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Around 5% of New Zealanders – roughly 261,500 – have type 2 diabetes and now I’m one of them.
The diagnosis came as a shock and say what you will, it still carries a certain stigma. I haven’t taken good enough care of myself over the past year, working madly to stay alive and relevant in an industry where the bodies are piling up.
I’m also from an era where we played hard, drank hard, rarely saw a doctor, took the knocks and hoped they would sort themselves out. We wore our supposed invincibility like a badge of honour and for decades, I’ve foolishly regarded myself as bullet-proof, despite all the messaging that I’m clearly not.
So, here I am facing an awfully high cost. Doctors have told me to change my lifestyle, diet and approach to life. If there is any, the good news is that my diabetes level is low and I’m told it is reversible – with the right changes.
As you can imagine, I’m pretty focused on that right now – especially after the fortnight leading up to being told I was diabetic. At one point, I was in Auckland City Hospital hooked up to every machine possible and on intravenous antibiotics.
I’m not sure exactly when or how it started, but it was probably with a small cut that didn’t heal and turned into the bacterial skin infection cellulitis. I had this last year and ended up on antibiotics and an IV drip, with seriously elevated blood pressure.
Back then, I described it as a “near-death experience”. Now, I think I’ve come closer. It was a Monday earlier this month and I’d just finished a three-hour talkback shift, put out my podcast and returned home at 4pm. But something wasn’t right. Usually I’d be pumped. This time I could barely see in front of me.
I sat shivering in the car in the basement carpark for an hour, before mustering the strength to go inside. I walked straight to my bed and collapsed into it, waking 14 hours later to return to the talkback studio.
I was having hot and cold flushes, but no one knew. The studio I was in was empty. I saw no one. I pushed on, finished the three-hour show, put out my podcast for the day and returned home. Looking back at the webcam footage I was grey and huddled over.
I’m a contractor now so I can be in and out of these organisations pretty efficiently. If anyone thought I looked like I was dying, I didn’t hang around long enough to hear it. I avoided my normal small talk and wind-ups of certain staff on my way to the podcast studio. I knew I needed help but I just had to get this day done.
I got home, again. I collapsed on my bed again and planned a doctor’s visit. Mum knew something wasn’t right because as I left for the doctor an hour later, she was just arriving home. I drove out without stopping to say hi.
White Cross St Lukes was heaving, and it took two hours to see a doctor. By the time the triage nurse saw me she elevated the situation. My blood pressure had collapsed, the infection (cellulitis) was marching angrily up past my knee and my heart rate was off the scale.
By elevating it, I mean I had to wait only another five minutes to see a doctor who kept calling me “a hardworking man” but she was adamant I was going to hospital. The urgent care clinic couldn’t save me, this was way more serious.
“If you were my brother, I’d take you in myself,” she told me. Instead, she called the hospital, wrote me a referral letter and ordered me to get there as soon as I could. I limped out, paid my $130 and drove home to my family and told them I was heading to the hospital because I wasn’t feeling so well.
I didn’t want to alarm them, but it did. So Mum and son Buster dropped me at the emergency department, which was new and shiny and packed to the rafters. I gave the staff my referral letter, took a seat, and 20 minutes later was taken by a young orderly into a six-bed ward. Connected to all manner of machines, I started on intravenous antibiotics.
After an hour of listening to an older guy in the bed opposite telling dad jokes to his adult daughters, I was taken away under the glare of lights and put into a room far away from anyone else as nurses and doctors diligently monitored me for days.
Every few hours, they updated me on the infection which they repeatedly told me was serious. They put me through an MRI to see if it had reached the bone. Thankfully, something was on my side, and it hadn’t. During the next few days, I ate nothing, drank fluids, slept and numerous doctors and nurses came and went. It was pretty lonely and miserable, but I knew I was in the best place. Lots goes through your mind when you’re stuck in a dark room for five days.
Cuts and grazes take longer to heal in people with diabetes; skin infections, like the one I was battling, are angrier and more aggressive. It’s one of the things to keep an eye on. Small cuts can blow up and have done during the past year.
I cannot fault the care I received during my hospital stay. I saw four or five doctors and at least 10 different nurses. They were clear, direct and professional. I never felt abandoned in a broken system. On the contrary, they had my back. Sure, it’s not perfect but what health system is?
When you need it in this country, it’s there, at least for me it was. But when GPs are hard to access, hospital becomes the place people turn up to. Naturally, this means the wait will be long and some people may struggle to be seen in a timely manner.
Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora added 2100 nurses and more than 600 doctors to its ranks between September 2023 and March 2025, according to new figures published by the agency earlier this month. The pace of hiring has now slowed, but there are still enough staff to provide a four-day nurse-at-home service, which I’ve benefited from since being discharged. It keeps people out of hospitals, and that’s got to be a good thing.
I’ve had a lot to think about during the past few days.
My grandfather died of a heart attack at 52, after he lay down after a long day as an auctioneer for Turners and Growers and never woke up. He was a much-loved and fun man, adored by my mum. I was 2 years old when he died.
Mum has never forgotten the day she lost her dad and now it feels as if it’s come full circle. She has been superhuman in getting me back on track and showing me love and support. I feel like a teenager who has been grounded; she won’t let me move unless it’s good for me and is watching me like a hawk, which is slightly limiting but comes from a place of love.
I dedicate this column to her. She’s the toughest warrior I know. She’s had my back, she’s been unconditional, and her support has been off the scale.
My mum doesn’t want my youngest boy to be without his father, and it goes without saying I’m not ready to be pushing up daisies just yet, either. I tear up thinking about my boy being fatherless at a vulnerable age.
As one listener said to me this week, “Duncan, your son is what, 14?” I said yes. She said, “It’s too early to never see him again right?”
I said nothing, I stared into a quiet space.
I owe it to him and my mum to get this right from here on in. I’ve had the shock of my life.
