Last year, I was on a business trip to Copenhagen, Denmark where I met a client from a large consumer products manufacturing company. As a
Medical Translation worker, I have grown use to people making small talk at the dinner table about their medical problems. My client began telling me how for the last several nights he had found himself waking up multiple times throughout the evening and feeling dehydrated and needing to urinate. According to my client, he wasnt just a little thirty. In fact, he felt ready to chug a gallon of water.
Although he had indicated that he hadnt seen a medical practitioner yet about his problem, I asked if he had ever been diagnosed for diabetes or if he has any relatives with it. While my client had a few extra pounds, he was not overweight and didnt seem like the usual candidate for diabetes. Nevertheless, I knew it was a possibility and I had provided
Medical Translator services to lots of patients with diabetes. In fact, I even had blood sugar analyzers in my suitcase for a project designed to localize the user interface for several different models. So I promised him that I would check his blood sugar when he dropped me off at my hotel.
Its very easy to measure blood sugar. The medical community defines high blood sugar at a fasting level of 125. In my mind, I figured that if my client had early diabetes that his blood sugar level might be between 170 and 180 at most. When we got the results, I was alarmed to see his level at 390.
What Was Wrong?
I explained to my client that I wasnt a doctor and he needed to see one the first thing in the morning. While Im not trained to provide diagnoses, the evidence suggests that you have type 2, or adult-onset diabetes, I said. I also indicated that it is common knowledge that increased urination and thirst are symptoms of diabetes. Further, the dehydration symptoms that he was experiencing were a clue that his blood sugar was not just a little higher than normal but way over the line. If a persons blood sugar gets too highabove 500 or soand stays there for several days, it can cause life-threatening dehydration, acid buildup, and shock. Thats unlikely to happen if you keep your levels below 300 or so, which most type 2 patients can do with minimal attention to their diet. Milder elevations often dont cause noticeable symptoms at all. As a
San Francisco Translation worker and Medical Translator, I have seen people sometimes go for years without knowing they have diabetes.
