Diabetes Humbles the Strongest of Men
March 10, 2010 by blackgirlgrown
Filed under health and wellness
Michael Wilbon’s Friday column in the Washington Post focuses on the ability of diabetes to humble the strongest of athletes. Wilbon tells the story of NCAA Division I Georgetown Hoya basketball player Austin Freeman’s recent diabetes diagnosis and shines a light on the more than 280 million others with the same illness:
You don’t need to be an athletic marvel to successfully manage diabetes.
More than 285 million people, or 6.4 percent of the world’s adult population, live with the disease right now, and it’s safe to presume most of them can’t make a layup on a 10-foot basket to save their lives.
Having said that, the traits that have helped Austin Freeman become a productive Division I basketball player, an elite college athlete, should serve him well in managing diabetes.
Undoubtedly, the diagnosis Freeman received recently must have scared him half to death. It scares all of us, me two years ago at 49 when doctors told me I had Type 2 diabetes and would have to change my lifestyle forever . . . or else. Freeman, his diagnosis so new, probably hasn’t even gotten to the point at which he’s formulating complicated questions. But he will. And he’s going to hear from doctors, from friends and neighbors and perhaps even relatives who have the disease that diabetes should not slow him down, should not limit his life’s options, should not make him infirm or physically unable to pursue most, if not all, of his passions.
Wilbon goes on to note the scores of professional athletes who have thrived in spite of diabetes, and others who haven’t been so lucky. In the end, Wilbon notes:
The diagnosis of diabetes will change Freeman’s life: his habits and choices, his attitudes, what he allows his children to eat if he has any. Maybe he has to wear a pump, maybe not.
But now that he knows the deal, it doesn’t have to lessen the quality of his life. As Dudley told SI a while back: “You can’t let diabetes stop you, but you also don’t ignore it. You just have to embrace it and learn how to deal with it.”
