This was very personal to me - not because I know or am related to any of them, but because without the NHS I would be dead. Several times over, in fact.
Regular readers will be aware that I have type 1 autoimmune diabetes. When I was (much) younger my immune system went bananas and ate my insulin-producing cells. Tis are a minority among diabetics, and I'm a minority among Tis because it happened when I was aged just two (it's very rare in under-fives).
I've been a human pin-cushion ever since, injecting myself with artificial insulin and pricking my fingers to test my blood sugar.
Nearly 50 years post-diagnosis, I'm still here. I even managed to survive having a cement truck run me over in a cycling accident, through the efforts of paramedics, nurses, and doctors who worked what felt like actual magic.
Now, every T1 experiences the condition slightly differently, but there is one thing we're all familiar with: it is apt to throw you a curve ball every now and again. I'm one of the lucky ones, in that I always get a warning when my blood sugar is ditching, known as hypoglycaemia. An alarm call from my body that says, "eat something, now".
This story is from the December 23, 2022 edition of The Independent.
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This story is from the December 23, 2022 edition of The Independent.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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