Category Archives: Diabetes

‘Please alight for the diabetes asylum’

Diabetes, Dublin, Uncategorized

duga

The alarm clock this morning resembled a blood-curdling shriek. Hauling myself from my pit at the regular time of 7.30am is bad enough; but today my day began an hour earlier. Having suffered from the drearily unglamourous condition of Type 1 diabetes for forty years now; on a fairly regular basis I attend the diabetes clinic, where the doctors and nurses hum and haw at my file, make some suggestions to me and send me on my way to injection happiness. Some days before each appointment I present myself at the hospital for bloods to be extracted for analysis in time for the real appointment. Continue reading ‘Please alight for the diabetes asylum’ →

The smokey eyes of Midnight Murphy

Diabetes, Dublin, Theatre, Uncategorized

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One of the deeply glamourous side effects of diabetes is blindness caused by diabetic retinopathy. This is where diabetes induced damage is caused to the retina. Over 80% of diabetics who have had the disease for 20 years or more will get retinopathy. Not all people with retinopathy will go blind thankfully. I have been diabetic for forty years since I was but a toddler. For some bizarre reason my eyesight is still intact. Every year I go to a special eye clinic where a nice woman takes a photograph of inside my eye, sends it away to a lab for analysis and issues the result. Continue reading The smokey eyes of Midnight Murphy →

‘I’ve never seen you looking so lovely as you did tonight…’

Diabetes, Gay, Limerick, Uncategorized,

jazz

I shot up in my bed, and shivered. I couldn’t see my face, but if I had been able to, I suspect that I would have been as pale as a ghost. I glanced at the alarm clock of hatred, sitting on the bedside locker beside me. It was 3.30am. I felt relieved. I had another four hours left to sleep.

Staggering to the kitchen, I opened the cupboard and selected two of McVitie’s finest digestive biscuits. I was distressed and sweating. Some sugar would help. I don’t think the low blood sugars were the only cause for my concern however. The content of my dream had been most troubling.

The dream had involved a scenario in which the leader of North Korea – murderous dictator Kim-Jong Un –  had romantic designations on me, and wanted to make me his love slave. He had been chasing me through the rooms and dungeons of King John’s Castle in Limerick City, demanding that I requite his love. Continue reading ‘I’ve never seen you looking so lovely as you did tonight…’ →