I was a diabetic, that’s right I said “was”. I was diagnosed with diabetes 17-plus years ago as type 2, the very common onset diabetes, which has reached epidemic proportions in Bermuda. My mother and my paternal grandmother both died from its effects. It is an established trait in most of my maternal Darrell family with many of my cousins also effected by the disease.

When first diagnosed, I went to the very informative diabetics class then at the hospital and learnt more about the nature of the disease and how to avoid its complications. I was paranoid about medications and convinced the meds could kill me as fast as the disease. I was as convinced that exercise and diet was the cure. I wasn’t too wrong, except I should have been as diligent about testing blood sugar levels. I would never advise anyone to take what I did as an example. I would advise everyone to listen to their doctors and be diligent about checking sugar levels.

It is easy to convince yourself that everything is OK, because diabetes can work silently for many years, killing you from inside before any real symptoms occur.

I walked, I ran, I danced and led an active life, all in my effort to combat the disease. Even though I had radically changed my diet, not knowing the carbohydrate value or how differing foods effect sugar levels, meant I was still eating the wrong food combinations. I was including small daily habits like a doughnut and coffee hour — and as a result was living with excessively high blood sugar levels for years.

I comforted myself seeing others who had been diagnosed at the same time and after me and who relied on their meds as their primary weapon, but were suffering and in some cases died, while I apparently seemed well without relying on anything except lifestyle, which I thought was working.

It all began to unravel and the quiet intruder exerted its presence a year-and-a-half ago when one of my toes became infected. To fast forward, I went through a period of hospitalisation and life-threatening occurrences with blood infections stemming from foot wounds. All my methodology had proven to be a holy failure with dangerous consequences.

Through patience, listening and combining the best of knowledge, I could gain from all the health professionals including a medical nutritionist and dietitians at the hospital, I managed to find the golden means of what works for me. I began a year or so ago on both a pill and insulin once daily. Then on insulin alone until the dose became less and less, then finally nothing.

Armed with real information and a medical support team I seriously adopted a disciplined approach to food. Nine months later the medical team make comments like he was supposed to have diabetes, but his repetitive AC1 of 6.3 says he isn’t a diabetic. I haven’t eliminated all carbohydrates because without them my body loses too much muscle and it leads to low energy.

With a daily unrelenting diet filled with fresh vegetables, fresh fish and meat and healthy cereals like steel-cut oats along with a remineralisation programme, my body is bouncing back to a state seemingly better than I was before 2000, when I was first diagnosed.

Of course I take nothing for granted and will continue to listen to the health professionals, but my new words are: “I was once a diabetic.”

At the back of my mind I want my experience to be of benefit to my many brother and sister Bermudians, who are threatened by this tricky and debilitating disease. I am fortunate to be able to tell this story.

Don’t be like me and try doing it alone. Consult the professionals follow their advice, but also take control of your life, the real healing is, and will always remain, in your hands.