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    Memoirs of a Diabetic: a Malaysian
    Memoirs of a Diabetic: a Malaysian
    Memoirs of a Diabetic: a Malaysian
    Ebook139 pages1 hour

    Memoirs of a Diabetic: a Malaysian

    By Sivarajah Manicavasagar

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    About this ebook

    This memoir shares the inspiring story of a diabetic and his life experiences-some life-threatening-over the past fifty-seven years. Diagnosed in 1957 at the age of 11, author M. Sivarajah considers the changes in treatment of the disease from his early years through present day.

    He recounts how handling insulin has changed over the years, recalling early metal syringes and needles and the method of sterilizing both. The time it took to boil the needles to insure that they were properly sterilized was staggering. The present generation can gauge for themselves how different life was in the fifties for a diabetic and how much we have progressed in the knowledge of the disease over the years. He also includes a description of how urine sugar was tested when there were no blood glucose level tests, as we have now. He also remembers many incidents of bad hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) conditions-some of which seem humorous in hindsight.

    Providing a realistic look at the progress that has been made in our knowledge of diabetes and ways to lead a virtually normal life with the disease today, Memoirs of a Diabetic reveals how thoroughly this condition can affect your life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPartridge Publishing Singapore
    Release dateAug 26, 2014
    ISBN9781482890648
    Memoirs of a Diabetic: a Malaysian
    Author

    Sivarajah Manicavasagar

    M. Sivarajah was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the age of eleven. Ever careful with his diet and exercising regularly, today at sixty-seven, he leads a normal life. He retired as a teacher but also practiced as an advocate for fifteen years, having received his LLB (Hons) from London University.

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      Book preview

      Memoirs of a Diabetic - Sivarajah Manicavasagar

      CHAPTER 1

      The Dawning of a Truth

      In 1957, I was an eleven-year-old studying in King George V Primary School in Seremban in the state of Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia. I was in primary five. Like all youngsters, I was very active physically, and most evenings, I used to play with children in the neighborhood. In 1957, there were no computers, let alone computer games. There were no mobile phones or even television. So, there were only two important things for school-going children. One was to go to school; the other was to entertain ourselves in the evenings by playing games. We played games like spinning tops, marbles, and football, or we even went round the neighborhood rolling tires or bicycle rims. Roads were safe, as there were very few vehicles. Not many people had land phones. In fact, these land phones could be seen only in the homes of the well-to-do or those in the essential services. Other than the activities mentioned previously, the boys also indulged in flying kites. Life was never boring then, as it is now too. But in this year, 1957, my life and lifestyle changed suddenly.

      My father, S. Manicavasagar, was a chief clerk in the land office in Seremban, my hometown. My mother, Annaledchumy Ammal, was a housewife. Sometime in the middle or later part of 1957, I had symptoms of frequent and uncontrollable thirst for no apparent reasons known to us. Being very active and consequently drinking lots of water was understandable, but continuous drinking of water due to thirst in spite of not exercising was strange.

      I used to drink lots of water from the taps in school and at home. Tap water then was very safe to drink, and it was clean. I had never seen a water filter then, nor had I even tasted filtered water. Most people did not boil water, even for drinking purposes. If ever they did so, it was for making beverages. Although there was electricity, most of the cooking and boiling was done by using firewood and/or charcoal.

      After much drinking, the natural result would be to ease myself, not a few times but very often. This urge to wee was so strong that I used to run out of class as quickly as possible at school without the teacher’s permission in order to wee and then run back to class. I once even wet my pants in school. Fortunately, only one of my friends noticed it and told me about the stench of urine. I was very embarrassed. I did not relate any of these things to my parents because I had no inkling about my body’s condition or what was to come.

      CHAPTER 2

      Awareness of Diabetes

      In 1957, very few people, especially children in Malaysia were diagnosed with diabetes. Fewer still were the number of adults who had a good comprehension of this disease called diabetes. Those who had some such knowledge did not understand the severity or symptoms of the disease. What they often wrongly understood was that, if a child were ever afflicted with diabetes, his life span was guaranteed to be a short one.

      Today, so much prominence is given to all the media, especially medical talk shows on television. We had no television then. The media then, both the radio and press, gave little prominence to discussing these health concerns because diabetes was not as prevalent. The Internet these days is also of great help.

      Also in 1957, students from both genders were taken on a trip to the historical city of Melaka, about fifty miles away from my hometown. All students had to get the consent of either their parents or guardians in writing. Being still unaware of my diabetic condition, I also decided to go.

      As students, we had studied about Melaka and how the Portuguese and Dutch, respectively, had colonized it in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, respectively. These two colonial powers had left behind great monuments that still stand, and even today, millions of tourists come to this city.

      Structures such as the A Famosa (a fortress), a legacy of the Portuguese, are still marvels to look at. There are also many Dutch monuments that still stand and are attractions for tourists. The Dutch overran the Portuguese garrisons in 1641, about 130 years after the conquest by the Portuguese in 1511.

      We had the opportunity to visit the still-preserved grave of the great saint St. Francis Xavier. I enjoyed myself, but I also had to endure uncontrollable thirst and, consequently, frequent urges to answer the call of nature. As a youngster, it was only natural that I indulged in sweet stuffs and ice cream like other students. But unlike other students, I had to endure thirst. To quench this thirst, I drank bottled drinks, and this made matters worse.

      For lunch, my fellow students and I were taken to a sort of food court and enjoyed ourselves under the supervision of teachers. It was then time to return home. It was already past seven o’clock, and it was getting dark. On the return journey, I had to endure a very full bladder waiting to burst. Fortunately, another student also wanted to ease himself, so the teacher directed the driver to pull over to the side of the road to enable us to ease ourselves. In 1957, R & R areas were unheard of in my country. Roads were not as brightly lit as they are today. In fact, one could easily count the number of vehicles passing by as the vehicles were very few in number.

      About one and a half hours later, we finally reached the designated area where our parents were waiting to pick us up.

      As for me, I did not enjoy the trip for the simple reason that I had to handle a dry throat, parched lips, thirst, and an urge to release a constantly full bladder. This was perhaps an indication of what was to come later.

      CHAPTER 3

      Condition Worsens

      My condition turned from bad to worse. Soon I started bed-wetting at night. Often while it was happening, I used to think that I was using the toilet. This bed-wetting became very frequent, and my poor mother had to wash the bedsheets and blanket and even dry the bed in the sun every so often. Washing machines were unheard of in 1957.

      This continued, and very soon, my mother suspected what she had been thinking all along when she saw ants favoring the place I had urinated on. As my father was a government employee, he was given a quarters (house). These houses then were built of planks and wood, and they stood on concrete stilts.

      As children, we used to wee in the drain nearest to the outer drains and then pour water in the drain to clear and clean it. My mother related this ant incident to my father. My father then asked an uncle, Assapillai, to take me to the town clinic to have my urine tested for sugar.

      In 1957, even hospitals in Malaysia did not have the test strips and glucometers that are used today. At that time, urine tests measured a person’s diabetic condition. The only test then was to collect the urine in a bottle or cup, fill a test tube with about an inch of Benedict or Fehling’s solution, add eight drops of urine to this solution, and heat the test tube over a spirit lamp. When the Benedict solution (blue in color) was heated over the flame, it would show the state of the sugar in the urine. I say urine sugar and not blood sugar, as no test for blood sugar was available then.

      Mr. Selvarajah (now passed on) did the urine sugar test at the town clinic, and he was also the father of my very close friend and classmate C. S. Soman (now a retired colonel). After testing the blood sugar, Mr. Selvarajah was shocked and showed the test tube to my uncle. I saw it too. The color was brick red, the last and worst reading for a urine sugar test.

      The Benedict or Fehling’s solution is blue in color. After adding the eight drops of urine to the solution and heating the test tube over the spirit lamp, if the color still remains blue, it is termed NiL—in other words, normal. If the color changes to a very light green, it is called trace. If the color is slightly darker than trace (green), then it is called one plus (+). If the color changes to even a darker green, it is known as two plus (++). When the color changes to yellow, it is called three plus (+++). This is not a good reading. The next reading that is considered very bad is the color orange, or four plus (++++). The last and worst of all the readings is the brick-red color, the reading of my urine sample when it was

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