Patient Stories

Lily wasn’t upset or even sad when her doctor told her eight years ago that she had diabetes.

“Thank God,” Lily recalled saying. “Of anything I could have had, this is the one thing I could control and keep on track.”

Before her diagnosis, Lily was confused because her symptoms didn’t make sense. She was tired, she sweated profusely, and she sometimes had blurred vision. “I didn’t know if it was menopause or what,” she said.

After visiting a few doctors, she finally was diagnosed with diabetes. And that’s when she took matters into her own hands.

“Ever since then, I’ve been a crusader trying to find out how to help myself and how to help other people,” said Lily, who lives in Warrensville Heights. “I started going to anything that said ‘Diabetes.’ ”

Lily, 64, has used her condition as a way to explore new foods and activities. “I try to find out about new things I can eat that are going to be good,” she said. “I’m exercising more, but nothing that makes me bored.”

She recently discovered gardening as a fun way to exercise, and she likes to walk her dogs, Xavier and Daphne, to get in some physical activity.

For Lily, the best way to deal with her diabetes was to change her mindset and face her condition head on.

“Some people I talk to are scared of diabetes,” she said. “But I just say, we’re here; we’re gonna live and we’re gonna die. Whatever’s in between, deal with it. You find out what you have, then try to do the best you can with it.”