Helen Olson: 67 Years with Diabetes

Helen Olson: 67 Years with Diabetes

HELEN OLSON: 67 YEARS
WITH DIABETES

Imagine a time when very little was known about

diabetes. For centuries, it had been a killer. Insulin had been discovered only ten years

before, and was not well understood. You are diagnosed as a child, and well-meaning

neighbors tell your mother: "Why are you spending so much time with her? She's never

going to grow up anyway!"

For Helen Olson, of Halleck, Minnesota, this life

was not imaginary. Diagnosed with type 1, insulin-dependent diabetes in December of 1931,

she was only seven years old. As she describes it, she had a severe case of "red

measles," followed by "general malaise, thirst, excessive voiding, and lack of

appetite." Her mother read her old "doctor book," and the only condition

that came close to explaining the symptoms was diabetes—BUT, amazingly, the book said

that "children didn't get the disease!"

Helen's parents took her to the doctor, who

quickly diagnosed her diabetes, and started her on insulin injections (three shots a day,

at first), and on a strict diet. "I never cheated," says Helen.

"Managing" diabetes, rather than dying

from it, was a new thing then, but Helen had a strong-minded mother, who was determined to

do it right. "I followed everything," says Helen. "In fact, I couldn't go

anyplace, unless I took along my scale, to weigh my food, and all that...

"This was during the Depression years, when

I became a diabetic. We lived on a farm in North Dakota, so things were tight. But Dad

would take a can of cream to town, and use it to buy one of my bottles of insulin. In that

day, insulin wasn't as concentrated as it is today..."

"And we bought those steel needles, which

were two for 35 cents, if I remember. When they were dull, Dad would take out his hone,

and sharpen them. We had the glass syringes, and those we would sterilize... put them in a

pan of water and boil..."

"When I first started, Mother said they gave

me three shots a day. [That was when there was only Regular insulin.] Then they developed

a longer-acting type, I can't remember, but I don't think it is made anymore, and I went

to two shots a day. As the years passed, I got down to one shot, mixed... Your body

changes, apparently, and I got back onto two a day, mixed..."

"Right now, I'm on two a day, 70/30, morning

and evening. I estimate that, between injections and blood glucose testing, I've taken

around 49,000 insulin injections, and 23,000 lancet pricks to the finger, more than 72,000

pricks to my poor body, over this period of time... That's why I'm waiting for the new

[noninvasive glucose] meter, the one that's like a wristwatch."

Helen's mother prevailed. She taught her daughter

good diabetes discipline, right from the beginning, and Helen prospered:

"I went to a communications college... It

was only for about 3 months, and I learned how to teletype, then I went out west with the

folks, and we were out there a couple of years during the war. I got along fine."

"I got married in 1950, and I had a son in

1951; he was 47 last fall. I had another boy in 1954, and neither one of my boys has

diabetes. I had another baby which I lost in 1956... I had double pneumonia at the time,

while I was pregnant."

Helen is still taking good care of herself:

"I test my blood sugar four times a day. I

cannot get by with less. I really try to keep my diabetes in control, and, when I go out,

if I have a bit more, I try to make up for it in some other way. My best advice, to all of

you, is to follow the rules of being a good diabetic: Proper insulin, proper diet, and

proper exercise. Do what you're supposed to do! If you don't, it's only going to hurt you.

Do what your doctor advises you to do."

And it works. In 1981 Joslin Diabetes
Center awarded Helen a medal and plaque to commemorate her 50 successful years
with diabetes. December 1998 marked 67 years with the condition. She's had a
few problems: Hip surgery, carpal tunnel surgery on both hands, a single heart
bypass, and cataract surgery, but these can't all be seen as diabetes complications,
of course. Helen credits her success to: "My loved ones, good doctors,
good care, and the blessings of the Lord."