FALL 2019 / DI ABETIC LI VING 39
A
fter Hurricane Katrina, everything changed for April
Lawrence. It was 2005, and she and her family had
just moved to Atlanta from New Orleans.
“I was existing in total survival mode,” says Law-
rence, who escaped the storm with her mother, grandmother,
and 11 other family members, all piled into two cars. “I was an
emotional wreck and was emotionally eating. It seemed like
meals were the main ways our family connected. We were sur-
rounded by food—all the time.”
Soon after the move, Lawrence developed a yeast infection.
She also felt tired and lethargic all the time, so she made an ap-
pointment with her grandmother’s doctor.
“I had bloodwork and, before I could leave, my doctor told me
to meet him across the street at the hospital,” says Lawrence, 40,
who works in health
care and still lives in
Atlanta. It turned out
that her potassium lev-
els were low and her blood sugar measured a high of 405 mg/dL.
“I had never been hospitalized before,” says Lawrence. “I
found out I [had diabetes] when a nutritionist came into my
room, told me the news, and explained that I would need to fill
an insulin prescription.”
After a five-day hospital stay, Lawrence left without any real
sense of how to manage her diabetes. “It was ‘here’s the pam-
phlet, get the medicine, learn how to do the insulin injections,
there you go,’” she says.
She spent the next few months winging it. “I was confused,”
she says. “I was literally feeling my way around. For example, peo-
ple would say ‘don’t eat two slices of cake, have a little.’ Even with
the insulin, it was hit or miss—I wasn’t taking it all the time.”
A year later, after her yearly physical, she was again admitted
to the hospital due to high blood sugar levels. Over the next
four years, Lawrence continued to struggle with managing her
diabetes and her weight. She tried every fad diet that she could
think of, but her blood sugar levels kept zigzagging.
What helped her break this cycle was a challenge. In January
2010, when she started dating her then-boyfriend, they chal-
lenged each other to lose 10 pounds in a month. “I’m very com-
petitive, so I made it a goal to beat him,” she says with a laugh.
She tried a lower-carb diet that cut out processed foods, favoring
“safe foods”—fruits, vegetables, and other unprocessed foods that
she cooked herself. That included scrambled eggs and Canadian
bacon for breakfast; tuna fish for lunch; and chicken, broccoli, and
cheese for dinner. “I tweaked everything so that it would all taste
good and not affect my sugar levels as much,” she says.
By May of that year, she had lost 25 pounds. But when she
became pregnant, her health worries returned. During her second
trimester, she had parathyroid surgery because her calcium levels
were high. She was put on bed rest before delivering at 37 weeks.
Managing her health was challenging as a single mom, espe-
cially when she enrolled in night school for health care manage-
ment while working full-time. She found that she didn’t have the
time to work out or eat right and was losing and gaining weight
within a 5-pound window.
In 2017, she started experiencing sleep apnea. Then, after an
incident at work when she felt like her heart was skipping a beat,
she was sent back to the hospital for an overnight evaluation to
make sure she wasn’t
having a heart attack.
She knew something
had to change.
“I decided to have bariatric surgery and began calling sur-
geons myself,” she says. While her primary care doctor wasn’t
initially supportive, she was determined to have the procedure.
In December 2017, she had the surgery. By April 2018, she
no longer needed her diabetes medication, and by September
2018 she had lost 85 pounds.
She credits the surgery for teaching her discipline. “When
you’re winging diabetes on your own, you can adjust your rules
for how you feel that day,” she says. “The surgery gave me more
structure and forced me to follow the rules—there’s no choice.”
Still, Lawrence is quick to point out that bariatric surgery
isn’t without its challenges. “The surgery wasn’t a magic pill,”
she says. “I tell people that this is an everyday struggle. I have to
work at eating right and exercising every day.”
These days, Lawrence is vigilant about what she eats and
how often she exercises. She’s become a big big believer in meal
prep and spends part of every Sunday sketching out her food
for the week. And she now considers exercise to be fun, espe-
cially if it involves her daughter, now 8. “I love being active with
her, whether it’s taking walks with her on the trails behind the
house or walking with her while she rides her bike. She’s my
little motivator.”
Lawrence has also become an advocate for staying healthy.
“I tell people to make this their journey,” she says. “You can’t go
by what someone else does but, instead, you need to make your
own path.” And take it one day at a time.
DEVELOP A DAILY MENU
“Breakfast is an egg-white
omelet and a protein, lunch
is a turkey or chicken lettuce
wrap, and dinner is salmon or
a chicken breast with Caesar
salad or cauliflower ricotta. I
eat fruit around lunch—I stick
with berries or apples. For a
snack, I have dried cranber-
ries and almonds and some
cheese. Most days, I don’t
really deviate!”
FIND A BALANCE “Do I eat
cake? Sometimes. But I be-
lieve in everything in moder-
ation. You still want to live life
but you should know you can’t
have that pizza slice and then
have cake too. You have to
find a balance. Also, you can’t
beat yourself up if you don’t
have a perfect day. Move on
and try to do better at the next
meal. Once you do that you’ll
feel so much better.”
DO YOUR HOMEWORK
“I’m lucky to have a doctor
who’s part of my support
team. I always tell people:
get together with your doctor,
come up with a game plan,
and really figure out what
works for you. Ask if a new
medication you’ve heard
about is right for you. And re-
search—use Google. It’s free,
so research until you can’t
research anymore.”
FIND FUN WAYS TO
EXERCISE “I do a lot of
cardio and I work out three
to four days a week. I love
spinning class and working
out outside—something I
never thought I’d want to do.
My best friend and I go out
every other Saturday and do
a 3-mile blend of walking and
jogging. We try to jog as much
as possible, and we get to
spend time together too!”
What Worked for April
“You need to make your own path.Ó
