A medical assistant administers an insulin shot to a diabetes patient. AFP FILE PHOTO/SAJJAD HUSSAIN
COPENHAGEN–With their bright smiles and infectious sense of humor, one would be hard put to know that Camilla Rossil and Benny Schatz have been living with diabetes for several decades.
Recently, Rossil marked a special milestone. “I marked my 30th anniversary with diabetes this year and I invited my friends and family to champagne brunch just to celebrate,” she said.
“I think I’ll live to be 105 years old,” she said.
Rossil, 35, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 4, while Schatz, 63, was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes when he was 38.
In the sharing session that was laced with laughter and jokes, Rossil and Schatz told anecdotes about their lives as diabetics.
“I love to challenge myself and my diabetes—just because I can,” Rossil said, adding that when she was younger, she felt restricted by her condition. “Right now, I love to travel and to go on survival trips just because I can, and because I have learned so much about myself and my diabetes,” she said.
Despite suffering an illness that has them tied to lifelong medication and suffering a series of complications, their outlook on life remains as positive as ever.
“Right now, I think my life is amazing,” said Rossil, a social educator specializing in sports who deals with children aged 1 to 6 years. She spoke to a group of journalists from all over the world at Steno Diabetes Center here last week.
In Type 1 diabetes, the body’s immune system destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. In the absence of insulin in the body, blood sugar level must be controlled by regular insulin treatment. Only about 5 to 15 percent of diabetics have Type 1 diabetes, and roughly half of them are diagnosed before they reach the age of 18.
Majority of diabetics suffer from Type 2 diabetes, where there is an increase in the level of sugar in the blood because the body produces less than ideal levels of insulin or has developed insulin resistance because of obesity.
“I really love my life. And that’s despite the fact that I’m partly sighted, I have reduced kidney functions, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and some other exciting things that my diabetes has given me throughout the years,” Rossil added, smiling. She currently has an insulin pump, which supplies her body with insulin every five minutes.
Speaking at the same event, Schatz, a former teacher, said he needed to take some 20 pills every day and is currently on two different types of insulin.
“Over the years, I have developed a wide range of complications. I have elevated cholesterol and reduced kidney functions. I have only a third of my kidney function left,” he said.
Rossil and Schatz are among the more than 6,000 diabetes patients being treated at Steno Diabetes Center, which is run by Denmark-based diabetes care company and pharmaceutical Novo Nordisk and the Capital Region of Copenhagen.
Like Rossil, Schatz also enjoys traveling, but it is something he did not discover until after he was sidetracked for months by Charcot disease, a rare diabetes complication that features the collapse of small bones in the foot. With the disease keeping him out of work for many months, Schatz was soon dismissed from the job he had held for 30 years.
“I loved my job, I loved teaching. I used to tell my pupils and colleagues about diabetes all the time,” he said. “My world broke down. I felt my world was just ruined. But then, I got a second life,” he added.
After being dismissed from his job, he soon found a new hobby —travel photography.
“I went with my family on a trip to India, buying our tickets from a small travel agency. When we got back, we were so grateful for the treatment, so we made a book of our travel photos for the travel agency. They were impressed with the photos and they told me they wanted me to take photos for them,” he said.
“That was a complete change in my life. Suddenly, I was a travel photographer,” Schatz said.
Since then, he has traveled to Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Peru and Ecuador. “They showed me this bright new world. The people who live out there, they don’t have the same values, and not as much money, but they are so happy with what they have. It was a completely different world, and it made me a new person,” he said.
Despite having a supportive family, not everything was smooth sailing for Rossil, who underwent a “rebellious phase” as a teenager living with a difficult ailment.
“At the hospital, I was always yelled at because my blood sugar was not good enough,” she said.
When she was about 13 or 14, Rossil decided that if she didn’t take her insulin or measure her blood sugar, she would be “normal like everybody else.”
It was a move that proved nearly fatal. At a graduation party when she was 15, Rossil “forgot” to take her insulin and proceeded to drink liquor. “I got really, really sick. I puked for three days and my parents noticed that this was not just a hangover, so they took me to the hospital.
“At the hospital, they told me that if I had come about two hours later I would have gone into a coma and wouldn’t have woken up. That was quite a shock,” she said.
When Rossil was in college, Steno began warning her about her cholesterol levels, blood pressure and her eyes. “I had just moved away from home. I thought I could take care of this myself,” she said. She ended up needing surgery for her eyes.
“After six months in Israel, I came home and turned blind for a year,” she said. “I started my education being blind, which was quite hard. Imagine waking up, and you can only see white and dark. You have to eat breakfast, shower, choose clothes–and you can’t see. So it was quite a challenge. I broke plates, walked into doors, took the wrong trains and buses, and bought the wrong grocery,” she said.
On top of these challenges, she also had schooling to deal with. “How can you study when you can’t read? I had my books read to me on tapes,” she said.
She eventually had six eye operations. To Rossil, each surgery felt like a new life. “Every time I had an operation, it was like I had to build myself up again. It felt like I’m starting over and saying to myself, ‘OK, this is who I am today.’ Every time I felt I got stronger.”
After six operations, Rossil is now partly sighted and was able to finish school and get a job. “I even have a license to drive,” she said.
Her three-decades-long “adventure” with diabetes has given Rossil a wide array of experiences—from getting her last insulin stolen during a trip with friends in Prague, to being mistakenly accosted by airport security in Egypt who misheard “insulin pump” as “bomb.”
“I have learned a lot about living with diabetes, like being strong and asking questions like, ‘How can I make my diabetes better?’” said Rossil, who also loves to run and go around the city on her mountain bike.
“I do it because I can. I love doing it. I just believe that now, I have found the key to adjust my diabetes to my life,” she said.
And what if a diabetes cure were to be discovered tomorrow?
“I believe that my diabetes has made me who I am today. So if Novo Nordisk were to find a cure for diabetes tomorrow, I’m not sure that I will say yes to it,” she said.
“Diabetes is a big part of me. I’m not saying that I would say no. Diabetes has made me who I am, and it has made me realize how precious life is,” she said.
Rossil, a nutrition and health graduate, lives with her family and says her condition has not made a difference in the family’s diet.
Vegetables are regular fixtures in family meals. “My family eats the same food as I do. I don’t feel special in that way, I don’t feel different. It’s trendy to live well,” she said.
“I don’t believe that my diet should be very different from how people should really eat,” she said.