By Jim White
Immediately after Theresa May declared her candidacy for the Conservative Party leadership, the whispering started. An unnamed parliamentary source was quoted questioning whether she was suitable for the toughest role in politics given, you know, her ailment. Is someone with type 1 diabetes capable of being prime minister, this anonymous MP asked.
May was obliged publicly to insist it should serve as no obstacle to her ability to do the job. And she has a point: in comparison with some of the alcoholics, philanderers, liars and cheats who have entered No 10, having someone in charge who is obliged to inject themselves four times a day seems a minor flaw.
But the fact the issue was being exploited subtly to undermine May’s suitability for the highest office reveals the widespread ignorance about the condition. I should know: I’ve been living with type 1 for 15 years. The usual reaction when I tell someone is: “Oh, you don’t look like a diabetic.” Which is a polite way of saying that they have never spotted me with my face buried in a tottering Himalaya of cream cakes.
Like May, type 1 hit me in middle age. Like her, I was in denial, assuming my sudden weight loss was the result of a new fitness regime. The constant thirst; the sudden, urgent requirement to visit the lavatory; the crippling cramps; the rapid deterioration in my eyesight – all these I put down to the debilitations of turning 40. Nothing wrong with me, I thought. Until the morning I could barely put one foot in front of the other and collapsed in a sobbing heap on the bedroom floor.
When I was diagnosed, it was a shock. There was no family history of the condition. Like most people, I assumed diabetes was a self-inflicted thing, the corollary of spending your life on the sofa watching Jeremy Kyle while consuming jumbo buckets of Kentucky Fried Mars Bars. It couldn’t be me, then. I wasn’t overweight. Quite the opposite. At the time, any passing xylophone enthusiast could have played Beethoven’s Ninth on my rib cage.
But this is the thing about diabetes: one name covers two very different conditions. Type 2 is the more common, the one that can be – though not always – brought on by lifestyle. With type 2 the pancreas embarks on a go-slow, reducing the output of insulin, leading to dangerously high amounts of sugar in the bloodstream. Unchecked, the excess of glucose can fry nerve endings, leading to blindness, amputation and organ failure. But under careful stewardship involving exercise, pills and a decent diet, the pancreas can be coaxed back to full working condition.
Not so with type 1. This is an auto-immune condition in which the pancreas cannot be revived. With no insulin in the body, the sugar in food is cast as a potential killer. When type 1 strikes, the sufferer has to compensate for the absent pancreas by manually checking their blood sugar levels and injecting insulin.
If left uncontrolled, type 1 is horribly debilitating: in the long term, an excess of blood sugar destroys the system from within, while a lack of the stuff can lead to mental and physical collapse. Which concentrates the mind of those diagnosed with it. You need to understand how to take charge.
The first thing you have to appreciate is the paradox at the condition’s heart: the body is not allergic to sugar, it simply can’t process it properly. Sometimes, in fact, when blood sugar sinks, you need quickly to get glucose into the system. That is why diabetics – including May during debates in the House of Commons – carry bags of sweets. For us, the Jelly Baby can be a lifesaver.
What you learn over time is how to keep your blood sugar as close to normal as possible. You learn what food to eat and when, and how much alcohol you can safely consume (none, I have reluctantly come to appreciate, is probably best). You do this by endlessly testing your blood sugar, something that has been hugely assisted by the advances in technology which now allow it to be done via the discreet swipe of an electrode attached to the arm, rather than pricking the finger. Basically, you have to keep yourself in check.
Which is why I was relieved that, like Mrs May, it struck me later in life. Eighty per cent of those with the condition are diagnosed in childhood, their youth compromised by its hovering insistence on endless restraint. And to live with type 1 means no room for the carefree. What-the-hell cannot be part of the diabetic vocabulary.
When I was told I was diabetic – I was 42 and working as a newspaper and broadcast journalist – a friend advised me to keep it secret. The assumption among would-be employers, he suggested, was that, like the whispers about May, it would compromise my ability to do my job. But what I found was that strict control allows you to carry on with life as normal. I occasionally fear I may have passed it on unwittingly to my three children – now 27, 26 and 24. And my wife sometimes scares herself with worries about me suffering a low sugar moment alone and far from home. But since the diagnosis in 2001, the one thing it hasn’t stopped me doing is anything I want: I’ve run marathons, climbed (well, scrambled up) mountains and been on international work assignments for weeks on end without suffering any consequences. Not as challenging as running the country, I admit. But having type 1 is no barrier to life. Provided you are on top of things.
Indeed, never mind the intelligent, humane and responsible way May responded to the findings of the Hillsborough inquest, to my mind what makes her the ideal candidate for prime minister is that she has made her condition an irrelevance. She has done that by astute and careful personal management. And having control of yourself is not a bad starting point for taking control of the country.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wellbeing/health-advice/midlife-diabetes-hasnt-stopped-me--and-it-wont-stop-theresa-may/
No comments:
Post a Comment