I Wish I'd Spoken To My Doctor Sooner

Being told he had type 2 turned out to be good news for 48-year-old Norm Midcalf. He shares why, and what he’d do differently if he had his time over

- Karen Fittall

“Looking back, I’d been feeling sick for a couple of years before I discovered I had diabetes at the beginning of the year. My normal state was feeling tired and lethargic and like I was never 100 per cent. As time went on, I also started to feel foggy in the head, was urinating a lot and was always thirsty. At the time those symptoms didn’t mean much to me and I lived with them rather than going to see a doctor, because I was worried about what I might find out, if I did.

“Then, at the end of last year my brother-in-law was diagnosed with mesothelioma [a malignant tumour caused by inhaling asbestos fibres] and very sadly, died soon after. It gave me a bit of a wakeup call and I decided to bite the bullet and make an appointment with a GP.

“I was sent off to get some blood tests and when I went back to get my results, I was told I had haemochromatosis, which is an inherited iron overload disorder. The doctor assured me it wasn’t serious – I may just need to give blood regularly – and that everything else looked fine, before saying ‘Oh, but you do know you’ve got diabetes?’.

“I told him that was news to me, so he asked me how I was feeling and when I said ‘well, pretty ordinary to be honest’, he wasn’t surprised. My blood glucose levels were so high, he said I probably should have been in hospital.”