The hidden costs of diabetes

More proficient commentators have discussed the hidden costs of diabetes on many occasions. For example, the denial of a pump now may lead to poorer glucose control and the much higher costs of complications later. Poor provision of eye checks may lead to expensive problems decades later. These issues have been well covered, but I’m talking about the real hidden costs.

Before I was diagnosed with diabetes a few years ago I was like any other bloke. I didn’t carry a bag around with me; I just shoved my wallet, keys, mobile phone and all the other junk into my jeans pockets. This gave me the uneven profile of a lumpy rickets-victim but at least I didn’t have to carry some effeminate bag.

Post-diagnosis I was issued with a tonne of kit to lug about – pens, meters, lancets, Fruit Pastilles, Lucozade, needles and so on and so on and so on – and I came to the sad conclusion that I would finally have to embrace the world of the Man Bag.

To begin with, I started off with a simple over the shoulder one-strap Oakley rucksack and that did me for some time. But after it finally fell to bits – and perhaps slightly influenced by my wife who makes handmade handbags – I upgraded. First to a fancier Victorinox rucksack. But then the rot really set in when I indulged in a Visconti messenger bag. The fantastic smell of new leather first attracted me to this work of art and I thought I would treat myself the once – just so I had a nice bag at our wedding, you understand.

But by then it was too late, I was sucked into the heady world of man bags. When you really start looking, there’s a whole range of cool, funky bags for men. All of which are suitably manly and don’t effect your usual rugged, chiselled bloke look.

My fetish most recently reached a peak when I found myself buying a limited edition Jack Spade bag in the Manhattan branch of Bloomingdales and I knew that I had discovered another cost of diabetes – the fancy man bag.