When Michael Betteridge was six years old, he was diagnosed with hereditary type 1 diabetes. At the time, however, and through much of his youth, Betteridge chose not to listen to his doctors and skipped most of his appointments.
He admits that he’d thought of himself as being invincible and just “wanted to be one of the lads, doing everything they were doing, eating everything they were.” He ate “chocolates and crisps, fizzy drinks – just rubbish.”
Betteridge’s body began to catch up to him last May; his eyesight was going a bit fuzzy.
And still, Betteridge chose to ignore it. He still went “on tops of roofs for work” and just thought, “It’s just blurry eyes.”
Over the next six months, Betteridge’s vision continued to decline.
By September, he was completely blind. His untreated diabetes had caused him to suffer from diabetic retinopathy.
It was only then that Betteridge began to heed his doctor’s advice and go to his appointments. He now eats healthily and cannot emphasize enough the importance of listening to the doctor’s advice.
“Don’t eat rubbish and smoke,” he said, “smoking shrinks the blood vessels behind the eye, it is the worst thing to do.”
Betteridge’s two children, as well as his wife, Charlotte, are all shocked that this happened. They never believed that diabetes symptoms to progress to this point.
Six-year-old Michael Betteridge said that his father “uses [his] eyes” nowadays.
Betteridge tries to stay positive about his condition and fight to maintain his health in its present state without letting it decline more, “We’re on the right road now.”
But he still mourns the fact that he will no longer be able to see his children grow up. “I picture them as they are now. When they grow up, they’ll still be little kids to me.”
