|
Cricketing legend Ian Botham’s daughter Becky talks about the impact diabetes has had on her life and why she is supporting the ”Living with Diabetes Day”
Kathy Botham feared something was very wrong when she first realized her daughter Becky had lost an enormous amount of weight. They visited their local GP and described how she was incredibly thirsty; she kept going to the loo all the time and was extremely tired. Put these symptoms together with the extreme weight loss and you have all the classic symptoms of diabetes. But her GP worryingly thought she was just going though a growth spurt!! Thank goodness Kathy insisted that she had her blood sugar tested. A simple blood test revealed her blood glucose level was 29.3, frighteningly high as it should range between 3 – 10!!
Becky and her family had to cope with the shock of learning that Becky had a chronic disease, Type 1 diabetes a condition that develops if the body is unable to produce any insulin. It was a real ’bolt out of the blue’ for her and her parents as there was no history of the condition on either side of the family.
As Becky approached her teenage years, life became more and more difficult. ”Although I’d met several people with diabetes none were close friends which made me feel so isolated. On top of that my sugar levels got far too high so I was rushed into A & E at least 3 times. The situation felt so hopeless and made me very depressed. I also experienced quite marked mood swings which were hard to cope with,” explains Becky.
Becky found one of the hardest aspects of living with the condition is injecting herself, something she had to do 3 or 4 times a day by the age of 13 years. ”One time, age 18, I was travelling back from Australia by myself and I was arrested at Singapore airport after a lady saw me injecting myself and thought I was on drugs. I was petrified but as soon as the authorities read the letter from my doctor and saw my medic alert necklace they understood that I was an insulin dependent diabetic.”
Becky, like her parents, does a great deal to raise awareness of diabetes. She comments, ”There are so many new things coming out now that can help you live a more normal life. So many people relate diabetes to obesity which is only a part of the condition – that’s why it’s so important to know what it actually is. ”I think the ”Living with Diabetes Day” is an excellent way of getting people to be more aware of diabetes and I am delighted to be involved.”
|
