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Converging Hope
by William J. David, Ph.D.
In the United States, an estimated seventeen million individuals suffer from diabetes mellitus. Equally alarming radiates the reality that the number of individuals inflicted each day propels drastically. Indisputably, diabetes is a serious and crippling disease, if uncontrolled. In fact, it is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, and as recently reported by the American Diabetes Association, the annual medical and lost productivity costs have risen to $132 billion.
The author of the book vividly describes a true story of personally living with type 1 diabetes since 1938. The seventy-four-year-old diabetic professor depicts sixty-seven years combating the challenging disease. Lucid accounts portray the skirmishes that were associated with this factual adventure. The author manifestly portrays the challenge of vainly seeking normalcy while burdened by the unrelenting demands from the illness. Diabetic-related experiences contributed physically, psychologically, and socially to who and what the author became. Some of these bitter encounters lie deeply repressed and mutely hidden in the unconscious mind, never to be remembered, while others are entrenched in his conscious memory, never to be forgotten. The author brings these subdued memories unrelentingly to the surface and vibrantly shares them with the readers of this book.
The adventures addressed in the book address four major objectives. First, the author describes the restrictiveness and outright dangers associated with diabetes that he experienced for more than six and a half decades. There were some delightful episodes, but unfortunately, most were blemished by far less pleasurable outcomes.
The second major purpose of the book focuses on how the author survived the many diabetic battles at different stages in his life. In these cruel and brutal encounters labeled survival, what were the challenges dealt him and how did he resolve them? His relatively long and active life, itself, stands to illustrate the fact that diabetic longevity is obtainable but not without grave consequences that actually lead to the third objective in the book.
The third point targets the monstrous impact that diabetes forced upon the author, his family, and others throughout his life. As a result, these fervent pressures, like overwhelming diabetic management, remained constantly vigilant during all phases of the author´s life. His extended survival speaks on behalf of his successful defense against the dreaded disease.
The last major theme emphasized throughout the book reviews the impact of technology on diabetes and the management of it. Based on firsthand experiences, the author skillfully compares diabetic management strategies, supplies, and equipment of the 1930s with the technologically advanced replacements we employ today. The author is particularly attracted to these scientific marvels in the treatment of diabetes because they are undoubtedly responsible for his continued longevity. Furthermore, he realizes that the growing hope for a cure will energize through continued, superbly designed research. Consequently, the author is pledging 50 percent of his profits from this book toward research and philanthropic organizations that target diabetes and vision problems.
These objectives are addressed throughout the book as they reveal the author’s story of surviving diabetes since 1938. Each chapter unveils various segments of his true adventure, particularly as it relates to the scientific advancements in diabetic control and management. A brief glimpse of each chapter follows.
Prologue: The author features a brief episode in his current life that dramatically portrays the motive and reasons for writing the story. In addition, the prologue establishes a theme for the narrative.
Chapter 1: In this chapter, the author depicts the suffering initiated by the onset of type 1 diabetes. It occurred over the Fourth of July holidays in 1938, an era when little was known about the illness.
Chapter 2: The author, at age seven, quickly learned the regimented routine associated with diabetes in his nine-day hospitalization. He describes the restrictions, diet, and materials that were employed in the regimented control and management of the illness in the 1930s.
Chapter 3: The struggle of a young diabetic is unveiled. The constant vigilance required for controlling and managing the illness with the crude instruments and materials harshly impact the author and his loved ones. The author’s relentless struggle for normality is realistically described.
Chapter 4: Because insulin-dependent diabetes fails to relinquish the unrelenting grasp on its victims, the author unveils his desperate battle for normality. A desperate measure for reaching a cure is described that constitute one of three important milestones in the author’s life. The author also discusses the numerous diabetic-related factors that impact his life as well as his family.
Chapter 5: Because of critical circumstances, the author portrays the need for taking almost total control of his diabetes. The situation developed as he strived for independence during adolescence. The struggle was particularly difficult because he attended nine different schools, as far away as California, before graduating from high school. Numerous encounters with diabetes resulted.
Chapter 6: Unbelievable episodes portraying the author’s struggle to finance his college education while continuously battling diabetes are unveiled. With only crude diabetic-management supplies and tools available during that era, a balance between food, insulin, physical activity, emotion, and guessing correlated to ensure the author’s survival. Numerous discriminations were encountered during this first year of college.
Chapter 7: During the next two summers, the author vividly portrays unique diabetic-survival strategies while a counselor at a YMCA wilderness camp. The diabetic-survival strategies include managing diabetes while navigating treacherous rivers in the wilds of Northern Michigan on four- and five-day journeys. The author continues the chapter by describing the saga of working his way through college. As the story unfolds, the author emphasizes, after twelve years with diabetes, that very few scientific breakthroughs relating to easing the control and management of his illness occurred.
Chapter 8: Marriage and the beginning of a family, as it applies to diabetes, highlight this chapter. At the same time, diabetic encounters continue as they relate to full-time employment. The writer also depicts the continuous story of completing his college education and the diabetic-linked driving force that led the author to pursue special education as a career.
Chapter 9: In this phase of the story, the author describes a rather tranquil segment in the author’s life. The major encounter with diabetes focuses on controlling high and low blood sugars while professionally engaged in teaching. In addition, dangers from infections are described. Professional accomplishments, while surviving diabetes, are revealed.
Chapter 10: After struggling with diabetes for twenty-five years, few significant differences emerged regarding its treatment. The author describes his strategies in controlling and managing diabetes while pursuing the doctorate.
Chapter 11: The author describes new professional responsibilities upon completing the doctorate. Because of these changes, as well as personal modifications in his life, a new lifestyle is portrayed. These new adventures were continuously targeted by diabetic interfering issues. During the same era, the author unveils devastating barriers that threaten his new existence. The writer discusses scientific undertakings that focused on improving the control and management of the illness.
Chapter 12: The author reveals new journeys that proved confounded by both positive and negative circumstances. He now dealt with changing life issues, professional growth, continuous diabetic encounters, and the battle for his eyesight. With forty-three years of surviving diabetes, he portrays, what he claimed at that time, the most significant scientific advancement in diabetic control and management since the discovery of insulin, the home blood-glucose monitor.
Chapter 13: The author portrays new and exciting professional experiences that he enjoyed during the last eleven years of full-time university allegiance. He reveals tighter control and management strategies for surviving diabetes after being introduced to the blood-glucose monitor in the 1980s. During these years, the author discusses brutal vision and cancer skirmishes that threatened not only his professional existence but, more importantly, his life.
Chapter 14: The writer depicts the life of a retired professor. For the first time in his life, ample time proved available for leisure time activities, even though university consulting shared these precious leisure-time adventures. At the same time, the author describes heightened battles with hypoglycemia until resolving the issue with an insulin pump. It resulted in more efficient and new strategies for controlling and managing his diabetes. The author also highlights some current scientific research that is bridging the gap to the cure.
Chapter 15: The author claims his victory in the quest for longevity. He attributes this success to the advances that were accomplished through scientific investigation and the blessings from God.
The manuscript targets diabetic and nondiabetic readers of all ages. Young readers, with guidance, will realize that there is mounting verified hope for living a rich and fulfilling life and, of course, the cure. However, the road to diabetic longevity rests with the astute choices one makes. Likewise, loved ones and friends of diabetics will successfully fuse these shared experiences into meaningful understandings of a diabetic’s life. Thus, they will realize that a fulfilling life is obtainable especially today because of the thunderous explosions from modern technological advances. The nondiabetic readers will gain unique insights when reading this diabetic adventure. The seventy-four-year-old author lucidly describes his encounters with diabetes and how he survived the dreadful disease since 1938 while at the same time remaining professionally, socially, and personally active. The long venture was unbelievably difficult, but of unquestionable significance, it proved to be reachable.
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