Nearly killed by diabetes, survivor helps others
It’s Diabetes Week, and while for years health officials have been telling Belizeans how to avoid and treat this pervasive disease, one look at our overweight and out of shape population tells us that there is a lot of work to be done. This week I’ve been looking at the relationship between diabetes and the serious ills that can follow.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Forty-two year old Andrea Cox is lucky to be alive. A little over a year ago, she underwent a kidney transplant. Two months before that she was subjected to a double bypass heart operation.
Andrea Cox, Kidney Transplant Patient
“It’s been a new life and you look at it, I mean realistically, physically and spiritually as a new life because you realize how close you were to leaving this world, all your friends and family. It’s challenging, very challenging because like anything else, we human beings are kind of rough to each other sometimes. We don’t mean it I think, we are just like you know, you’re different, you’re not like me and stuff like that.”
Cox’s medical problems started when she was only eight years old after doctors diagnosed her with juvenile diabetes.
Andrea Cox
“It was very difficult in the beginning because you thought that everybody looked at you as a different person, as a freak and also trying to handle the idea that you couldn’t eat just anything you wanted, especially as a child when you wanted chocolates and ideals and everything.”
Family support helped Cox to adjust to her new lifestyle and she lived the next twenty-five years without any major complications. Six years ago, however, she went partially blind after her retina became detached and had to be surgically reconnected. The operation restored her eyesight but the problem was the first sign that diabetes had started to affect her vital organs. Five years later, she was confronted with yet another medical dilemma. Both her kidneys failed and she was flown to the United States to receive dialysis and eventually a kidney transplant. When doctors started to prepare Cox for that operation they found that her diabetes had caused several blockages to her heart. In June 2002, Cox underwent the bypass surgery and two months later they were able to replace her kidneys.
Dr. Miguel Rosado, Kidney Specialist
“She is a kidney transplanted patient doing very, very good with her transplant. She is taking her medication by the book. So, she is a very, very good example of a person who went through all the processes of Diabetes, micro renal failure, chronic renal failure, terminal renal failure and eventually kidney transplant. So, it’s a process that we can see with a patient what can occur if we don’t take care ourselves.”
Kidney specialist, Dr. Miguel Rosado, says twenty percent of the country’s population are diabetics and they suspect there is a high demand for both peritoneal and haemodialysis treatments in Belize.
Jacqueline Woods
“In the past thirty years patients had to travel abroad to receive the specialised treatment. Earlier this year, the Universal Medical Arts Complex move quickly and established the first dialysis centre in Belize.”
The machines act as an artificial kidney that have special filters to help clean the blood of toxic substances the body produces but cannot eliminated on its own.
Dr. Miguel Rosado
“We have several patients from the districts and from Belize City that are permanent patients coming in for haemodialysis. We also have several patients in the peritoneal dialysis programme also and we have Belizean-Americans coming to spend their vacation in Belize and using the haemodialysis programme.”
Although Cox no longer needs dialysis, she has remained very much a part of the clinic’s programme. She regularly checks her sugar and tries to maintain a healthy diet. Because of her personal experience, she also dedicates her time counselling patients who must undergo dialysis. Today, Cox and Doctor Rosado are in the process of establishing the country’s first Kidney Association.
Andrea Cox
“What we are trying to do is to share as much information and education and to get them involved in activities that will help them to decrease the chance of developing kidney loss, and for them to understand that a good control of their sugar level in the diabetic person will prevent that definitely.”
But the best intentions of Cox and the medical skills of Dr. Rosado could not save the life fifteen year old Michael Reynard. Reynard suffered kidney failure and badly needed haemodialysis. In March, he was scheduled to be the treatment centre’s first patient but his blood count was extremely low and unless he received a transfusion he could not undergo the procedure. The family, who are Jehovah Witnesses following their religious beliefs, denied their son the treatment.
Dr. Miguel Rosado
“We respect everybody, we respect religion, we respect everything, but being a child of fifteen years of age and having all the facilities in the institution, he had a very good prognosis if he had received transfusion because that would have enable him to receive his proper treatment in haemodialysis.”
Rosado says both the parents and son were advised what would happen if they denied the treatment, but the offer was still turned down. Rosado says they are in the process of seeing whether anything can be done to assist minors in a similar situation like Reynard.
Dr. Miguel Rosado
“We are seeking the assistance of, for example, Youth Development. We are seeking legal support that we try to prevent the patient from dying because of lets say religious beliefs, especially if we have the treatment available. So, I think we have to go one farther step, like is aid we believe in religious beliefs, we respect everything, but I think when you are talking about a life, a life that has a future, a life that can be saved, I think we need to go beyond the beliefs.”
In the meantime, Rosado says their educational programme is not meant to frighten diabetic patients, but to make them aware of what Andrea Cox has already learned: that life is precious…and a healthy lifestyle will prolong it.
If you would like to become a member of the Belize Kidney Association or get involved in the diabetic programme you can contact either Dr. Miguel Rosado at Universal Health Services, Andrea Cox at telephone number 223-2252, or the President of the Belize Diabetes Association, Beth McBride.
