LIVINGLIVING
EASE IN A POD
Business woman and mum, Kendra Leighton tells of her experience
moving from an Animas insulin pump onto an Omnipod 'patch' pump,
and why she's now proud to call herself a fully-fledged 'podder'.
K
endra Leighton was
diagnosed with
diabetes about a month
before she was due to
take her A-levels, aged
17. She had all the classic symptoms -
an unquenchable thirst, needing the loo all
the time, and tired too. Initially her mother
dialled NHS Direct but she was given
poor advice, with the symptoms being
reported not being identified as those for
diabetes. Shortly afterwards, still feeling
rotten, Leighton went to an out-of-hours
GP who advised her to go to her own GP
first thing in the morning, saying that he
thought it looked like diabetes. On seeing
her own GP, Leighton was prescribed oral
meds for Type 2 diabetes and sent home.
She looks, back, "I went in again the
next day as requested and my tests still
showed I was sky high. The doctor just
told me to go home again and wait. One
of the nurses took my mother to one
side and said she thought she should
take me directly to hospital. It was a very
dangerous assumption that I might have
had Type 2 diabetes, so I owe that nurse
my thanks."
Now 35, Leighton has a two-year-old
son with her partner, with whom she also
runs a business, in the city of Lincoln.
But back in 2001 she was diagnosed
at Boston Pilgrim Hospital. She'd been
given a blood test meter and shown how
to do injections at mealtimes told to take a
separate long-acting insulin at night.
She recalls, "I started on a basal/bolus
regime from the outset and was given a
basic understanding of how to judge what
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