Illness no barrier to an active life

To mark her brave resitence to the illness for more than six decades she has now received the Robert Lawrence Medal from the British Diabetic Association.

Brigid, who lives at Campian Court, in Gobnascale, and a former piece fitter in the Tillie and Henderson factory was diagnosed with Type 1, or childhood onset diabetes, when she was just 10 years old, but it has never held her back - despire periods of extreme illness which saw her fighting for health in hosptial. She even had to spend her 11th, 14th, 17th, 19th and 23rd birthdays in hospital being treated for the illness, which on occasions threatened to take her life.

Childhoo donset diabetes is a condition characterized by high blood sugar levels caused by a total lack of insulin. It occurs when the body's immune system attacks the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas and destroys them. The pancreas then produces little or no insulin and as a result blood sugar cannot enter the cells to be used for energy.

As a child Brigid lived on Old Strabane Road, and she distinctly remembered how the onset of the disease made her feel: "I was 10 when I was diagnosed. It was horrible. I lost an impossible amount of weight and the thirst I had was wrecking me. I was always cold and shivvering. I just felt like I was going to die. I just did not know what was wrong with me. I couldn't eat."

When her mother contacted the family doctor, Dr William McKinney, the diagnosis was made and her lifetime of insulin treatment began. To this day Brigid still has to receive regular, lifesaving injections of insulin, and six years ago she started dialysis at the Renal Unit at Altnagelvin Hospital.

Her fight against the illness has amazed may people, particularly given that she has outlived the doctors who believed she would not live past her 21st birthday.

"The doctors are all gone now and I am still here for some reason," she says, adding that temptations to pig out on sugar-crammed treats were not a problem for her, not least because things like fizzy drinks were not available.

"My mother just made me ordinary food and I just knew I couldn't eat sweets. I knew I would have been very very sick," she recalled.

All this was back in the days when state-of-the-art healing was not available like it is today, and Brigid was treated in the Phoenix Ward in the City and County Hospital when she was really poorly, and then in the Old Waterside Hospital.

"I started dialysis six years ago and it is helping me and it has saved my life. I attend the unit three times a week for four hours," she said, ahead of her 'Tuesday session'. She also receives dialysis on a Thursday an a Saturday.

"I consider myself very fortunate. The doctors told my mother that ususally children that have been diagnosed did not live long, but I always fought and fought. One moment I was dying and then when I got my drips and things I was running around doing things for other patients," she laughs to herself.

Thankfully Brigid's late sister, Ellen Nora, did not suffer from the illness, and Brigid's son, Joe, is also free of the illness.

Brigid has sung the praises of all her doctors, diabetes doctors and the nursing staff, who have taken care of her over the years, and also thanked her own doctor, Dr Ken O'Flagherty at the Health Centre.

"They have been just wonderful," she said.