Victorians celebrated for long lives with diabetes
The Kellion Victory Medal award ceremony is a favourite among Diabetes Victoria staff every year – there’s never a dry eye in the room when the Kellions share their remarkable stories.
The event celebrates the courage and resilience it takes to manage diabetes for many decades, while the event also recognises the vital support from the recipients’ loved ones.
Read more about the main event here.
Karen’s story
Diagnosed after a routine visit to the GP, Karen Ackland initially struggled with many aspects of type 1 diabetes. There was conflict between her parents as to which side of the family the condition had come from, and she felt it was her fault that she had caused them such distress. They struggled to provide Karen with support and essentially left her to manage her diabetes on her own.
“I struggled terribly and felt I was being punished for having diabetes,” Karen recalls. “It was awful news as it became a family shame. My parents suggested that it was better not to tell people as the doctors would find a cure and nobody need ever know.”
Karen battled through many years without adequate support, handling all her own injections and urine tests, and attending outpatient appointments at the Austin Hospital on her own, often waiting for hours to be seen. She felt angry, resentful and isolated, left to just “get on with it”. But a $5 bookstore purchase proved to be a catalyst for change.
“The turning point in my life was reading a book written by an American Diabetes Educator Martha Furnell entitled The little book of diabetes you need to read,” Karen says. “The book was a major life changer and totally turned me around, it released me from years of pain, anger and resentment.”
Karen is grateful for the support of her partner of 31 years and her two daughters. She developed diabetic retinopathy in 1984 and became legally blind. With assistance from the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind, she attained a Bachelor of Social Work and has worked in the public mental health sector for over 30 years. She says receiving a Kellion Victory Medal is an acknowledgement of the adversities she has overcome.
“I am grateful to my diabetes as it has enabled me to meet some wonderfully kind and knowledgeable people,” she says. “Above all I have let go of so much anger and resentment. I wish I could tell that 12-year-old girl that she wasn't being punished and it was just a diagnosis.”
Teresa’s story
Teresa Pitt was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in December 1974 and remembers watching scenes from Cyclone Tracy in Darwin from her bed in St Vincent’s Hospital on that day. She had been very unwell for some time to the point that she had feared for her life.
“To be honest, my diagnosis of type 1 diabetes came as a relief,” she says. “I was terrified I might have cancer and that my three children might be left motherless. Once I realised I wasn’t going to die and that diabetes was a condition that could be managed, I thought, ‘Oh, is that all? Well, thank goodness for that.’”
Nobody in Teresa’s family had diabetes at the time, and it wasn’t until a decade later that she even met anyone else with the condition. Urine testing, an inflexible insulin regime, and strict carbohydrate intakes were all part of her diabetes management at the beginning. These days she uses the Freestyle Libre 2, which has enabled her to be free of finger prick tests and keep better control of her glucose levels.
“The first great improvement in management came when I did the OzDAFNE course around 18 years ago,” Teresa says. “Learning how to adjust my own insulin doses and how to carb count made an enormous difference to my life. It was an absolute revelation!”
Teresa has three children and is a grandmother to nine. She worked for many years in the publishing industry as a book editor and publisher and has been retired for 17 years. Since then, she has been a volunteer tutor for U3A Yarra City teaching classes in Film Studies and Australian Literature, while she also convenes the Melbourne Type 1 Group, a monthly social group for adults with type 1 diabetes.
“The Kellion Victory Medal is a lovely recognition of the fact that I've managed to survive and thrive with type 1 diabetes for 50 years,” Teresa says. “I'm very grateful for the support and help I've received over the years from Diabetes Victoria, and also from the wonderful members of the Melbourne Type 1 Group.”