Diabetes and Dialysis

I work at a nursing home and when someone gets sick I am responsible for sending them out to the hospital.

Once after sending someone out, the LVN and I were working on paperwork and the CNA asked:
"Why are so many Dialysis people diabetic?" (If you don't know, dialysis is a procedure that filters waste from the blood by any number of methods...areustillreadingthis?ok.itsabouttogetlessboringipromise...the most common being directly from the blood through an artificial shunt or catheter. People often get sick after undergoing dialysis because the filtering process takes out so many chemicals from the blood and their body can't handle it.)

"Well, you know, that's what causes renal failure."

"What?"

"Yeah, those big sugar globules in your blood? They get caught in the renal tubules, in your kidneys, and make it so your urine can't filter out of your blood."

On thing I should probably add: this co worker admitted to me that she has been a diabetic since she was a child and has never sought treatment or lived a "diabetic lifestyle".

She didn't say anything, but the look on her face told me that this was the first she'd ever heard of such a thing. People have a tenancy to dismiss chronic illness when they don't feel symptoms. They say stuff like, "Its not a big deal for me", and "You only live once", but they never think of that when they really come to terms with their own mortality.

(I'm going to have to edit myself here because I could really go into specifics...but it would take too long.)

I didn't tell my co worker the rest of the pathophys. That high glucose levels damage every capillary bed in your body...your brain, your heart, your fingertips causing vascular disease and tissue death.

What we did talk about (a little bit, it was kind of a crazy night): that diabetes today is a very manageable illness. Because it is fairly common, it's been studied extensively. There are tons of alternatives that make living a lifestyle in which a diabetic person can keep their glucose levels under control much easier.  And that is what prevents massively dehabilitated state I see a lot of people in.

I don't want to be the one to go around "YOU WILL DIE A TERRIBLE DEATH IF YOU DO SUCH AND SUCH!" (Well, actually, I kind of would, but people don't respond to that very well. ;D ) but it's amazing how powerful, and applicable, a simple fact can be to the person who doesn't know it yet.

It was kind of nice because the next day, she showed up to work with a whole wheat sandwich, with lots of romaine lettuce!  Made me feel real good.