the battle against diabetes::
One family’s
valiant
story
Billy Flanigan
In 1965, at the age of 7, my sister Gail was diagnosed with
Type One Diabetes, back then known as “Sugar Diabetes”.
There were not many cases of this disease at the time and the
research had not reached the level it has today, so basically
a diabetic was told that they could no longer eat sugar. My
sister’s life changed dramatically because the everyday things
that a seven-year-old wants to eat contained sugar. The cereal
in the morning, the cookies at lunch and the dessert after
dinner were all taken away from her like a thief in the night.
The only sugar she was allowed were the Life Savers that she
kept on her in case she got shaky and felt light headed.
Back then, a diabetic would have to urinate in a small shot
glass and drop a pill into the urine. Depending on the color it
turned, indicated how much insulin she would have to inject.
Blue was perfect, green was so-so and orange was bad. Every
time it turned blue, we would all celebrate but most of the
time, it was either green or orange. Every February vacation
from school, she would spend a week at the Joslin clinic in
Boston learning how to treat her diabetes. She would be
excused from classes in school so she could eat a snack and
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WINTER GARDEN MAGAZINE
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NOVEMBER 2016
several times, she would be rushed to the hospital and a few
times even fell into a coma, all because her blood sugars were
so high. How could this be? She eliminated sugar from her
diet, yet it was still bad.
Fast forward twenty years…many advances had been made,
but by then it was too late. Gail’s eyesight was starting to go
and her kidneys were failing. By the age of 35, she was on
dialysis, waiting for a kidney donor. When she turned 37, with
two years of dialysis treatments behind her, a donor came
through. She had the surgery and was feeling great, until one
morning when she woke up and suffered a stroke. The next
four years of her life were spent in a nursing home, paralyzed
on the right side of her body with no hope to speak or walk
again. Her new kidney failed and she was put back on dialysis
in the nursing home.
Because of the efforts of a loving, supportive family, Gail was
able to construct some sentences and was able to leave the
facility in a wheel chair on special occasions. But her life was
mostly stricken to a bed watching VHS videos and waiting for
the next visitor. At the age of forty-two, this beautiful girl lost
her battle and diabetes took her life.
Ten years after her death, I was about to celebrate my 50th
birthday and decided to put on a show in my sister’s memory
Billy’s daughter, Lexi Flanigan