The First Year: Type 2 Diabetes: A Patient-Expert Guide for the Newly Diagnosed

Diagnosed with type-2 diabetes in 1996, Gretchen Becker educated herself on every aspect of this chronic condition - by reading medical books, talking with doctors, listening to her own body and using the Internet to communicate daily with other people with diabetes. Now, as a patient-expert, she guides all those newly diagnosed through everything they need to learn and do in the crucial first year after diagnosis. Hers is a step-by-step approach, first a day at a time - each day of the first week - then a week at a time - each week of the first month - and then a month at a time - each month for the 11 months of year one. This guide, a full and in-depth look at all aspects of the condition that untangles and clarifies, simplifies but never patronizes, offers a wider approach than any so far adhered to by doctors. It answers all the myriad questions that assail the newly diagnosed: how best to adjust your social life to cope with daily maintenance? How to make sense of the complicated terminology about measurement of blood-glucose levels? How to build self-knowledge and confidence? How, crucially, best to adjust to life with diabetes. This reliable, empathetic, up-to-date handbook should be a life-enhancing lifesaver for all type-2 diabetics.