Heroes tend to spring up in unlikely places. They’re often commonplace people who, by dint of circumstance and lack of choice, are forced to overcome insurmountable odds. Their shoulders suddenly bear a ponderous weight and they are spurred to action, compelled to recast themselves as protagonists or perish.
Surviving diabetes has been something of a hero’s journey for Lew Rudolph. In the 18 years since he was diagnosed with Type I diabetes, Rudolph has been transformed from boy Skywalker to full-fledged Jedi; from a Siddhartha with out-of-whack blood sugar to an enlightened diabetic with Zen-like restraint in the face of alluring sugar-laced desserts.
He didn’t realize it until much later, but Rudolph endured many phases that prototypical heroes endure (detailed in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the inspiration for George Lucas’ Star Wars) in his struggle with diabetes. And he has recently begun to pen a final chapter of his drama, wherein, as in any mythic story, both he and the world are made better upon the hero’s victorious return.
Rudolph uses the hero’s journey, a term coined by Campbell, as a metaphor in his pilot group counseling program at Northampton’s ServiceNet, where he is a practicing psychotherapist. The program aims to help diabetics recast themselves as heroes in an epic battle against the disease, an ever-worsening epidemic.
(Rudolph and his patients are among 20.8 million diabetic Americans. One-sixth of adults aged 60 and older in this country—and an alarming number of children—are afflicted.)
When Rudolph’s call to adventure, the beginning of the saga, arrived in the form of a diagnosis, at first he balked. In this phase, heroes typically find themselves in unusual predicaments, often not of their choosing—and they opt out of bearing the onus.
“It’s a fluke. The doctor must’ve made a mistake,” Rudolph thought (even though, like many diabetics, he suspected the diagnosis would come some day).
For years he minimized the severity with rationalizations, refused insulin, and evaded accountability while his health deteriorated. He had known diabetics who died while on insulin, so he brushed aside his doctor’s warning admonitions when he refused the drug.
“If I go on insulin, I’ll die. I’ll just work out harder and watch my diet,” he thought.
It didn’t work. In 2003, Rudolph was hospitalized with blood sugar levels more than double the normal range.
That’s when depression, the second ugly head of diabetes—which Rudolph calls a two-headed monster—reared. His inner voice railed against him. “I’m a failure,” Lew thought. “I’m not handling this properly.”
Depression is a common experience for sufferers from chronic diseases, diabetes in particular. The peaks and troughs of blood sugar fluctuations are thought to affect the patient’s mood. Diabetics are warned of the possible outcome of advanced diabetes: impotence, stroke, blindness—and the consciousness of these catastrophic potential outcomes can be overwhelming.
It seems too enormous a chimera to slay. “You’re frightened, and you feel hopeless, almost like a victim,” Rudolph says. “Why me?” he would think. “Why do I have to look at foods as a threat?”
What finally gave Rudolph the power to script himself as a potent catalyst in his own drama—what Campbell termed “initiation”—was psychotherapy. With help, Rudolph began to draft a new plot with a simple realization: “I can still be healthy with diabetes.”
Rudolph was lifted out of what he calls “a fog of depression.” He began insulin treatment. He was able to learn more about his disease and how to handle it.
Western science generally looks at the disease from outside, Rudolph says, whereas his own approach examines the inner experience. “Why is this person depressed? Why are they not taking medication or making good food choices?” he asks. “What I’ve discovered is that the inner experience is what allows you to cope. We can use this approach to improve how you take care of yourself.”
Psychotherapy may have particular leverage in treating diabetes, says Rudolph, because of the locus of control. Diabetics have the power—through careful food choices, exercise, blood tests, avoiding tobacco and other healthy practices—to keep the disease in check. But it takes vigilance.
“You have to be a kind of scientist,” Rudolph says. Responsible diabetics test how literally every food affects their glucose.
Depression can lead diabetics to spurn medication and exercise, eat the wrong things, and put off testing their blood. Like the archetypal hero, “The patient has to take control,” Rudolph says, and dealing with his or her depression can be a powerful tool. Rudolph says his patients “might think being diagnosed with diabetes is The End.” Therapy offers them a chance to tell their story in a different way, he says—to rewrite the ending.
Rudolph points out that no hero’s journey is easy. The hero must exhibit discipline, bravery and pluck in the face of prickly tests, as when Rudolph, a needle-phobe, had to learn to inject himself with insulin.
Even small challenges can test the hero. One of Rudolph’s patients was ashamed to tell a neighbor he is diabetic. But the patient, who lives in a rural area, needed to advise his neighbor of his condition in case anything should happen.
Rudolph says it takes courage some days just to wear his universal medical alert, a silver bracelet with a declaration of his diagnosis and prescriptions: “It’s a constant reminder.”
Useful as it may be, Rudolph says, “I don’t push the hero stuff on my patients.” He focuses on the story that his patients want to tell, he says, and looks at their heroes. One patient of his is inspired by Ron Santo, a former Chicago Cubs third baseman (and current Cubs broadcaster). Santo, a nine-time all-star and winner of five consecutive Golden Glove awards, played his entire career with Type I diabetes—a fact he hid for years, fearing it would end his career. Santo has since become an outspoken leader in diabetes awareness and fundraising.
There’s a lot to be learned from our heroes, Rudolph says. (His have long been the Apollo Astronauts.) “How can people like Santo put diabetes in the background of their lives?” he asks. Our heroes motivate us to better ourselves. “Just living courageously with diabetes can give someone else hope,” Rudolph says.•
Reluctant Heroes
