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In This Chapter

▶ Discovering successful people with diabetes

▶ Coping with the initial diagnosis

▶ Upholding your quality of life

If you have diabetes, in the course of a year you live with that diagnosis for about 8,760 hours. During that time, you spend perhaps one hour with a physician. In Chapter 12, I introduce you to many of the other people who may help you to manage your disease. Clearly, however, the ball is in your hands alone practically all the time. How you deal with your diabetes determines whether you score or are shut out.

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 deal with doctors who do not respect me.” Several times over the years, she had followed her doctor’s recommendations exactly, but her glucose control hadn’t been satisfactory. The doctor blamed her for this “failure.”

Unless you live alone on a desert island (in which case I’m impressed that you got your hands on this book), your diabetes doesn’t affect just you. How you deal with your diabetes affects your family, friends, and co-workers. This chapter shows you how to cope with diabetes and how to understand its impact on your important relationships.