Life is sweet despite illness

WHEN Conor Kelleher couldn’t quench his thirst, no matter how much he drank, he knew it was time to take matters further. “I went to my GP and he sent me on to hospital,” says Conor, 40, a self-employed stonemason from Dripsey, Co Cork, adding that he was also passing a lot of urine.

A diagnosis of diabetes was made. “I spent a week in hospital where they regulated my blood sugars and got me used to injecting insulin. I have Type 1 diabetes, which is hereditary,” says Conor, who was 32 at the time of his diagnosis.

According to the Diabetes Federation of Ireland, diabetes mellitus is caused by a lack of or insufficiency of insulin. In diabetes, the pancreas makes too little insulin to enable all the sugar in your blood to get into your muscle and other cells to produce energy. High blood sugar levels build up because the sugar, which cannot get into the cells to be used, now builds up in the bloodstream.