In the fall of 2007, when I was 37, I was given a new medication by my family physician. It was to help with my blood pressure. This particular medication should not be used by someone with a history of asthma because it can trigger an asthma attack. I had no history of asthma so my family physician felt that it would be OK for me to take.
A few days after I started taking it, I started feeling bad. I had a bad cough and a wheeze in my chest. I went and had it checked out and was told it was bronchitis. I was given steroids and antibiotics. I felt better the next day. The day after that, I felt really bad and the wheeze I had this time was a little bit worse than last time. Again the doctor said it was bronchitis, gave me stronger steroids, and told me to take it easy. Once again, I felt better the next day, the day after though, not so much. I felt like I could hardly breathe and the wheeze I had this time was horrible. I went to see my doctor and she told me that she was ordering me to go into the hospital for IV steroids and to watch me because she was afraid I would get so bad that I would need to be put on a breathing machine. That was the first time I had ever been in the hospital overnight, except for when I had the kids. At that point I was diagnosed with adult onset asthma.
I think it was at that time the depression started. I was sick all the time because the pulmonologist and I could not get the asthma under control. I spent a solid year on steroids because of the asthma. It just wore me out and made it so I was more vulnerable to other illnesses and set my mind up for the depression to take hold. I physically felt really bad all the time. I slept most of every day away, because I was so tired.
Because I live so far from my pulmonologist’s office, he insisted I create an emergency plan for when I had an asthma attack. I was to use my nebulizer three times in a row, about ten minutes apart each time. If after the third treatment my breathing was not drastically better, I was to head to the nearest emergency room. In May of 2008, I had an asthma attack that did not respond to the emergency plan.
I went to our local emergency room. Whenever I have to go the emergency room because of an asthma attack, I am immediately taken back to see a doctor. So I did not have to wait long. The triage nurse did her thing and pointed out that my blood pressure was insanely high. I blew it off, not a bit concerned because of having used my nebulizer three times in a row, I figured my blood pressure would be higher than normal. After the doctor saw what my blood pressure was, he decided to do some blood work to make sure I did not have congestive heart failure.
When the blood work came back, it showed that I did not have congestive heat failure but there was something that was not good. My blood sugar was 420. I had diabetes.
The doctor came very close to admitting me to the hospital. Instead, because I happened to have an old glucose meter of my father’s, he lets me go home with a prescription for glucoflage. Two days later I saw the endocronologist for the first time.
He confirmed that I had diabetes and with using a special test, he was able to determine that I had probably had it for months. However, all the steroids I had been taking had hidden that fact. For months all I could do was sleep. We thought that it was from the asthma not being controlled. What I found out was that high blood sugars will cause you to be sleepy all the time and to feel as bad I was feeling.
I had to learn so much that day. I had to learn how to give myself insulin injections, to figure out how much I needed of one kind based on a math formula, and how to fill up syringes with insulin. I ended up with two different types of insulin and having to give myself four injections in my stomach every single day. I also had to learn how to use a glucose meter and stick myself at least four times a day to get blood samples.
The doctor did tell me that within a week my blood sugars would be down and I would start to feel better. For the most part he was correct. I felt good mentally because I felt like knowing what had been causing me to feel so rotten for the last few months was a good thing. That I could move forward from there.
That attitude did not last for very long. A few weeks after I was diagnosed with Diabetes, I was back to where I was before I found out about the Diabetes. I was tired, sleepy, and not feeling good. I was also very angry and sad all of the time. It made me really darn angry that I had been diagnosed with two major illnesses in less than a year. I was angry and sad about how drastically my life had changed. I hated all the needles I had to now deal with four times a day. I started to become increasingly anxious. I also worried about the burden I had become to my family. I believe that at this time the depression really started to control my thinking, and my life and just continued to get worse from there.
The Double D’s. Diabetes and Depression. These two things have affected my life and my family’s lives more than anything else I have been diagnosed with.
I have already had a pretty nasty diabetic complication. The nerve in the stomach that tells the stomach to contract to digest food no longer works in me due to the diabetes. There is a lot of pain and vomiting that goes along with that. My family must pay attention to me, to make sure I am not having a bad reaction due to my insulin. I cannot go barefoot anymore, something I have always enjoyed. If I were to step on something and hurt a foot, there could be complications with it healing. From several sources I have discovered that diabetes can contribute to depression.
The Double D’s. Those two things have caused me to come closer to dying than even the asthma has. Blood sugar dropping too low, more than one suicide attempt.
As I was learning how to give myself the proper dosage of insulin, more than once my blood sugar dropped dangerously low. That caused me to spend a week in ICU. There was my suicide attempt in May that resulted in another week in ICU, and at another time, an attempt resulted in ICU and a psychiatric hospital.
The Double D’s. Two very frustrating il
lnesses, both of which really has no “cure”. The most I can hope for is that medications will help me maintain some balance with both illnesses and maybe with one I might experience a “remission” but the disease will never really go away.
The Double D’s. Now that I am getting help for the depression, I can recognize that neither diagnosis is the end of the world for me. I can see how at some future date that they might allow me to be a good support person for someone in similar circumstances. I just need to get to a better mind set about both things. For the present, I am still learning how to take care of myself again. I do not think I would be able to properly support someone else yet.
