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Delores (Dee) Brehm was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in December 1949 — 63 years ago. She had been experiencing the classic symptoms of Type 1 \u2013 extreme thirst, frequent urination, and weight loss despite increased food intake. She lost 30 pounds in just a few weeks.<\/p>\n
At the time, Dee was 19 and a student at Michigan State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University) in Ypsilanti. The less-than-understanding doctor who diagnosed her said bluntly, \u201cThis is the worst case of diabetes I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d Dee was admitted to the University of Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor, where she was stabilized, and her insulin and diet programs established. She was discharged two weeks later, on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n
Dee attended a few diabetes classes in the hospital; however, she learned very little about the disease, and few details concerning her care and future, simply because so little was known. Dee left the hospital with a daily program of 80 units of insulin. The tools were primitive: She had to purchase expensive glass syringes to inject her insulin; to economize, Dee boiled her syringes, sterilizing them for reuse, sharpening the needles with emery cloth. Testing her blood glucose levels was complicated: Dee had to boil her urine, then test it for sugar using a chemical reagent that caused it to change color according to the sugar concentration. She would then compare that result with a chart to estimate the actual BG concentration. Later, urine dip-strips became available that would read from negative BG to 4+; however, a \u201c4+\u201d reading could indicate anything from 180 to 800. And urine tests were only an indirect measure of BG, since they merely tested sugar that had spilled into the urine; to obtain an accurate BG assay required a blood test at a doctor\u2019s office. Yet that was not very useful for daily control, since it took two days to produce the lab result, well after the fact.<\/p>\n
At about this time circumstances also brought William Brehm into her life. Bill was an undergraduate student studying mathematics and physics at the nearby University of Michigan. As it turned out, Bill was the man that Dee was destined to marry. Bill and Dee had dated a few times before her diagnosis, and Bill visited her during her hospitalization. He asked her out soon after her release. They soon fell in love and knew then that they would spend their lives together.<\/p>\n
Dr. Jerome Conn, then the Michigan Medical School head of endocrinology, decided to provide Dee\u2019s primary care. When he learned that Dee and Bill planned to marry, he asked to see them together. His purpose was to give the couple an honest appraisal of their future with Type 1 diabetes. Dr. Conn told them that Type 1 would shorten Dee\u2019s lifespan, that she would suffer serious complications within a few years, that she probably would not have any children, and that she would have diabetes for all of her life. Well, Dee and Bill have been blessed with two healthy children and six healthy grandchildren. Moreover, even after nearly 64 years with the disease, Dee is healthy and entirely free of complications. She says, \u201cI have already exceeded my life expectancy!\u201d<\/p>\n
No one has been able to explain Dee\u2019s freedom from complications. \u201cMy doctors can\u2019t believe it,\u201d Dee said. \u201cBut something is protecting me. I didn\u2019t have a meter for testing my blood sugar until 1980. When I think back to the days before that, I must have been over 200 all of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fortunately, Dee has proven Dr. Conn wrong on three of his four points — and no one would be thrilled more than Dr. Conn at that result. What remains is to find an effective Type 1 diabetes cure, and Dee and Bill are working diligently with medical scientists toward that end.<\/p>\n
One Sunday evening in 1999, as Dee was preparing dinner, Bill entered their kitchen and asked if he could do anything to help her. Dee turned quickly and said defiantly, \u201cYou can cure this disease.\u201d Bill was quiet for a moment, and then said, \u201cOK\u201d. So that began their serious quest for a Type 1 diabetes cure and Type 1 diabetes prevention. And thus began another chapter in Dee and Bill\u2019s life together.<\/p>\n