On World Diabetes Day, we look back on Nicole Cleaver's experience with diabetes, managing the highs and lows, and why she's grateful for the invention of insulin.At the time, when I woke up from surgery, the first thing I asked was for them to remove the Foley catheter , which I hated. But when they did, I wasn’t able to urinate, and they said, “Oh, it’s normal, this happens, it’s just inflammation. We’ll put the catheter back in, give it three days and then we’ll take it back out.
During the whole process, too, my mental health was completely destroyed. Adjusting to having had an ostomy and adjusting to a diagnosis that changed my life was huge. Chronic illness and mental health issues, like depression and anxiety, go hand in hand. I wanted to go to an inpatient program to be able to just focus on adapting to my new diagnosis, my new ostomy and my urinary issues.
For me, there has been a lot of catharsis in doing advocacy work, which is important to me because when I was learning how to cope, it was non-profit organizations that reached out. There was no, ‘I’m going to help you with this, but you owe me this in return.’ It was simply paying their experience forward and, without that, I wouldn’t have been able to cope. I walked away from a lot of my medical experiences angry at what the healthcare world doesn’t provide.
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