Living With Diabetes Is Still A Life To Be Lived

Yvonne and Frank Ball
(Photo courtesy of Wil Phinney)

Yvonne rises at 2 o'clock in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. She showers, checks her blood sugar and then rides for 40 minutes to Hermiston for four hours of dialysis. Dialysis is a method of removing toxic substances from the blood when the kidneys are unable to do so. Blood, drawn through a tube from an "access point" in one of Yvonne's arm, is sent through a machine that filters out wastes and excess fluid. The cleansed blood is then returned to Yvonne's body through a catheter inserted in her chest. Other than the needle prick, there is little pain, Yvonne said. Her right arm, however, screams otherwise. Creating the access points over time has created black-and-blue mounds that look like mountainous eruptions.

"I don't feel anything," she says. "Most of the time I'm sleeping. The only thing I feel is a little pulsation when the blood returns into the artery."

At this stage, she said, it's a matter of attitude. She knows she needs to eat right, exercise, and stay on schedule with insulin and dialysis. She wants others – particularly members of her family – to be aware of diabetes' dangers.

"I warn my children to get checked," she says. "Don't let it go."

She shakes her head at those who don't take diabetes seriously.

"I can't do a lot of things I used to be able to do," she says. "I manage to get around and I've learned to live life one day at a time. On those days when I'm depressed and feeling sorry for myself, I have to remember to praise the Lord that I'm still alive."

Wil Phinney is the Editor of the Confederated Umatilla Journal of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Pendleton, Oregon.