So have you ever felt you know, despondent, about things’?
Well, in the beginning, you know I told you, in the beginning, when it was my first year, then I had some. But by God’s grace, my husband, my children, my daughter, gave me lots of comfort, gave me you know, they built up my courage and said ‘this happens to lots of people, in the world, now don’t do this’. I used to just sit and start crying, ‘I can do nothing, I can do nothing!. So my daughter did, you know she even used to bathe me, she used to do everything for me, but then slowly, slowly, slowly she’s made me so capable, by god’s greatness, that for the past five years I have been independent – I do the cooking, I go out with the kids to do shopping, I do everything, all the jobs in the house I do all that I can.

So it’s Allah’s mercy, I don’t feel despondent or anything anymore. That’s it, no more despondency.

I learnt how to work my way round it. Not to say I didn’t feel s-, slightly depressed. The more I read, the more depressed I found it being. And initially, and I’ve got a friend whos got diabetes as well and she feels exactly the same, they tell you all the bad news. You know, the doctor obviously feels obliged to tell you that, you know, you can have heart problems, you can have kidney problems, you can lose your sight, you can have trouble with your circulation, you can have… And, you know, by the time I came out the surgery I thought, I mean the, that was the worst part. I felt a little bit, because I thought you’d just be given, the ignorance, or tell me, ‘Do this, do this, do this, do this, this. Fine. But to tell me all the negative things. But I’ve now decided as long as I do what I’m told and I, and follow a regime and live as much as I can a healthy lifestyle. As the doctor said, ‘I don’t want you just to have ten good years. I want you to have twenty good years. So I think, oh, that’s just, so I don’t get depressed about it any more. I get [more] depressed at night because I’m agitated when I go to my bed and I’m hot and bothered and I can’t sleep. That bothers me more. But whether that’s the diabetes or not, I don’t know.

Because I really think I know the food I eat and I know what I can eat. And anybody that’s got diabetes, the book, and I wish I could remember the name, the name of it, but I know it keeps talking about ‘know your own mileage’, know what your own body can do, know what you can eat, know what foods are good for you. And I find, I found once I, got rid of the obviously, the medical side of it, that I wanted to know, but ‘I know about that. That’s not the big issue. And if it is, I’ll deal with it when, when the time comes’ I was then able to dwell on all the positive things about it. Like having a good healthy lifestyle.

I’ve read about it [depression], but I think it’s a bit too harsh for me to say, I don’t know if it would be too harsh for me to say – you choose your attitude in life. You know, if you let things get to you then things will get to you – if you choose to look at more to the positive even if when there are negatives that are blatantly you know, taking you down, I think you have something like you say a goal to aim for, something more positive to look out for.

It can you know, if somebody, I can understand why somebody would think it’s it was depressing, because if it is, if they’re not managing it correctly, or they’ve not been given the support correctly, and that the support network’s not in place and they’re not aware of their options, they’re not aware that you know they can still lead a normal life then I suppose, yeah, people could get depressed about it.

But it’s again it’s your own choice of how you feel, you know, you could choose to in the morning to get up and have a good day, you could choose to get up in the morning and have a miserable day. I think, well one thing I’ve been taught over the years as well, especially being from a sales background, is that you don’t let those around you affect you, or if there is what you call a ‘mood hoover’, you know, somebody who sucks the mood out of the rest of the people. You try to change their attitude so that they become more positive. So it’s the focus is just to just stay positive all the time.

Well what about, some people might experience a bit of depression?
I haven’t, I personally haven’t. That might well have, my wife might have thought I had been in depressions, but I haven’t had anything on that lines at all. I am not really that type of person. I know depression can affect you at any time, but it hasn’t with me. My outlook on life is fairly good. I’m not one of these people that say, ‘What if?’ I say, ‘If it happens then I react to it. I don’t want to react before it happens’ sort of thing. So I’ve been fortunate in not being depressed. I’ve No I’ve never been depressed. As I said earlier on if I have to take tablets which I have to, for the rest of my life, I’m quite prepared to do it. Some people think that is a chore, but it is not to me. It just giving me quality and I’ve never, not that I haven’t got time to be depressed I suppose, but I should say I never am depressed. I might get a bit depressed if were was to lose at rugby but that is about it, that is my depression, but that is short-lived down anyway because it is only a game.

And so I don’t know, you get down days, don’t you? And I definitely do, and I do feel like’ You know, there is this whole big issue of permanently being ill which I can’t escape from. I take my medication 3 times, 4 times a day. I inject twice a day, prick my finger numerous times a day, bleed for my disease. I’ So, yeah, some days it’s hard to deal with that. And I do feel like it’s robbed me of a certain, a few joys, just a few things, you know, little simple things and now and again it crops its head up and just smacks you a bit really. You know, you talk about mortgages and then you realise, you know, how much insurance will be for a new mortgage because, because they’re going to wop on me these extra bits of money because you’re a diabetic. And you’ ‘Um’ and ‘ah’ about going away on a trip and, then you think about the travel insurance and how much that’s going to cost because you’re a diabetic.

And’ You go out and you’re’ You know, it’s still stuff like at college, we all eat together on a Wednesday night and I get a special dessert come down for me of fruit – it’s always fruit, they’ve got no imagination other than fruit – [laughs] so you know everybody asks for sort of either apple pie and custard and there’s my fruit [laughs]. And so, it’s just stuff like that, that when I think about it I get a bit annoyed about the whole thing and a bit cheesed-off with my genetics. And a bit cheesed off with of everything really.

And’ But I suppose because I’ve been to that really bad place, I’m really’ Very good at getting my act together when I get a bit down. I do work hard at making sure that I don’t go there, and don’t dwell in that place. I work very hard mentally and spiritually on bringing myself back out of that place as quickly as I possibly can. But I can imagine that for other people, dwelling in that place would be quite soul destroying. It just chips, it doesn’t take the joy of life away, it just chips a little bit off the edge. And [laughs] now and again, it cheeses me off.

We’ve been together, I was 15 and he was 17, so we have grown up together and we know each other, and we know where we are thinking. We don’t even have to speak because we know what is going through each other’s minds and thankfully, you know, like with diabetes you can have big, big mood swings. One minute I can be, you know, quite happy and laughing, the next minute ‘boof, but you know, he just tolerates it all, you know, makes fun of it, gives me a cuddle and it’s all forgotten. Yeah…
So why do you think it is that you have the mood swings? Is that still happening even though you are on metformin?

No. I’ve been better. I think the mood swings are because you feel so tired and helpless. You just can’t do Frustration, you can’t do what you used to be able to do.