary tract infection? My records showed previous infections almost always required two courses of medication to clear up. And my schedule, packed with managing a household of teens and a job as a high-school teacher, didn't leave me time to waste idling at a seemingly unnecessary office visit. Frustrated by thoughts of my unfinished dinner and ungraded stack of vocabulary tests at home, I eyed the clock and fidgeted.
I thumbed through three magazines before the doorknob rattled and my doctor opened the door. "I want to talk about your blood test results," he said.
The look in his eyes alerted me. "Do I have cancer?" I whispered.
"No," he quickly reassured me as he took a seat. "You have type 2 diabetes."
The news was hardly reassuring. Myriad fears flashed through my mind—shots, blindness, amputation, death, and, worst of all, no more chocolate.
My physician explained he'd prescribe oral medication and enroll me in diabetic education classes. "The good news is, this disease is controllable," he continued. "We're lucky we found it now."
Lucky? Good news? The rest of his words went unheard. I drove home tearful, talking aloud to God. How could I have diabetes? What had I done wrong?
By the start of diabetic classes the next week, I'd moved from tears to anger. The class schedule forced me to miss crucial time periods at my job. And the realization I was the youngest person in the hospital classroom only heightened my outrage.
Then denial set in. My only diabetic relative was my grandmother, and she'd contracted the disease late in life. I always tried to eat healthfully and never smoked or drank alcohol. While I ate the occasional candy bar, I didn't eat sweets all the time. So my internist must have made a huge mistake.
Listening to the diabetes educator's presentation, however, I realized how much about this disease I hadn't known.
1. One-third of Americans with type 2 diabetes display no early symptoms or fail to recognize them. Of the 18 million people affected in this country, around 9.7 million are women. In the educator's list of symptoms, I noticed a few I'd experienced but hadn't realized could signal diabetes: frequent urinary tract infections, fatigue, and, surprisingly, giving birth to a baby weighing more than nine pounds. None of my babies had been small; my last weighed nine pounds, three ounces at birth. Also, my frequent fatigue hadn't been related just to a demanding job and busy family, but to this very real metabolic disorder.
2. Anyone over age 18 can contract the disease, although people over age 50 are especially susceptible. A sedentary lifestyle, excess weight, and ethnicity can contribute to early onset. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and Asian/Pacific Islanders have a two- to four-times higher risk for type 2 diabetes than do Caucasians.
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