The cost of diabetes
It is a horrible disease - my sister was born with Type 1, and was lucky enough to be offered a pancreas transplantation some 10 years ago. Unfortunately her body rejected it after a year or two, and she was on immune depressants ever since, while waiting for a new one.<p>She works in fitness, and lives a very active and healthy lifestyle - but still the diabetes was progressing, slowly but surely. Those new automatic pumps turned out to be a lifesaver, and she opted to get off the immune depressants due to likelihood of other nasty stuff that those bring (cancers, infections, decreased fertility, etc.). Hopefully these pumps will work so precisely, that the damage from inconsistent insulin levels will be a thing of the past.<p>But she obviously still needs insulin. Luckily we live in a country where that is more or less free, and always in stock. I honestly can&#x27;t remember the last time she suffered from bouts of low blood sugar - which was unfortunately a very regular thing back when we were teens.<p>Unfortunately that was not the case for my old HS gym teacher. He, too, led a very active and healthy lifestyle, but the disease progressed in a very insidious way for him. He developed a foot sore that wouldn&#x27;t heal, and after some time they decided to amputate said foot from ankle.<p>Then he had a heart-attack some months later, and was bound to the wheelchair. Which was followed by two more amputations, the other leg and one arm.
He lived like that for some years before ending up blind, and doing longer stays at the hospital. Finally a massive stroke got him, and that was it.<p>I think he spent some like 5 years from amputating the first leg, to passing away. And as you can guess, that included tons of hospital visits &#x2F; stays, medication, physical therapy, becoming dependent on your friends and family, and what not.<p>It is truly insidious, because it can completely wreck your body in so many ways, and pretty slowly too. I can&#x27;t imagine having diabetes w&#x2F;complications, and living underinsured (or without insurance) in a country without universal healthcare. It seems like to have a fighting chance, you need consistent insulin supply, and modern delivery systems.<p>I shudder when I hear about poor people in the US rationing insulin, and still being dependent on those antiquated measurement&#x2F;delivery devices. Seems like you&#x27;re just entering a negative feedback loop, which will eventually catch up with you.