CHAPTER 11....My Wife, My Caretaker
Anita was born in Washington, D. C. in May, 1944. She lived with her parents and younger brother in Falls Church Virginia. I was teaching at Bridgewater College when Anita was a sophomore there, and we started dating in November, 1963. She knew nothing about diabetes when we were dating and none of her relatives or family members had diabetes. She learned many things about my diabetes, but she never worried about me. There was very little reason for her to worry, since I almost always had high blood sugar. She did not see me have a hypo while we were dating.
We were married in May, 1964, when Anita was 20. She began to learn how to cook for me. It was not really that difficult. She used artificial sweeteners and never put any sugar in anything she prepared for me. There was really no advice being given by my doctors about diabetes care, so I ate any food I wanted, as long as it did not contain a significant amount of sugar.
There were a few hypos soon after we were married. One of them occurred one day while walking back to our upstairs apartment near the college and my vision became very blurred. For some reason I was not aware it was a hypo. It came on very fast and I was in a fog. Making it up the steps was very difficult for me. I was out of breath and my heart was beating terribly fast. Anita recognized my symptoms and fed me sugar. That may have been the first time she had to bring me out of a hypo.
Urine testing was a very poor substitute for a glucometer. When there was high sugar in my urine it could have been because I had not passed any urine for several hours. The sugar in the urine may have been from another part of the day. There were many times that my urine tests did not indicate that my blood sugar was low, but it actually was. Anita became very good at detecting my restlessness during the night. She would usually wake me before my blood sugar dropped too low, but in some cases, she would have to feed me sugar. It was rare for me to experience unconsciousness with a hypo during our first years of marriage.
After we moved to New York there were a few times that we could not pay all our bills on time and Anita took a job at Sears. Another year she was the Assistant Director of the local Red Cross. They were low salaried jobs, but we needed the money and her working helped very much.
In 1977 I finally had a doctor who knew a lot about diabetes. Then in the late 1980s I learned about the importance of low carb dieting. Applying this new knowledge greatly improved my control and I did not have high blood sugar so frequently. Becoming more accustomed to lower blood sugar helped very much, but there were more frequent hypos. There was at least one bad one each week. When the hypos occurred more frequently Anita was very good about it. She did a great job! I praised her every time she brought me out of a hypo.
Anita devoted much of her time to our two sons. In the 1980s the boys were in high school and demanded much less of her time. She was a stay-at-home mom and she had more time on her hands. The boys went off to college and the two of us were alone. It was a very different life style without our children at home. I was still teaching for the next ten years, until my retirement in 1997. Anita took over the lawn care and made our backyard very beautiful with her handiwork. She planted many flowers and did much wonderful landscaping. It was a work of art.
In the early 1980s we decided we needed mortgage insurance on our home. A local insurance company required a physical examination. A very old semi retired doctor had me fill out a form. He asked me for a urine sample. He tested the urine with the special tape used for that purpose and it turned a dark green. That indicated high urine sugar. He said he could not recommend me for mortgage insurance based on that urine test. How could he make that decision based on a single urine test? He walked outside with me and we stood by my car. At that time I had been diabetic for about 35 years. He told me that I was very lucky to have lived so long without complications. He went on to say he had known another male diabetic like me who was doing very well, but had high urine sugar almost all the time. Less than one year after he had seen the man, he developed kidney failure and was going blind because of his diabetes.
The doctor told me I should not depend on living much longer. This reminded me of the doctor in Richmond, who did not expect me to live beyond my 40s. This doctor had very antiquated ideas.
The next day Metropolitan Life Insurance sounded more promising. They called Dr. B. and learned that I was doing very well after 35 years of diabetes, and there were no complications. They offered me a mortgage insurance policy and we also got one for Anita. Metropolitan was a good choice. The insurance policies gave us peace of mind. We never had to use them. Our house was fully paid for in August of 1995.
David was born , 1966
Our Family, 1974
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Shirley was a caregiver on many occasions before I left home and started teaching. She would hear me at night from her bedroom, if my restlessness during my sleep awakened her. She was kind of tuned in to me when I was having a bad hypo. She woke my parents several times when they were sleeping too soundly to hear me. She did this during my high school and undergraduate college years.
As previously mentioned, Mother had been calling Dr. D. and telling him what she wanted him to tell me before my appointments with him. She also told Shirley to go places with me, when I had intended to go alone. Shirley used to ask if she could go to movies with me. We loved each other and we enjoyed being with each other, but it seemed somewhat peculiar that she would want to see the horror and science fiction movies. It was not her kind of entertainment. She also wanted to go fishing with me several times. I was not dating while in high school and movies and fishing were two of my favorite pastimes. Mother feared I would have a hypo while going out alone, so she asked Shirley to go with me. This completely fooled me and Shirley did not tell me about it until many, many years later. It surprised me when she told me, but it made sense because that was just like Mother. It made me feel bad for Shirley. She says she enjoyed the movies and the fishing trips, but she was actually doing this for Mother and for me. Shirley was, and still is, a wonderful sister and a wonderful human being.
Anita and I were married in May, 1964, and Shirley and her boyfriend, Don, were married two months later in July. The wedding was held in the living room at our home in Roanoke. Here is a picture of my beautiful sister.
Shirley Vaughn Rhodes, 1964
My Sister's Daughter, Debbie, and Her Family, 2009
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CHAPTER 12....My Parents, Their Later YearsDaddy was a wonderful provider for our family. I have never known a man to work so hard. He had a lot of muscle and he worked our little farm just like he had worked farms before he was married. He also worked a 40 hour week at the Roanoke post office and planted shrubbery at people's houses, while working for Mother's uncle. He was a very kind and honest man and he did favors for his parents, siblings and neighbors.
Mother was also a very hard worker, but she had many health problems that bothered her when Shirley and I were children. Asthma and very bad varicose veins gave her a lot of trouble. She still managed to work hard on our farm, canning hundreds of quarts of vegetables and fruit, helping tend the very large garden, doing the house work and being a wonderful Mother to Shirley and me. She watched me and cared for me the only way she could after I was diagnosed with diabetes. She stopped having trouble with her asthma and varicose veins when she was older and then her health was very good. My parents made a wonderful team and Shirley and I were so lucky to have both of them.
My parents and most of my relatives were very religious people. All of my grandparents and several of my aunts and uncles belonged to the Primitive Baptist churches in the southern Virginia area. That may be a Christian denomination with which you are unfamiliar. It is characterized by no music in the church, no Sunday school, no choir, just very plain and simple. The preachers are not called ministers, and they do not go to college to become preachers. The preachers feel the call from God and they know that is their duty.
People who join have some kind of sign, such as a dream, that makes it clear to them that God wants them to join the church. At the conclusion of a Sunday meeting a prospective member will walk down the aisle to the front of the church and announce that he/she wants to join. That person is usually very emotional and find it difficult to speak. A discussion usually follows and the people may hear what made this person know that joining was the proper thing to do that day. If the member is accepted, then there is great rejoicing.
Daddy had this experience several years before he died. We were living far away and I did not know he was going to join. He didn't either, until the preacher was about done for the day. Daddy became very weak and was shaking as he walked down the aisle. He explained why he knew he was supposed to join that day. He was accepted and he was changed in many ways after that day. He was baptized in the baptismal pond on the church grounds. The banks of the pond were lined with well wishers. It is a very joyous occasion when a Primitive Baptist member is baptized.
Daddy had made the two acres immediately surrounding our house very beautiful by planting many wonderful shrubs that had grown very large. He was gifted at landscaping and the large yard was a virtual show place. Mother's large flower gardens added to the beauty of the place. People would stop and want to take pictures of the landscape. The magnolia trees had become quite large and were beautiful to see. On one occasion, a wedding party stopped and got my parent's permission to have their pictures taken on the grounds. Most of their property had been sold and the back seven acres became part of a country club and golf course.
Several years later Daddy started having pains in his chest. The doctor told him he had a weak heart valve and that it should be replaced with a pig's heart valve. Daddy felt that God would take care of him and surgery was unnecessary. Mother begged him to have the surgery. He finally gave in and the surgery was scheduled to take place in approximately three weeks.
In the spring of 1983 there was a bad drought in the Roanoke area and some of the beautiful shrubbery was turning brown. Daddy had a lot of muscle and he would carry a five gallon bucket of water in each hand. He carried those buckets up the hill from the back yard water source to the front yard, to water his boxwoods. The shrubs were so important to him that he wanted to continue waaatering them, despite his heart problem. We were visiting my parents at that time and I begged him to stop. I have never had much muscle and he would not let me help. He felt that God would protect him. If he died then God wanted it that way. He seemed to be OK when we left and went home.
On Mother's Day that year Daddy was sleeping, while lying back in his recliner in the den. Mother was watching TV. She looked over at Daddy and he suddenly made a little gasping noise and stopped breathing. He died in his sleep. He died a few days before his scheduled heart surgery. Mother grieved long and hard. There were many people including Primitive Baptist church members at his funeral. There were relatives there whom I had not seen in so many years. The funeral was on a Wednesday and we stayed through Saturday and returned home Sunday. I had to return to my teaching and there was no substitute to replace me at the college.
Mother had thought for so long that God might give her a sign that she should join the church, but it never happened. One of her brothers became a Primitive Baptist preacher and. He still preaches in the south central Virginia area.
Mother lived alone after that. She was very healthy, so that did not seem to be a problem. She rode her riding mower and mowed her three acre lawn. Shirley and her husband looked after Mother and made sure she was in good shape. It made me feel very guilty that my home in New York was so far from Roanoke. I wanted to help take care of Mother, but my teaching position made it impossible. We visited Mother twice each year, just like we had done before Daddy died.
In April, 2000, Mother was diagnosed with a tumor growing inside her head, beneath her brain. It was very near her brain, but not touching it. The tumor was not cancer. The surgeon in Roanoke told Mother and Shirley that it would be a dangerous if she were to have it removed. Her age was a factor. He said that installing a shunt to drain the fluid off her brain would probably enable her to live about five more years. Mother was not able to understand everything that was said and she did not hear that she might have only five years left. She had the surgery to install the shunt in May of 2000, and that really helped some of her symptoms. Shirley and Don had to keep a close watch on her for her remaining years. Mother gradually became more and more feeble during the years that followed, even though the tumor did not appear to be growing. A few years after her diagnosis she was taken to a nearby nursing home in Roanoke. She liked the nursing home and she made friends with other people living there. She used a walker and made trips on her own to the dining room on the first floor.
In early 2005 she started falling, even though she used her walker. Both she and her walker would topple over. She was hospitalized several times due to falls and her health was declining. The first few times this happened she was not hurt badly. One day in May, 2005, she had a bad fall and hurt her head, causing terrible bruising on her face. We talked on the phone one evening and she told me she was ready to die. She said life was not worth living anymore. The next day she died in her sleep, just like Daddy had done. We went to her funeral and it seemed like a replay of Daddy's funeral 22 years earlier. I saw the same relatives and friends again. It seemed like I saw them only at funerals.
My parents had a wonderful marriage and a good life. Their home and property were sold in 2007. Passing by my old home place is very difficult now. I want so much to stop and go inside the house, but someone else lives there now. I will never get to go inside the house again.
Shirley and I have many wonderful memories of Mother and Daddy, and we talk frequently about our happy times with them.
Shirley, Mother, Richard 1990s
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CHAPTER 13.... Diabetes History and My History Prior to 1980Hesy-Ra, an Egyptian physician, recognized frequent urination (polyuria) as a symptom among his patients in 1552 B.C. That was more than 3500 years ago and it is considered to be the earliest known record of diabetes.
In the first century AD a Greek physician, Arateus, used the term "diabetes" which comes from the Greek word for "siphon". He described diabetes as "the melting down of flesh and limbs into urine". Until the 11'th century diabetes was sometimes diagnosed by "water tasters" who drank some of the patient's urine. If the urine was sweet-tasting, it was thought that diabetes was present. The present day phrase "diabetes mellitus" is derived from the word "mellitus", the Latin word for honey.
Treatments for diabetics before insulin was discovered have always interested me. In 1500 BC a diet of fruits, grain and honey was recommended to reduce excessive urination. In the first century AD Arateus recommended "oil of roses, dates, raw quinces and gruel."
In 230 BC Paul of Aegina thought that the dehydration experienced by diabetes patients was caused by weakness in the kidneys. The remedy he prescribed consisted of "pot-herbs, endive, lettuce, rock fishes, juices of knot grass, elecampane in dark colored wine, dates and myrtle" to be used in the early stages of diabetes. That was followed by a mixture of "vinegar, rose oil and navel-wort", applied as a poultice spread on the skin over the kidneys. He also permitted cutting of veins, or bleeding, to help diabetics.
When I read the contents of some of the remedies from so long ago, I can't help but think of tales of witches, and their brews for casting spells on their victims.
In 1000 AD Greek physicians prescribed "exercise, emetics and sudorifics". All diuretics and drugs were to be avoided.
Prior to the 11'th century there was really no knowledge of how to treat diabetes. Children died very quickly with it. Older people lived longer, but they suffered greatly with terrible complications before dying.
In the 17'th century there were doctors who prescribed "gelly of viper's flesh, broken red coral, sweet almonds and fresh flowers of blind nettles". The tasting of urine was still being used to diagnose diabetes. This method continued until the 20'th century.
There were two schools of thought in the 17'th century. One theory proposed replacing the sugar lost in the urine by following a diet high in carbohydrates. The second school believed that
carbohydrates should be restricted to reduce excess sugar. EUREKA!!! That may have been the first time excessive carbohydrates were considered as detrimental to diabetics. The first theory seemed to be much more popular, and the idea of restricting carbohydrates seems to have been lost for the next few centuries. I say that because treatments being proposed in the late 1800's included bleeding, blistering and doping, with no further reference to restriction of carbohydrates. What a shame!!! If the second school of thought had become the popular one, that may have accelerated the advancements in the years that followed.
In 1945, the year of my diagnosis, carbohydrates were never mentioned. I did not know about the effect of carbohydrates until the mid 1980's. That was about 300 years after the initial proposal that carbohydrates should be limited in a diabetic's diet.
In the late 1850's Priorry, a French physician, advised eating very large quantities of sugar. In the 1870's Bouchardat, another French physician, prescribed individualized diets for his diabetic patients. An Italian diabetes specialist, Catoni, locked up his patients to force them to follow their diets.
In 1910 Sharbey-Shafer in Edinburgh found that diabetics lacked a chemical in there pancreases. He called that chemical insulin.
Popular diets in the period 1900-1915 included the "oat cure", which featured eating oatmeal, the "milk diet", the "rice cure" , "potato therapy" and even the use of opium.
Insulin was discovered in 1921 by Dr. Frederick Banting and Charles Best at the University of Toronto. Thank goodness for the Canadians!!! The first insulin was taken from pigs and cows, and was impure. Large doses were necessary, and they frequently caused abscesses at the injection site. At first the beef and pork insulin was short acting, and multiple doses were needed each day.
Dr. Banting's home was in Alliston, Ontario, Canada. The pictures below show the Banting Memorial. A friend of mine visited the memorial, and sent me this picture in an email. It gave me chills when I read it. We diabetics using insulin owe him so much!!!
In 1922 Eli Lily and company was licensed to manufacture the insulin. By 1923 this short acting insulin became available to the general public. In that same year Dr. Banting and Prof. Macleod won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their discovery of insulin. In 1925 home testing for urine sugar with Benedict's solution became widely available.
In the 1930's new types of beef and pork insulin were introduced. A longer acting insulin, PZI, was created in 1936 by a Danish researcher, Hans Christian Hagedorn. NPH insulin was available in 1938.
In 1944 the first standardized insulin syringe was introduced. It was made of glass. The needles used with that syringe had to be sterilized by boiling. The needles had to be sharpened frequently. My family lived in an area where all the residents had their own wells. Our water was "hard water", with lime, and contained material that caused a deposit to form on my needles when they were boiled. Each morning before the syringe and needle were boiled, Daddy took a whet stone and rubbed the needle against it to remove the deposit. If there was some of the deposit still left on the needle, it became very difficult to push the needle into my flesh. Injections on my arms were more painful so we usually used my upper legs. We were told to inject the insulin into muscle and my abdomen was never used in my childhood. I started giving myself my own injections when I was 12.
In 1945, the year I was diagnosed, a 10 year old child diagnosed with diabetes was not expected to live beyond the age of 45. The two doctors who examined me in 1970 and in the 1980's suggested I would die while in my 40's. It seems that they were still hanging on to that prediction made in 1945.
"The Story Of Insulin" is a must see if you use insulin. If you go to the home page of the dlife.com website and use the search option at the top of the page, you can gain access to this inspiring video. Type "history of insulin" in the box and choose the appropriates item on the following page. This presentation is frequently updated and is worth seeing again and again.
For many years after my diagnosis, I had only one doctor. I followed his advice to the letter and avoided food with a high sugar content. My blood sugar ran much too high from my diagnosis in 1945, until the 1980's, when low carb dieting entered the picture. Testing my urine sugar before eating each meal and limiting my portion sizes and types of food accordingly was my routine. Those test results, however, did not necessarily correlate well at all with my blood sugar level at any given time.
Through the years it was obvious that certain foods were not good for me. The highs I could feel were probably in the mid 200's and higher. The lows that I felt were probably in the mid 100's and lower.
Low carb meals and the glucometer gave me a whole new regimen for my diabetes management. My diabetes was under much better control in the years that followed.
Too much fruit, pasta, bread, cereal and the desserts Mother made for me made me feel high when I ate big portions. Limiting my portion sizes made me feel much better. That was a crude form of carb control, but it was helpful. We knew nothing about carbs, but we knew what foods made me run the highest blood sugar. By limiting my portion sizes when eating the troublesome foods I began feeling high blood sugar even when my blood sugar was in the upper 100's. This certainly helped me during my teen years. My weight was not a problem prior to the 1990s.
After leaving Roanoke and starting my life away from my family, I moved from place to place several times. Moving always involved looking for a new doctor, but there was never one that seemed to know much about diabetes, until the 1980's. They were OK for diagnosing and writing prescriptions and they were well suited for my wife and children, since there was no diabetes involved there. Knowledge about diabetes progressed very slowly prior to the 1980's. The testing of urine to estimate the amount of sugar in my body left a lot to be desired. All of my doctors were general practitioners and they certainly did not specialize in the treatment of diabetes. For these reasons I learned very little about diabetes during those years. Insulin was wonderful!!! It was the only thing keeping me alive.
In 1961 the first disposable insulin syringes were introduced. The pain was greatly reduced with these syringes since the diameter of the needles was smaller. I was still using my glass syringe, and the old thick needles for several years after my marriage in 1964. It seems strange that I did not know about the disposable syringes until so many years after they first became available. These syringes were wonderful. It was no longer necessary to boil the glass syringe and needles every morning in order to sterilize them for repeated use.
Urine strips were also developed in the 1960's. It was no longer necessary to put Benedict's solution and urine in a test tube and boil it on the stove. Holding the strips of tape in my urine stream, and observing the color change, gave me my urine sugar level. It was so easy to do.
During the years 1963-70, while teaching in the south, I did not see doctors about my diabetes more than twice per year. My family saw them for other reasons but my diabetes seemed to play second fiddle to ordinary illnesses, like colds and flues.
After moving to Kingston, NY, in 1970, I found a GP who had moved to this country from Germany. He was the best doctor I had had at that time. He knew much more about diabetes than any of my previous doctors, and he spent as much as 30 minutes with me on each visit. He tested my blood sugar himself while I watched. My blood sugar was usually high but his instructions enabled me to learn a little about carbs, and certain things I should eat in very limited portions. His advice helped, and before he was in semi retirement, in the late 1970's, my control had improved. My urine sugar still showed high much of the time.
In 1977 my doctor was about to retire and move out of the area. A neighbor recommended a new doctor, who had just opened up his practice. Dr. B. was from Thailand. He was a specialist in internal medicine, and his office was in the basement level of the Kingston Hospital. Dr. B. was in charge of the dialysis department at the hospital for a long time. He spent a lot of time with me on my first visit. He obviously knew much more about diabetes than any of my precious doctors had. Dr. B. is the best doctor I have ever had, and he is still my doctor today. He is only a few years younger than me, and may retire at any time. Having to do without Dr. B. will be difficult for me. He has helped me so much. He has had many diabetic patients, and they talk about him in the waiting room. Everybody loves Dr.B.
The first insulin pump was developed in 1963 by Dr. Arnold Kadish. It delivered both glucagon and insulin.
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Reference for Chapter 13:
Sattley, Melissa.
Diabetes Health. History of Diabetes. December 17, 2008.
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CHAPTER 14....Wonderful Progress In The 1980sThe Ames reflectance meter was the first portable glucose meter (glucometer). It was introduced in 1969. They were not very popular at first because of the size and expense. Dr. Bernstein, in one of his books, described his first Ames meter: "...The instrument had a four inch-galvanometer with a jeweled bearing, weighed three pounds and, cost $650". When they became smaller and less expensive they were used more extensively.
Dr. B. told me to buy a glucometer in the early 1980's. That was the first time I had heard of one. It was the Accu-Chek meter, perhaps their first model. It was much bigger and more cumbersome to operate than today's meters, but it was certainly a big improvement when compared to the old Ames meter. It took a much longer time to show my blood sugar level. The numbers on the meter were consistently high at the beginning. Sometimes they were over 200. I did not trust or like this crazy meter! It could not possibly be correct! How could all those highs be correct? This had to be a defective meter. But no, it was not defective. It finally became obvious to me that I had been running very high blood sugar for so much of the during my first 40 years.
Dr. B. confirmed my suspicions and we talked at length about it. What a revelation! Why hadn't I developed terrible diabetic complications after 40 years of high blood sugar? Dr. B. could not answer that question and he still can't today. He told me he had other patients who had diabetes for a long time and some of them were on dialysis, or had heart or eye problems, or amputations.
Ames Glucose Meter, 1969
In the late 1980's I started logging my BG levels, insulin dosages and number of carbs eaten. It was a very new experience for me and making out those logs, and watching my control gradually improve, was very revealing. I was still using beef and pork insulin when Dr. B. became my doctor. He had me stay with that insulin for several more years.
The hemoglobin A1c test was developed in 1979. With a single blood sample the A1c test can track the average blood glucose level for a period of two to three months. My first A1c, in 1980, was 10.6. In 1981 there was an 11.8. My control kept improving but my A1c's were still too high. Dr. B. asked me to consider going to the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston for treatment. Since my control was better, and I had no diabetes complications, I did not want to go to Boston.
The first insulin pump was also introduced in 1979, but it was inconvenient for most people because of its size. It had to be carried around in a backpack. Pumps introduced in the 1980's were smaller and more easily used. At one time in the 1980's, Dr. B. asked me to consider using an insulin pump. Again I refused his advice because my A1c's were getting better and better. He saw room for improvement and wanted me to pump. He never pressed me to make changes if he saw I was opposed. Now I wish that he had insisted that I use a pump. It would have helped me so much back then.
I have used many different insulins through the years. Beef and pork insulin was improved several times since my diagnosis. My first beef and pork insulin was NPH. that was followed by Lente in the 1950s, Humulin N and R in the 1980s, and a 75/25 Humalog mix in a pen in 1999. I don't know exactly when each of those insulins were initially prescribed. Dr. B. has been my doctor since 1977. He has always been very good about keeping up with new developments and technological advancements in order to best help his diabetes patients. It is very likely that he had me use new insulins very soon after they became available.
In 1983 Eli Lilly Corp. produced Humulin insulin which involved using human DNA. It was the first genetically engineered product cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Humulin was an exact replica of the insulin produced in the human pancreas. Humulin-N had a duration of up to 24 hours. Humulin-R was a more rapidly acting insulin with a duration of 6 to 8 hours. I don't think it would have been possible for me to use the Humulin insulins for basal/bolus control because the duration of the Humulin R was so long. If it was injected prior to each meal using carb counting, then consecutive doses would overlap, unless the meals were 8 hours apart. In any case, I did not know anything about carb counting or basal/bolus, until the late 1990s. It was a few years after Humulin was introduced that I started following a low carb diet.
Going to a hospital emergency room with a hypo was necessary only once during my life time. It happened in the 1980s when Anita had not been able to bring me out of my unconscious state. There were two or three other ambulance visits when the same thing occurred, but the shot they gave me each time worked so quickly that I was able to stand up immediately and walk around. I was fully aware of my surroundings, and at my request, the paramedics had me sign a paper that allowed me to stay at home.
There were times when I wished that I could go back to the beef and pork insulins. There were so few hypos with the older insulins, but there was so much high blood sugar then. It was much healthier for me to be running lower blood sugar while using the newer insulins.
While using the more advanced insulins there were occasional lows and mild hypos while teaching. There were times that my vision would get blurry. After apologizing to my students and eating sugar from my briefcase, my lecture continued with no problem. I did not want to have the reputation of a teacher whose performance in the classroom was jeopardized by my diabetes. Using separate vials of insulin and counting carbs greatly improved my control. Hypos while teaching rarely occurred.
In the 1980's, while using the Humulin insulins, I was teaching a class in basic Statistics. All students in the nursing program at the college were required to take the Statistics course. There were no other teachers at the college with a degree in Statistics, so I taught most of the Statistics classes at that time. There were many nurses in my classes through the years. One summer there were about 25 students in my Statistics class and approximately 10 of them were nurses. While walking to reach my class one evening, my vision became very blurred, and I was very dizzy. It seemed to hit me so suddenly. My container of sugar was not in my pocket. I recognized one of my students in the hall and asked him to go to the classroom and tell them that class would start late.
There was no change or one dollar bills in my pockets to use in the candy machine. My thinking was so muddled that it did not occur to me to go to the classroom, so the nurses could take care of me. I went outside to my car. The parking lot was rather dark and my vision was so bad that finding my car was very difficult. After finally finding my car, I grabbed the roll of quarters used for tolls, and headed back to the candy machine. It was not in the same building as my class. My hands were shaking and some coins dropped on the floor. My vision was so bad that I had to feel for the coin slot. A few coins fell into the slot. Reading the letters and numbers on the machine was impossible, but pushing buttons and pulling knobs caused something to drop.
It felt like a big round cookie. I wanted candy, but a big cookie with some sticky stuff between layers was fine. After gobbling it down, I headed to the other building where my students were patiently waiting. The class started about 15 minutes late. I explained what had happened and the nurses were all over me for not asking them to help. A couple of them were, perhaps, in their late 30's, and had been nurses in the local hospitals. They asked me questions to see if I was OK. They were very concerned. The class started late, but I have always bounced back from those hypos very well. The class was about 2 1/2 hours long, but considering what had happened, things actually went rather well that evening.
Two days later I had a terrible hypo during the night and Anita could not get me to eat anything. I was convulsing and she called an ambulance. It came promptly and they gave me a much needed injection of glucose and took me to the hospital. During my two days in the hospital one of the nurses from my class waited on me. Another nurse from my class kept dropping in, even though she was on duty in another part of the hospital. My hospital stay was on a weekend and I was released in time to meet with my statistics class on Monday evening. Everybody knew what had happened. That was the only time in my 34 years of teaching that I had received help from my students .
I never missed a class meeting during my 34 years of teaching because of my diabetes. My attendance while attending college classes was also perfect at the undergraduate level, but I missed one day in graduate school because of weakness from the flu. Climbing stairs to the fourth floor where my classes were held was too much for me that day. There were no elevators in that building.
Low carb dieting, glucose meters, exercising, careful logging of all my numbers and better insulins had turned my life around. There were still some hypos, but they were no longer false hypos. There were some highs, but my control was by far the best I had ever experienced. Dr. B. was my guide through all these changes. He is largely responsible for my being alive and healthy at the present time.
Our Kingston house, 1980s
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CHAPTER 15....My Sons, David and GaryDavid was born in Monroe, NC on Sept. 21, 1966. He was a perfectly normal baby and he had a perfectly normal childhood. We had a small apartment and he had no playmates. Anita was so good with him. She was born to be a mother. David was such a sweet child and rarely woke us during the night.
Gary's birth was a bit different. We were living west of Richmond, VA, in Tukahoe Village. The village was a housing development that was built in a swampy region. Tons of soil had been used to build up the area so houses could be constructed there. Days before Gary was due to be born we had a lot of rain. The roads leading into the village were at a lower level than the village itself. Some of those roads were covered with water a few feet deep. The village had become an island. We could not drive off our island. We found that there was a doctor in the village and he agreed to deliver Gary if it was necessary. We were lucky, the rains stopped the day before Gary was born and the water was not so deep. We made it to the hospital and Gary was born on September 9,1969. There were no problems after that, but we had a few anxious hours before the rain stopped.
David and Gary were both wonderful children who never got into any trouble. There were never any substance abuse problems. They were both quiet, intelligent and well behaved children, who never caused us any problems.
I had been diabetic for twenty one years before David was born and never thought anything about taking my insulin when the boys were present. It has been so long now that I cannot remember if they were curious about me injecting. They grew up with it and it was just a part of our every day routine. I tested my urine in the bath room and there was no glucometer for my testing my blood sugar until they were in their late teens. There was very little evidence of me even being diabetic. With my having so much high blood sugar almost all the time, there were rarely any hypos while they were growing up. I must have seemed like a normal daddy with no health problems.
When we moved to New York, David was three and Gary was eleven months old. My birthday is Sept. 10, Gary's is Sept. 9 and David's is Sept. 21. Gary was three weeks premature and was almost born on my birthday.
When Gary was preschool age, we noticed that he was very bright, but there was something wrong. We could not identify the problem. He was having trouble in school. We took him to a center in Kingston where he was tested. He could not respond to written questions, but showed very high intelligence when he responded to questions given orally. We were referred to an expert in learning disabilities. Mrs. R. said that Gary had learning disabilities. She told us she could work with him and enable him to correct these problems. She worked with Gary for two years. He began making better grades in school. When he was in high school, he was such a great student that they kept yanking him out of classes and putting him in accelerated classes. He was extremely bright! Mrs. R. really knew what she was doing with Gary. We were so lucky to have the help of such an expert way back in 1976.
When David was very young he wanted to grow up and drive a fire truck. Later on he wanted to be a magician. He put on magic shows for us and his grandparents.
In 1980 I wanted to take my family out west to see Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Mt. Rushmore and many other interesting sites. We had a family meeting and I gave my sons a choice of the big vacation that I had explained in detail, or a computer. That was the first PC released by Apple, before IBM had released its first PC. My sons had no difficulty deciding. They wanted a computer. We were very short of spare cash and we could not afford both a vacation and a computer. If they had not chosen a computer, I wonder if their futures would have turned out differently. We were saving every bit of money that we could for their college education. Their majors in college were in computers and their lives have revolved around computers ever since. Their choice was the correct one and I am proud of them for having made it.
David did very well in school and he was also placed in advanced math and science classes. He attended the community college where I taught and thought he wanted to enter the business field. Later on he wanted to be a doctor. He made B's in both introductory business and biology courses and was discouraged. He then decided that he would major in computer science. Finally! That was what I wanted him to do in the first place. Does this sound familiar to anyone? He was an excellent computer student, straight A's all the way. He received his BS in computer science at Marist College in 1987 and then was awarded a research assistantship at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
Gary was much more into math and science than David. He majored in engineering and took several computer courses too. He was the only person during his two years at the community college to make A's in general and organic chemistry and physics. He graduated from the community college with a 4.00. We were so proud of both of them. Gary joined David at Georgia Tech in 1989 majored in computer engineering. They both earned their MS degrees there.
David worked one year at the Center of Disease Control in Atlanta, in their computer center. Near the end of his first year there he was interviewed by a representative of a new group that eventually became known as webmd.com. He was put in charge of designing and implementing software that is used by doctors all over the country. He had 10 other computer people working under him. At the present time David is still doing the same kind of work, but is working for a group called Emdeon.
Gary became an expert in information technology and is working for a pharmaceutical research facility in the research triangle in Morrisville, NC, west of Raleigh. He loves his work.
Vanessa (grandaughter) was born, 2003
My daughter-in-law, Yaxu, is a very special young lady. She was born in Tianjin, China. She lived there with her parents and brother. She attended a Chinese university and majored in engineering. When she finished four years at the university, she was allowed to go to the USA to continue her education. She was an excellent student at the Chinese university. She had to be very good to be allowed to go to the USA for graduate work. It is my understanding that only the upper 10% of those graduating from college in China were permitted to continue in our country.
She attended Oklahoma State and majored in business administration. She had studied English in China. She arrived in the USA late and had already missed some classes. She was an engineering student in China and business administration was a completely new field of study. She was in a different country, speaking a different language, and majoring in a different discipline. She was a super student! Nothing was going to stop this young lady. She earned her Master's degree and interviewed for a job with a company that had an opening in Atlanta.
A former acquaintance of David's knew Yaxu in Oklahoma and asked him to help her when she arrived in Atlanta. He did so and they started dating. He brought her to our home for Christmas in 1999. She did not speak English very well, but understood most of what she heard. We played a lot of monopoly while she was here. That seemed to help her relax. We were all together and we got to know her that way.
David and Yaxu were married in April of 2000. The wedding was wonderful. We met Yaxu's parents at the wedding. They are very nice people. They did not speak English. Her mother came to Atlanta before the birth of her first grandchild, Vanessa, in June, 2003. She stayed at their home for two years and was so much help to them. She does not speak English, but they get along so well. She returned to China when Vanessa was two. Now she and her husband are both in Atlanta, and have been there since Jason, my grandson, was born in March, 2007. They are there to help while Jason is very young. David and Yaxu are so grateful to them for their help. Yaxu is a wonderful wife to my son and mother to our grandchildren. We are so proud of David, Yaxu, Vanessa and Jason. They are a wonderful family!!
Thank goodness that none of my children or grandchildren are diabetic. David is now 42 and Gary is 39. They have beautiful homes and happy lives. Gary is still single.
It was Christmas, 1999 when we first met Yaxu.
David and Yaxu in China, 1999
Wedding, April, 2000
Family, 2007
Vanessa and Jason, 2008
Family, June, 2008
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