A participatory Action Research Study with Guyanese Women Living with Type 2 Diabetes in England
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- One to one interviews
- Building relationships with the women
- Storytelling: Data generation, analysis and reflections
- Vera’s storyline
- Ongoing dialogue and reflections
- Marjorie’s storyline
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Preparation Planning the one-to-one personal storytelling interviews was an important step in preparation for the process during the apprenticeship phase when I was being supervised. As previously mentioned in Chapter 5, supervision in PAR is crucial for the novice researcher as she begins to learn the knowledge and skills whilst being mentored by the supervisor (Koch & Kralik 2006). Low (2013) gave me some tips when preparing for interviews that included allowing sufficient time to recruit participants, schedule interviews and allow for re interviewing as necessary. Stories told are often on-going so I allocated time to revisit. Rowley (2012) highlighted the importance of good organisational skills which I considered as I planned my journey carefully to London where the interviews took place. (See Appendix 7)
One of my PhD supervisors accompanied me on two occasions: being mentored whilst interviewing was considered to be the PAR apprenticeship phase. My first storytelling interview took place with Vera in 2010. I reflected and shared my views with the supervisor to obtain feedback on my performance as I observed how she listened intently, making her presence felt without saying anything, except to clarify. It was Vera’s voice we wanted to hear. The first question was non-directive and open: “Tell me your story about living with diabetes”. “Perhaps you can start when you were first diagnosed”. I found that Vera opened up and told her story almost entirely without prompts. When Vera was talking about Guyanese food, I was able to explain some of the traditional recipes to my supervisor. I learned it was important to relax, allow the women to take control and tell the story in whichever way they wished. Building relationships with the women I contacted the women by telephone beforehand and believe this conversation helped with building a relationship. By the time I visited them for the interview we had already engaged in a dialogue. The exchange of information occurred easily as I recognised that we had come from a similar background and culture. This made it easier as we shared stories about living in Guyana. There was an immediate connection. The majority of the women then spoke freely about their lives in the UK including their long-term condition. On some occasions, two of the women, Jane and Shirley were hesitant to talk and I had to ask more questions. For instance, Jane was reluctant to talk about her diabetes in any detail or her previous home life in Guyana so I used prompts to encourage her to talk. For majority of the group, they spoke frankly and openly. When talking about the way in which they managed their diabetes, I nodded remembering to reinforce positively the actions they were taking. I realised from the outset to say little in order to learn a great deal from them. Moreover I was careful not to judge or give advice or try to take on a counselling role. As trust developed, the women divulged their rather personal stories and facts. The interviews were expected to take an hour but on occasions they continued until they could be appropriately stopped and stories told. Although I subscribe to the principle of reciprocity, when health related questions were put to me that demanded an answer, I reminded them that I was there in a capacity as a facilitator/researcher and not as a nurse. However I was aware that if a matter of concern was raised regarding their diabetes then I suggested that they made an appointment to see their GPs. Meanwhile I noted the questions as I planned to have access to a diabetic specialist nurse who might be able to join the PAR groups if requested by the women. I allowed, too, for silence so that we could recollect our thoughts before we moved the interview on. I was conscious throughout the interview to provide a relaxed, safe space for the women to tell their stories where there was trust and understanding. I kept in frequent contact with the participants for the duration of the inquiry. I made further home visits, telephone calls and we held telephone conferences. These further forms of communication helped to cement the relationships. Six out of the eight women consented later to join the PAR group which lasted over an 18 month period. Storytelling: Data generation, analysis and reflections This section provides data extracts to illustrate how the data from the interviews were generated and analysed. The data will be analysed using Koch and Kralik’s (2006) ‘look, think and act’ analysis framework. Each story as told by the participant was transcribed verbatim. I read each transcript several times to gain further familiarity of the narrator’s voice. I noted the choices the participants made in telling this story, its chronology (or not), what the participant decided to include in their story and I pondered about what could have been excluded. The specific steps taken to analyse the stories told are discussed in detail in Chapter 5. The main objective was to listen to the voices of the women. In this Chapter their voices will be heard. Often 10,000 words were reduced to 2500 words – see Vera’s account below but the development of the storyline was developed collaboratively. In the section below I have privileged eight storylines. Vera’s storyline I had been experiencing symptoms for about 18 months and I had been seeing my GP and three Harley street specialists for over a year with various symptoms, but no one did a test. I was literally on the floor, sleeping during lunch breaks in order to get through the afternoon’s work. I was drinking everything I could get my hands on, including Ribena. My weight shot up and I put on half a stone. There was a spot on my nose that was like a boil and it would not heal. I was getting all sorts of genital itching. I saw the GP’s locum; an elderly female and she immediately assumed that I had to have a social disease. I said ‘look lady let me tell you something; I lead a Christian lifestyle, I have not been sleeping around’. Eventually I was diagnosed with diabetes in September 1983. One of my staff at work who had been diabetic for a long time said to me, you’d better go and see the occupational nurse. The nurse did the usual urine test and said by the look of this dark urine you could be dead. I saw my GP that same night and suddenly he was very concerned. He was a different character; sitting up and taking notice. My sister and I had booked to go to Spain and he said no, you’ll have to cancel because you can’t go to Spain with untreated diabetes. Now all he needed to do really was to say to me ‘Well look, avoid certain things, keep out of the heat, you know, drink a lot of water’. Then I had to wait about a month before I got to St George’s and was diagnosed with diabetes. I was put on a very severe diet, I could hardly eat anything but I stayed on that diet for about a year and things improved dramatically. But then I realised the diet wasn’t doing the trick. So of my own volition I rang St George’s and I said ‘Sorry, but I need to come back and see you’, and that is how I stayed with them until a year ago. My GP has now taken over. I don’t think the medical profession gave any thought to the psychological effects of being diagnosed, suddenly being told ‘You can’t do this and you can’t do that, you can’t have this, you can’t have that’. It affects you in so many ways. You have to stop and think about when you eat, how you eat and you must do all these tests. They never pointed out the effect it could have on your eyes, gums or your feet. There was no education as such. It was just, oh we’ve got it under control and you go to the clinic every three months. I joined the Diabetic Association. I get the Balance magazines. When you go to St George’s, you meet certain faces regularly so we formed a little clique for exchanging information, who is on insulin and who is not. One or two of the people had ‘severe’ diabetes so from speaking to them I learned that I had to look out for certain things. I went on insulin in 1999 at my instigation. I kept having the tablets combined with the diet but these were not working satisfactorily; the condition was becoming more chronic. I told them I need to go on insulin. They gave in. Again you have to be your own doctor. I have experienced so much. I realised that my sight was not what it ought to be. I was blaming it on computers at work so I mentioned it to St George’s but the ophthalmic department lost my notes by the time of the second visit. I transferred to my local hospital eye unit. All went well. I turned up one day in 2002 and waited ages to see the medical staff. They looked at my eyes and talked over my head ‘oh well she’s got the makings of cataracts and she has a lot of diabetic retinopathy’. What on earth were they talking about? Next thing I know my eyes are being lasered and weeping after lengthy sessions. I said to my family ‘this cannot be right’. So I rang Moorfields and saw somebody privately. When he looked at my eyes he said the state of your eyes suggests that you could go blind at any time! Subsequently I have lost peripheral vision because of all the lasering. That was necessary to prevent unwanted blood vessels forming and maybe attacking the retina. I attend Moorfields regularly since 2002 and see the same consultant or one of his staff. When I first went to St George’s if you looked around patients were an even mixture of English people and non-English. My last visit to St George’s seemed to be predominantly Afro-Caribbean and Asian and some Eastern Europeans? Now is that because we are clued up and looking for symptoms or is it because there are more people who are prone to diabetes because of their background or whatever? I grew up in a normal family, I had a very happy childhood. My father was very strong, well-built person, very active, academic, loved cricket, weight lifting, loved most sport, music, mostly classical, opera was his great love. In his early 30s he became a founder member of the Metropolitan Opera Guild of New York. Because of his love of music, there was music always. I did sing at school and I was in the choir until I left school. I was active; I cycled to and from school and most places. I played games, liked table tennis up to the time I left home in my early 20s. The diet in Guyana was quite healthy. Root vegetables, lots of greens, beef, fish, not a great deal of pork, mostly beef and fish. We had lots of fruits. I ate plantains, there is a green one cooked in a certain way which is very good for you. When it is fried, when ripe, that is when it can create dietary problems but in those days we didn’t need to worry. Cassava I loved but because I developed sinus problems at an early age they felt the starch wasn’t good for me. Yams, tania, that was one of my favourites. Eddoes they used to make soup because it’s good for your blood. I remember my brother four years younger, watched everything being done for him. They would crush the potatoes or the eddoes, put a little milk, butter and that was in place of all these supermarket foods. Very good diet, then there was plantain flour, used to make porridge which is very nourishing and pablum, a sort of porridge. The famous Cow and Gate milk which we used in place of fresh milk at home. We had fresh milk delivered every morning by Indian farmers but we suspect it was watered down. As we got older we used evaporated milk which is good and we did not need to be aware of any side effects. Because we were so active, and it’s a hot climate so you’re sweating, getting rid of a lot of impurities. You go home from school or work and relax for a short while and then you play games or visit a friend. You cycle or walk. Evenings are cooler, you are out again. My mother told me that my father must have been in his late 30s when he developed what we refer to in the Caribbean as ‘a touch of sugar’. I know two people from the Caribbean and these are highly intelligent professional people, well I think can’t you work this one out for yourself, if somebody told you have ‘a touch of sugar, you’re either prone to diabetes or you’ve actually got it’. My father may have had it. When I was diagnosed nobody in my nuclear family had diabetes. Now my cousins two of my father’s brother’s children are diabetic. His first cousin who died recently became diabetic in later years. Her son is diabetic and he is now in his early 70s so it seems to have come from my father’s side of the family. This high incidence amongst the Amerindians who have now relocated to Georgetown and other coastal areas, as against those living in the interior, strongly suggest their lifestyle in the interior made them less prone to diabetes. There is a big influx now in Georgetown and they all want a Western lifestyle, food and the Western way of living. When I left home I weighed 92 pounds. I think I was a size 10. So you start to work, then of course you’re leaving home early in the mornings and may or may not have had breakfast. Come 10 o’clock, a trolley comes round, lovely crusty rolls with cheddar cheese and a nice slab of butter and coffee. You are not moving because you are at the desk. Lunchtime, you are making new friends, initially with a group from the Caribbean; we met and always had a meal. Everybody went to the staff canteen and had a meal: that was part of the culture. So then you had soup, steak and kidney pudding, potatoes and a sweet. When you‘ve finished you go back and sit down for the next three or four hours. You go home and its cold and you are hungry and my aunt who lived with us cooked an evening meal. Then it’s cold and I’m too tired to go out. Television was a novelty back in the 60s so you flop in front of it. Now that is a change of lifestyle and before you go to bed a biscuit or nuts. Can you see the difference in the lifestyle between here and Guyana? Particularly in the winter months, even though I did lots of socialising, voluntary work and other activities. From the 70s onward I would drive to these activities, sit for two to three hours and come home tired. At week-ends I brought reports home to complete so instead of being out on a Sunday, for leisure, I worked. Stress also played its part. I came here, and my sister, and we are thinking we’ll stay four or five years till things settle down in Guyana. When I came to London in 1962 I felt luckier than many people as in a short while I was being trained in what seemed to be the first wave of ‘junior overseas’ managers in a civil service department but I hit trouble. There were people who didn’t want me there. I just thought I am going to show you that I can do it. I kept thinking they will come after me; I don’t want them to go through what I am going through. I should have looked after ‘number one’. I thought I’m here for about five years waiting for the political life in Guyana to settle but 10 and then 15 years went by. I thought ‘God, we aren’t going back, we haven’t put down roots because you’re like a schizophrenic, half of you is adjusting to life here and exploring new avenues and the other half is thinking, no, my family are back there, I want to get back home’. At work there were many problems. I went through some days when I could have put my coat on and walked out and never looked back, but I kept at it. I didn’t get to where I wanted in the long run. I made a reasonable success of it but it was very difficult. At the age of 51 I was made redundant with a whole host of other people. In the middle of sorting out our mother’s situation with the Home Office my little niece got chickenpox and passed it on to me (aged 40). Now I read somewhere that that virus stays in your body for a while and can trigger off a diabetic condition. I suppose the onslaught to your immune system coupled with the stress and shock of my father’s death, major surgery in 1982, work considerations, a whole host of things I can put together which perhaps triggered my diabetic condition. When I look back I think I was always prone to diabetes. From an early age I used to get heavy-headed and my skin had hives, what we call ‘mad blood’. I get it even now if I eat anything that is too sweet. I come from a line of strong personalities and the women in both families have been very independent, strong minded, determined to see things through: that was the way my parents brought me up as well. My faith is Catholicism. It keeps me going. You learn to deal with life, to be positive in the face of adversity. The last ten, certainly the last four and half years have been some of the worst years because I am now on my own. My sister developed cancer, she died in 2004. Exactly four months later my aunt died, she had cancer as well, at age 94. Then my mother died a year ago last February having suffered from dementia for the last 41/2 years. I was her sole carer. My mother was a beautiful woman, very gentle, very self-contained. She was such a lady and when I saw what she had to endure in hospital, it broke my heart. Patients used to tell me and I saw it once myself, I turned up there because of the dementia they tucked the bedclothes in very tightly and she’s pulling at them and then she is lying there totally exposed. I used to say mom, ‘this is not nice’, and she didn’t know what was happening. Conversely I am not happy with my diabetic control. The slow acting insulin is not working the way it should. Last night my reading was 6.4. I am supposed to have between 16 and 22 units so I thought no I’ll just have 15 because it’s 6.4. Then I thought I’m on my own, the last thing I want is a ‘hypo’. I had a bit of brioche and some hot water, nothing else. I get up this morning and the reading is nine point something! Yesterday it was 10. I can’t explain it. I have never been offered diabetic education session. There may be a local group but I have never felt moved to join it. I don’t know but I feel that because I’ve tried to do so much research or to work things out on my own, I’m a bit self-sufficient. I spoke to a nurse every six months at the surgery. I have my urine test done and blood test and then a follow up appointment. The nurse examines my feet. The GP sees me on other occasions. Now I am on five injections four times a day. I’m running out of injection sites. I feel I am really on my own right now because the GP doesn’t know much about diabetes; he used to argue with me until three to four years ago about testing. He asks ‘why do I have to test more than once a day’: the test strips are pretty expensive. I have them on prescription but they cost around £22. Ongoing dialogue and reflections Vera and I continued our dialogue filling the gaps in her story as I visited her on four further occasions. She is unmarried but developed close confiding relationships with her mother, sister and aunt who lived with her and supported her when she was diagnosed with diabetes in 1983. When they died, she felt lost and isolated. A niece visits occasionally with her husband and two sons but she relies mainly on friends for social support and her Catholic church. A brother living in Guyana spent six months with Vera during 2012 and a number of overseas relatives maintain contact. This articulate woman has been very unhappy with the diabetic service received from her GP. She described this service as neglectful and after repeated requests, returned to the hospital service in February 2011. The full check up from the consultant really pleased her. Vera admitted she has experienced issues with managing her condition. At one stage she was having six insulin injections daily that affected her skin. She had “highs and lows” when blood glucose readings varied from acceptable on some days to high on others even when maintaining a similar diet. One main issue was taking regular exercise due to many aches and pains which made walking difficult. In consultation with her GP, she saw a traditional therapist who prescribed herbal tablets which she had found calming and soothing. Vera has become more vocal about her needs since I first interviewed her. She now expects a better service from her local surgery. After speaking with a friend in Canada who has diabetes she noticed that the UK lacks the team approach to diabetes care. Vera is an active member of Diabetes UK and attends their annual meetings. She invited the PAR group to attend one but inclement weather meant only I attended. Vera has shown a dramatic change in the last six months. She is more socially active, had a holiday in Israel and keeps in regular contact with the PAR group members. Reflection When returning to Vera’s home post-interview, we re-read the transcript to co-construct it. I had posted the transcript which Vera had changed substantially as is her right in this research process. She was rather upset with her ‘spoken’ word as opposed to the ‘written’ word and asked for issues regarding her father to be omitted. I reflected that this was like a classroom/teacher scenario because she was more interested in grammar and language rather than story content. As the research is collaborative, I respected Vera’s right to amend her story. However this entirely new way of doing research challenged me as it was not what I had expected and introduced a steep learning curve. The collaborative process took two hours to produce a storyline satisfactory to us both. Vera and I talked on and off for many months. I used the telephone and visited her at home. Vera was sent the revised transcript. We went through the storyline over the phone. It became clear she was knowledgeable and up to date about diabetes as we discussed her strengths in managing her long-term condition. In an effort to keep herself informed she subscribed to a diabetic magazine. She was confident in managing her condition and keeping her glucose levels under control. Vera was interested in joining the PAR group, offering her home for the first group session. She knew I was new to this process as Professor Tina Koch supervised me during her interview and expressed satisfaction with all versions of her story. Vera made a number of changes in her life seeking support and guidance for living with diabetes. I learnt from this first experience to neither take things for granted nor make too many assumptions. Marjorie’s storyline My diabetes was first diagnosed at Easter time 1999. For about six months, ‘I thought I had this thing’ because I would drink a two litre bottle of coke in half a day. I was working so I went to the doctor and informed him that I was pretty certain I am a diabetic. The doctor thought I was a hypochondriac because I had so many other ailments. He said ‘no you are not’ even though I had been going there every month. He eventually took a urine sample and said ‘no’, you are fine. At that time I did not know you had to take blood samples because I had limited knowledge about diabetes. None of my relatives had it. I was at work on Holy Thursday that year and suddenly I went blind. I shouted to my boss Paul, ‘Paul I can’t see’. I literally could not see so he came running out of the office to investigate the matter and said he would call an ambulance. However I wanted to go home so he called a cab and I phoned the doctors to make an emergency appointment. I got the cab to take me to the doctors and the cab guy took me in. I did not see my doctor but saw another doctor in the surgery who took my blood and he said ‘why have you come to the surgery’? I answered ‘what do you mean’? He answered and said ‘your blood sugar is really high’. He said ‘you are a diabetic’ and I said ‘no I am not’. Anyhow he just said to me I am sorry but you are’. I was shocked with this diagnosis. The doctor gave me a prescription of Metformin for some medication. I came out of the clinic screaming and crying because the two things I said I would never want to have is diabetes and AIDS. I felt it would never have got to that stage of blindness if my doctor had listened to me earlier and sent me for blood tests. I was under a medical team at the diabetic clinic at a major local hospital for a while and I was informed that if you are not good at controlling your diabetes, you may have to inject insulin. I said ‘well you might as well kill me because I won’t be doing it’. And then someone said ‘it is all right they have got new methods’. You just inject under your skin and you do not have to worry. I said ‘if that is the case that is fine but if I have got to inject myself well you might as well say goodbye because I am not doing it’. It is all I can do to stick my finger. If you see me do that you would laugh I count .......3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 how will I inject myself? When I first noticed my diabetes I was just getting fatter and partying at all the Guyanese scenes. I ate all the Guyanese food, crisps and biscuits. However I did not have loads of sugar and I was not feeling stressed at that time. I was doing fine, apart from the fact I was fat. I think diabetes is brought on by obesity. I read that fact ages ago. I do not exercise so I believe that is what brought it on. It is called late onset diabetes. The other belief I had is that I always thought diabetes was hereditary. No one in the family except for a niece who lives in Barbados has diabetes. I never thought I would get it. My niece and I laugh about it now. If I get a new ailment, I call her in Barbados and say ‘how are you for this and she says I am all right at the moment’. Then she calls me back and says ‘guess what I have it now’. She seems to follow me. Following the initial shock of being diagnosed with diabetes you learn to live with it. Like I said, to have diabetes, was like the end of the world at that time. That was the second worst thing that you could be told. It was just the end to me and it was just awful like a sin being put on you. I suppose that is an extreme way of saying or explaining being given the news but that was how I felt. I felt ‘why me, what have I done’? I knew the answer. I was fat but I didn’t believe that at the time. When people said you will have a heart attack or get diabetes I used to laugh. So when I was diagnosed I felt like I had lost someone, I suppose it was like facing death at that time. I was concerned a diabetic injected needles all the time. I did not know the difference between Type l and Type 2 Diabetes. In that first year I learned to live with diabetes: I suffered with diarrhoea and I am pretty certain it had to do with the Metformin, but once I changed my lifestyle and started on the diet, eating smaller portions, having breakfast, lunch and dinner I felt I had more control. In the beginning I was just fighting the condition and really thought it would go away but it did not. Then I started to I accept what was happening and monitoring my blood sugar levels and ‘keep a chart’. But this preoccupation became ridiculous and I could not live like that. It was making me worse measuring this and writing this down. I stopped and just took my diabetes in check. I feel my diabetes is under control, except for two or three instances my blood sugar level count is never more than 5.6 or 5.5. What I have experienced in the past have been hypoglycaemic comas. Apparently I should not have been getting those because I am Type 2 but I do have them. If the count increases to six, I am running around the house in circles because I do what I am supposed to do. At the beginning when I was first diagnosed I would never eat chocolate or sweets but now I buy chocolate. There is actually one in the fridge now. I love fruit and nut and normally eat it with moderation. I used to eat crunchies and would have one a day before 1999. Anyhow I would not eat anything like that now. I am getting old so I enjoy the little things in life before I die. I will be 64 this year. I was seeing someone and he used to say ‘you can’t have that and why are you eating that’, a bit of cake. For God’s sake I know what I am doing, I can have cake if I want because I might be wrong or have the wrong attitude but I then compensate for the next couple of days and I am careful. When I am shopping I look at people reading the sugar count because they are on diets but I can’t live my life that way. If I know it is not too good for me then I have to be careful how much of that I eat and enjoy. Since 1999, I have made a lot of changes, mainly in my diet. Now I eat greens and proper portions. I trim all the fat off the pork chops and do not eat any fat. In fact I hardly eat meat. I went through phases at first where I just ate fish and prawns then I almost became a vegetarian. I used to eat lots of fruit and vegetables but I have lost interest at the moment. I work two days a week but sometimes I do not get a lunch break so I will eat fruit for lunch. I would have four plums, three nectarines and more than five grapes. I like pulses so I eat channa which is chick peas. The other Guyanese foods I eat are black pudding, pepper pot, garlic pork, metemgee and chow mein but that is healthy because it is vegetables and noodles. Yesterday for the first time I had a bit of yam, the first time for ages. I enjoyed eating it even though it wasn’t nice. I like plantains but they have got sugar. I do not like the green ones but the ripe ones. Over the years your lifestyle changes so you have to change with it. A similar thing occurs when you have diabetes you have to change with it otherwise you will be unhappy. I have had practice in adapting from Guyana to England. You would expect by now that they would have found out why you get diabetes and how to stop it happening. I say to my grandchildren daily ‘... don’t eat this; don’t eat that but watch out, do you exercise’? I say to my little granddaughter ‘you have got to exercise because you know what will happen, you are slim now but you must keep up with that”. I think exercise and healthy eating has a lot to do with how your health is at a later stage in your life. When I look at all these obese children they are not learning about healthy eating or parents are not educating their children about it. If I come across someone freshly diagnosed the advice I would give to that individual is to be careful and monitor their situation, not to do what they shouldn’t do, to eat properly and to accept the situation and work towards keeping it in check. Not just giving in and being complacent. Sometimes I wonder whether the diabetes or the blood sugar level is affected by other factors such as stress especially if you are stressed at work. I have not literally sat down and thought about this but I was really strained at work. We had somebody new who was asking silly questions every day. I would tell her the answers but she would ask the same questions an hour later. She was supposed to work from three to five but did not do the job in the allotted time. She was getting over time, working more hours than me and getting paid yet I was doing part of her job. We only got paid for what hours we did. At that stage I was a bit stressed so I wondered whether stress has caused me to have diabetes. As Guyanese living in England we tend to stick together. We have friends from other places but I think we tend to keep more Guyanese friends. I know many Guyanese who have diabetes but I cannot think of anybody outside of Guyana who has it. When I was on holiday Guyanese people who had diabetes did not seem to be as strict with their diet. There are lots of sweet things to eat there as everything has loads of sugar, like sugar cake. Guyanese who have diabetes have an attitude like me but at least I try and eat what I should eat whereas they do not seem to follow a strict diet. I also believe that doctors or nurses in Guyana give different advice to what we receive here. Fruits have got sugar and in England we are educated to only eat small amounts of fruit for example five grapes but in Guyana you can eat as much fruit as you want. It seems that they are either being given different information or they do not understand what they are being told. Nonetheless they are not stupid people. In fact they are the most educated bunch around I think from the Caribbean. My early childhood was spent in Guyana until I was fourteen and then we lived in Barbados for a year. I came to England at the age of sixteen. My father was already here because he worked for MI6. When we had the uprising in Guyana, he phoned us to get out so we went to Barbados. I come from a spy background, but lived a reasonably privileged life. We had servants, a chauffeur, a maid, cook and gardener and I did not have to do anything. We had the best and I went to one of the best schools over there. However Guyana was a rather unequal society, you were not equal with the man up the road who did not have a pair of shoes. However the class thing worked the opposite way when I came to England. In England I came at the worst time when we had that fog and smog. The bus conductor walked in front of the buses with the torch lights so the bus drivers could see. Oh it was horrible. It was really an eye opener so I could not understand how people could live like it. It was hard coming from a privileged lifestyle to a different lifestyle. There were lots of things that you were not used to for example, the paraffin man selling paraffin for the lamps and the man who used to sell pop. It was a totally different world so it was strange and it was fun but sad as well. I missed the sun, sea, friends and all the privileges too. You did not have any of them now as you were just like Joe Bloggs up the road. I was used to being the one on top in Guyana and then I came and I became the one underneath. Yes it was a reversal of roles. I attended the Edith Cavell to finish my education. At the beginning I had two problems. I was mixed race and my hair was long but I was seen as black by some people. Others saw me as neither one nor the other because in the 1960s it was not really nice just after the riots. I remembered coming home from college one day and was late. I did not get home on time because I was crying and I had gotten into a fight. In actual fact I was beaten up by the black group because I made my own decisions regarding who I was going to sit with at college. I married and have three girls, one will be forty next month and another was forty one yesterday and the eldest is aged forty-two and she is a diabetic case waiting to happen. I tell her each day but she would not listen. She is massive, takes no exercise and bigger than I am. She is size 22. I suppose though because I manage my diabetes so well it does not cause her much concern. I keep threatening to take her blood sugar level but I do not bother because she would not listen. There is a diabetic organisation which meets regularly and do fund raising and they have events such as walks but I have never attended. I am not unsociable but I would prefer to meet with a Guyanese group of women who are diabetic because you also have the other unique point of interest. You are all Guyanese even if you may come from different backgrounds. I could do that. It would be nice to have a forum that you can share your feelings and understandings about diabetes because there may be other common factors that you have not realised that are important. Download 1.11 Mb. Share with your friends:
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