: Amy Ryan
: Shot Staying Alive with Diabetes
: Hudson Whitman/ Excelsior College Press
: 9780989845151
: 1
: CHF 9.40
:
: Biographien, Autobiographien
: English
: 262
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
Shot is an intimate portrait of a young woman's sudden transition to type one diabetes, a chronic, life-threatening, auto-immune disease. Treatment for a routine infection one Monday morning yielded, with stunning speed, to a glucose monitor, test strips, insulin vials, and a diagnosis that completely changed her life. In Shot, Amy Ryan shows what it really takes to live with and manage an incurable disease. She charts the essential duties that keep her stable while revealing the daily concerns, the simple rewards and victories, the fears of highs and lows, and the psychological strain of depending on herself, a drug, and a network of health care providers to stay alive with diabetes. People who manage life-threatening illness will recognize their own struggles in Amy's compelling story. The millions who care for and support family, friends, or patients with diabetes will have their eyes opened to the human side of living with a chronic condition.

1


My 29th year was off to a great start. I had been promoted at work. I'd been accepted in one of the top law schools in the country. I'd lost some weight. I was dating a man who had two little boys, and I adored all three of them. Then I got a yeast infection.

A yeast infection sounded harmless enough. I'd never had one before, but my doctor assured me it was a common condition suffered by many women.

"Are you sexually active?" she asked.

"Yep."

"Same guy as before? Still monogamous?"

"Yes and yes."

"Still going to the gym regularly?"

"Yep."

"It's probably some combination of all of those. Be sure to use the bathroom after sex, don't keep on damp exercise clothes after your workout, and be sure to wear cotton underpants."

She gave me a prescription for a medication to be administered every night when I went to bed for the next several nights, and she cautioned me to wear cotton underwear and to keep dry."And, by the way," she mentioned just before slipping out of the examination room,"there was some sugar in your urine. You might want to have that checked the next time you see your GP."

"Checked for what?" I asked.

"Diabetes," she said casually."You're an unlikely candidate, but the sugar in your urine was high. So you should have it checked at some point." She paused for a moment while looking at my chart and then asked,"Did you eat breakfast before you came in today?"

"Yes."

"What did you eat?"

Sheepishly, I responded,"Honey Nut Cheerios." Paul, the man whom I was dating, often teased me for having the culinary preferences of a twelve-year-old, so it was with some embarrassment that I made this admission to my doctor.

"That's probably it. It's probably just all that sugar from the cereal getting out of your system." She closed her chart and looked up at me, saying,"Take care." And she was gone.

Diabetes. I would have to remember to get that checked. But not before I went away for a long weekend with Paul. We had rented an oceanfront condominium for Memorial Day weekend, a little more than a week away. That gave me just enough time to finish the prescription for my yeast infection and be in good shape for our vacation.

I took the last dose of my prescription on a Monday night. By Wednesday, all of the symptoms had returned.Strange, I thought.I must have somehow screwed up the medicine.

I called my gynecologist's office first thing Thursday morning. I needed to get this cleared up as soon as possible. A weekend at the beach treating a yeast infection was not what I had in mind.

"Dr. Anderson doesn't have any appointments open," the receptionist informed me when I asked whether my do