Abdullah Sher

Life, Death and all the Diabetes In Between Abdullah Sher

Abdullah Sher is a precocious nine-year-old boy trying to get through an early July music class when his bowel gives way and his reputation almost dies. After two weeks of constant exhaustion, thirst, and an unending urge to pee, his parents drag him to the ER. Doctors diagnose him with type 1 diabetes mellitus. Over the next twelve years, Abdullah lives a life intertwined with diabetes. He draws blood daily. Counts carbohydrates. Gives himself insulin. He learns to live life with a disease once considered a death sentence. He hides his disease from his grandfather, a type 2 diabetic who lives in Pakistan, where society remains stuck in a nineteenth-century mindset. They consider diabetics a terminally-ill burden. Abdullah finds a golden nugget amid the chaos: a community of diabetics. Friends who he can poke his own blood with, inject insulin with, laugh and cry and portage and have fun with. Brutally honest, hilarious and self-deprecating, Abdullah Sher has accomplished a public service by showing what it's like for a child to live and grow up with diabetes. The stories and scientific narratives in Life, Death and all the Diabetes In Between will give readers a whole new perspective on the stigmatized disease beyond the doctor's office.