posted 20th May 2026
I never suspected I had diabetes. I never suspected I was unwell. One day my eyes become blurred, and I was struggling to see as I made my way through the warehouse I was working in at the time. Suddenly they became clear again and I could get on with my day like it was any other. Just another day in the at times laborious world of international logistics. The next day my eyes were blurring all over again. I felt like I was stuck in the twilight zone as my vision became increasingly impaired as I took one step after another. How it made me feel is difficult to explain. It wasn’t anxiety, it wasn’t stress. It wasn’t fear. It was a kind of numbness that made me feel no emotions at all. A strange sensation of nothingness.
After weeks of suffering blurred vision on a daily basis, I decided it was time to visit the GP. I took a seat in the waiting room and looked over the many leaflets giving information on all manner of health conditions. From depression to cancer, from dementia to arthritis, sickness was all around. Suddenly my name was called, and I made my way down the white painted corridor to the GP’s office. She says Hi, I say morning. I slowly and precisely explained why I’d booked in to see her, and she instantly took some blood to be sent for analysis and said I was to call back in five day’s time to get the results. One day passed on by like a rocket flying through the sky. Two days turned into three and the blood test was still rocking my mind. Day four and finally I decided to call. Bang, bang, I was diagnosed as being in a prediabetic state. Not full-blown diabetes but verging on the edge of the abyss. I was booked in to see the diabetic nurse and over the next week I focused on researching the potential causes of my condition. My weight was more than it should’ve been and I had a nasty habit of drinking full sugar soft drinks on a daily basis, but my job was physical and my diet wasn’t on the extreme side of bad, so I looked on my diagnosis as one of life’s downsides rather than a self-inflicted wound.
That morning, I took a seat in the same waiting room as two weeks before and waited to be called in. I wasn’t nervous, I wasn’t suffering from any form of agitation. I was fairly comatose about the very idea of having a serious health condition. I knew I needed to alter some aspects of my lifestyle. That was something I didn’t need a qualified nurse to tell me. Flashing, flashing, my name was flashing on the board, and I made my way down the same corridor towards the diabetic nurse’s office. She says good morning, I say Hi. She asks me to take my shoes and socks of so she can do some tests on my feet. I feel uncomfortable. I don’t know why. My feet aren’t the most gruesome sight on planet earth. In fact, I think they look most passible to any independent observer. Not bad, not bad. I pass the test with flying colours. I can feel every prod she makes without exception. After my eye test she recommends some websites I can visit for advice and bids me farewell as other patients awaited their date with destiny waiting in the same waiting room as I had been.
That evening, I just lay around at home pondering on the future. I was a pre-diabetic with all the stigmas and challenges that can bring. ‘He bought it on himself’ I imagined the baying mob saying back to me as they cast their judgemental eyes towards me like a pack of hungry lions on a dying buffalo. I knew it wasn’t my fault. That it was just life enforcing its occasional unfairness’s onto me as it does to many others. Just one of those little challenges that has to be overcome. A challenge, a challenge. Something I had to overcome. I had to face simple medical facts for the second time in my life. I was ill, unwell, not fit, unhealthy, needed better care. I was like an old car requiring some TLC.
Morning came around like a bolt from a bright blue sky. It was a pleasant morning that was hiding some unpleasant truths. A morning that, on the shallow surface, was primed to be enjoyed as the sunshine thundered down from a cloudless sky. I decided to skip breakfast and went out for a brisk walk and took in the Saturday vibes. I felt the best I’d ever felt and the worst I’d ever felt at exactly the same uncomfortable time. Being pre-diabetic wasn’t like having a deep nasty cruel cold, it wasn’t like breaking a bone, it was nothingness. A sense of nothingness. I didn’t feel any different to the weeks before my diagnosis. My vision hadn’t become blurred for a good old fashioned while and my body felt, and looked, the very picture it’d always been. But my mind was changed, my reality altered, my life had tumbled down from the palatable place it was a few weeks before.
I returned from my morning walk in a fresher frame of mind. It’s always amazed how fresh air and exercise can improve even the most battered of imaginations. Suddenly a strange feeling of acceptance overcame me as I knew I had to adjust to a new phase of life. It was empowering, it was diabolical, it was intriguing. All of these complex emotions ran through me like I was riding the worlds biggest roller-coaster after consuming a bucket of ice cream and three large cheeseburgers. But it had to happen, a new diet, a new life. A new philosophy on human wellbeing was urgently required. I new it was up to me, it had to be up to me.
