Ive written recently (read here) about my mum's diabetes diagnosis earlier this month. Its now confirmed that she is diabetic (not pre-diabetic as I had thought). Today I visited her Diabetes Educator with her to make sure that she (and I) both understand her condition and how to manage it. It was a really interesting session and I learnt a lot from it.
But more than the learnings about diabetes it has made me stop and think about health and well being in general. How many of us take our health for granted by allowing poor diet, fitness and lifestyle habits to creep in? How many of us carry a few extra kilos because we can't be arsed to put the effort in to losing them. That effort of being careful and disciplined with our food and exercising consistently - including those times when we can't be arsed - just seems too hard sometimes, especially when there seems to be no direct motivation to do it.
How many of us live with a "she'll be right" attitude because facing up to a "she may not be all right" attitude is harder? Come on, admit it, you've probably been guilty of it at some stage.
Ok I confess (and you all know it anyway) that I've been guilty of all of the above. It's human nature to take the easy way and to make some poor decisions (sometimes). When you know that your general health is good, when you know that your weight is not a health risk, when your fitness level is better than that of the average office worker, it's bloody easy to get complacent about it all. I've certainly had plenty of those times.
But today I learnt that I have a 40% chance of getting diabetes myself. I learnt the factors that will contribute to its onset and I learnt a bit about its management strategy (more of that in lesson 2 in 2 weeks time). I tell you, if that's not enough to motivate me to do my best to control the onset factors that can be controlled then I don't know what is.
My mum will manage her diabetes through diet, exercise and weight loss until eventually she'll need tablets and then insulin injections. Not something I want to be looking down the barrel at as I get older. Because whilst its not the diabetes itself that is the killer (pardon the pun), its the complications that can arise from it that would make life suck.
M
Diabetes is scary because it's so silent and the women who are walking around with PCOS are also predisposed. Thank goodness for good health!
ReplyDeleteLiz you are so right. Mum doesn't feel sick at all and if it wasn't for her GP insisting on regular health checks, it would never have been picked up. I'm still in the "really healthy" category but even more alert to not getting complacent about it. Peter too as his nan had it. So we're both pretty motivated to live healthy lifestyles and we're grateful for what we have.
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