Stained Glass and Diabetes

In 1983 I started a stained glass studio. Sometime in the first year, Alice came into the studio and asked if I thought she could do stained glass. She confided that she had diabetes and it kept her from doing some things. I gave her a simple glass cutting test which she did well and pronounced her able to do stained glass. Her husband got interested and the two of them had a great deal of fun building beautiful stained glass for their home.

Years later, I discovered that I had diabetes and it explained many troubling things in my life. I had a tendency to get colds and they lasted for a VERY long time which led to a mental fog or even depression. That had led to being undependable at work. All that time, I had thought I was a bad employee and it was partly a problem brought on by a medical condition.

Knowing that I was diabetic let light into my life. I could learn to live with and manage the problem. So when my boss asked me to come back to work for him (after being laid off twice) I turned him down. I had started back into the stained glass business, first part-time and then full-time. I knew that this was the solution to my erratic behavior. As my own boss, I find that I can get in 8 hours or more a day. Sometimes my day starts early, at a normal time and sometimes my day doesn't start till noon, but I can get the hours I need in.

When I'm having a bad week, I don't go on sales calls. Knowing that I have a medical condition allows me to let go of a lot of negative self talk.

I learned that I had diabetes in 2003 and have to visit the doctor regularly. This month, June 2008, I discovered that there is a weekly show for diabetics on CNBC. It's called DLIFE and it's quite good. Imagine, a show where you actually watch all the commercials because they have information you want to know! And It's been on the air for 3 years! How could I have missed it for that long?

If you know someone with diabetes, you should send them to watch CNBC and have them go to the website www.dlife.com it's another resource for dealing with diabetes and they will be impressed with all the famous people who are sucessfully dealing with this disease.