Usha Dhiman

New Delhi, India

I was seven years old when I survived a coma to learn that I had diabetes. I have lived with it for fifty years now.

When I was a child I did not understand why it was important to control diabetes and not to have sweets so I would secretly buy sweets and over-indulge and then fall very ill. It was also a time when I felt I was different. At a friend's birthday party, her mother served me brown bread when others were devouring cake and other goodies. There were some classmates who asked me whether I was on drugs because they had seen me injecting myself.

Life was a roller coaster of hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia and hospital admissions. There were horrible times when I could not speak, when I would holler in the middle of the night in severe hypos, or pass out completely with low sugars. I have seen the era of glass syringes, tube testing for assessing urine sugar and going to labs for blood sugar examination as there were no meters available then.

I completed my studies and took a job because diabetes is a very expensive disease and I was very keen to be financially independent. I saw a lot of discrimination whether it was while hunting for a job or planning to get married. By God's grace I do not have any major complication so far and have been working for the past 30 years and have been able to do what is important to me.

I love nature and have tried paragliding, river rafting, rock climbing and trekking. I would love to live some days in my life when I will not have to think before going for a long trek, plan when partying out with friends or fear that my sugar will drop if a meeting is extended. Then life would be free from the bindings of rigid schedules, injections, ascending/descending sugars, mounting expense and fear of complications!