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 "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, Humalog and NPH, 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."
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 three 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 52 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. I'm even thinking about getting an insulin pump."
And it works. In 1981 Joslin Diabetes Center awarded Helen a medal and plaque
to commemorate her 50 successful years with diabetes. December 2004 marked 73
years with the condition. She's had a few problems: Hip surgery, carpal tunnel
surgery on both hands, two single heart bypasses, 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."