My Diabetes - Coming to terms with my insulin injections

A year before I became diabetic I was drinking with friends and we had been watching a documentary about a child with an incurable genetic illness who survived due to multiple injections per day.  We all announced in the way immortal youngsters do, that if we needed to take injections, we wouldn't bother and we'd just have a massive party until the day we died. LOL

The youthful bravado still makes me smile.  The reality a year later was I was going to have to inject myself with a long acting insulin once a day for the rest of my life and I wasn't happy.  For a number of days I felt pressured and angry, why me? what had I done to deserve this?  Back then could darn socks with the thick reusable needles attached to heavy glass syringes I had, they could really hurt when they started to get blunt injecting with them day after day.

Then as I was going through a doorway I banged my elbow, ouch it hurt and as I went to rub it I thought that hurts more than those damn needles.  Here I was in more pain from banging my elbow than injecting myself with life giving insulin.  But was I thinking, "thats it if I have to bang my elbow again in my life I don't want to go on", of course I wasn't. I gave it a bit of a rub and went about my business.

So next morning I tested my urine and gave myself the jab with less hesitation and thought well its not worth dying over. Also, on the insulin I was beginning to feel well again. Also for the first time in months that I didn't feel I could single handedly drink the local lake dry. It was also great to walk about town not having to look for the next toilet with a bladder the size of a basketball.

Learning Point:

1) I was totally terrified of needles almost didn't join the Army when I heard how many injections I had to have in basic training
2) As an Army medic I saw seriously tough soldiers faint at the sight of a needle so being scared was okay
3) Insulin dramatically improved my life as a diabetic and made me feel well
4) Sixty years earlier I would have died without insulin
5) My 32 extra years since diagnosis have been worth the daily injections

The reality of injecting insulin is I became accustomed to it and it became routine.

TBC