Diabetes Type 2

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.
 

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.