Diabetes For Dummies
Chapter One
Dealing with Diabetes
In This Chapter
* Meeting others with diabetes
* Coping with the initial diagnosis
* Upholding your quality of life
As a person with diabetes, you're more than the sum of your blood glucose
levels. You have feelings, and you have a history. The way that you
respond to the challenges of diabetes determines whether the disease will be
a moderate annoyance or the source of major sickness.
ANECDOTE
One of my patients told me about working at her first job out of college,
where each employee birthday was celebrated with cake. She came to the
first celebration and was urged to eat a slice. She refused and refused, until
finally she had to say, "I can't eat the cake because I am diabetic." The woman
urging her said, "Thank God. I thought you just had incredible willpower."
Twenty years later, my patient clearly remembers being told that having diabetes
is better than having willpower. Another patient told me the following:
"The hardest thing about having diabetes is having to d ... read full excerpt from Diabetes For Dummies ebook
