A Poem

Another thing to cope with
In life’s eternal circle of surprises
Be brave, I think. Be brave
No need for panic. No need for tears

Advice aplenty, sympathy loads
I haven’t died, you know.
But a part of me has.
I was indestructible. At least I thought I was.

No more Fanta, no more Gu
Five portions of fruit
Sparkling water with Lime
Is that my whole future?

Down with sugar. Down with carbs
Pills galore, until the end
But the odd treat won’t hurt.
Will it? Just the one.

A stone lost, but it will be easy to find
Blood sugars reach normality
I tell myself everything’s fine
But my feet tell another story

I’ve done the hard bit
But the harder bit is ahead
Today it starts
With no looking back

Diabetes: Three Months Later

Three months ago, some of you will recall that I was diagnosed with diabetes. I haven't mentioned it much since but every now and then I get an email from someone asking how it's all going. I had some really good news today. Not sure I have the terminology right but when I was diagnosed my blood-sugar levels were 11.7%. They are now at 6.7%, only 0.3% above the national average. Also, my glucose levels which had been 11-13 are now a constant 4.8-6.5 - exactly where they should be.

I have completely changed my diet and as a result have lost more than a stone and a half. Indeed, I'm lighter now than I have been for at least a decade. And do you know what? I feel fantastic. Changing my diet has been far easier than I thought it would be. But I have managed to stick to it, with only the odd relapse (a whole packet of Cadbury's Shots while at West Ham being the most terrible example). Fizzy drinks, cakes, biscuits, sweets, chocolate have all been banished, and my carbs intake has also been slashed. I'm now eating a lot of fruit and I even eat the odd bit of fish. To be honest I didn;t think I'd have the self discipline to stick to such a diet, but it's now become normal. And I don't even miss Lemon Lucozade anymore!

The only think I haven't done is to start a proper exercise regime, apart from now walking everywhere instead of taking a cab. That's the next part of the programme. I have a bag in my office stuffed full of gym kit (best not to imagine it). The gym at 4 Millbank is only about 50 yards from where I am sitting now. I'd better soon develop the courage to walk through its door!

LibDems on Fruit: Worthy but Misguided

The LibDems have, on the face of it, a rather good idea when they say they want to encourage the consumption of fruit juice. They want to cut VAT on fruit juice from 17.5% to 5%. Full story HERE. The trouble is, fruit juice is not quite as healthy as you might think. Most fruit juices you buy in the supermarket or in a pub contain absolutely enormous amounts of sugar. I don't drink tea, coffee, or alcohol. My staple diet consisted of copious amounts of fruit juice (along with, I must admit, fizzy drinks). Since being diagnosed with diabetes I have had to give up these pleasures and now make my own fruit juice in a juicer. As someone commented earlier: "Without the bulk contained in fruit, the sugar in fruit juice is quickly ingested causing glycaemic shock and increasing the risk of diabetes." Some fruit juices contain more sugar than Coca Cola - and that's saying something. So this polocy is not quite all that it seems. If they wish to encourage the eating of fruit, which would be a very good thing, there must surely be better ways of doing it.

What Would Dr Ruth Westheimer Say?

I've been reflecting further on the post BELOW on my blood-sugar machine. Oscar Wilde once said that a cynic is someone "who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing". We in Britain take for granted that our healthcare is provided free at the point of delivery. When I got my True Track monitor and the testing strips to go with it, I'm rather ashamed to say that it never occurred to me how much it cost. The gadget itself is about £15, and the strips, I found out yesterday, cost about 26p each. I'm using four a day. Now that's not a huge amount in itself, but when you add on the cost of the pills I am taking it will come to quite a lot over a month.

I wonder whether doctors should be mandated to give the patient a costing of what their treatment actually costs. We may value our treatment, but we should also know how much it is costing the NHS to provide it.

The NHS Blog Doctor has THIS post, which tells me that, as a diabetic, I now get free prescriptions for life, and I can get free supplies of Viagra. Well that's certainly perked me up. He also says...

Take look at Diabetes.co.uk, a thoroughly excellent site, essential reading for all diabetics. They review various testing systems here. But notice there is no talk of vulgar things like money. No mention of cost. It does not matter. The taxpayer picks up the tab. In the US, TrueTrack are cost conscious; they are in competition with many other manufacturers and do their best to keep prices down. If they do not, they go out of business.According to the Journal of Public Health (here), in 2004 the British Taxpayer spent just under £6 million on glucose monitoring equipment and that annual cost is doubling every three years.

When I was first diagnosed my GP explained about how diabetes causes arteries to fur up, which can lead to a much higher risk of strokes and heart attacks. She said the aim now was to unfur the arteries - and then as an aside she added that this would lead to much better erections. Nice weather today, I said, looking at the floor in a typically British fashion. Still, what better incentive could there be to get one's blood-sugar levels down!

As someone said in the comments, it does seem rather odd that I, as a diabetic, could get a free prescription of Viagra (believe me, it's not something I shall be taking advantage of [enough - ed]) and yet someone with erectile disfunction has to pay for it. Very strange priorities. I wonder what Dr Ruth would say.

Note: For the uninitiated, Dr Ruth was famous in the 1990s for her sex therapy advice. She was a regular on the Clive James show and became known for the rather strange way she pronounced the word 'erection'. Think hebrew.