Testimony: Brenda Russell

Grammy winner, composer, songwriter, singer and lyricist Brenda Russell has had a storied career in music. Her latest project includes being the composer/lyricist for the smash Broadway hit, 'The Color Purple,' the Oprah Winfrey produced adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning novel. In 2004, after years of not feeling quite "right," Russell was finally diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She shares her experiences with us highlighting the importance of having your blood sugar tested and listening to your body even when doctors tell you otherwise.

It was a huge adjustment. I was diagnosed, but before that I was walking around feeling very ill for three years. I was going to doctors. That's when I found out that what they say about doctors and women is true: that they don't take them as seriously because they're just hysterical women. And usually we know not what's wrong with us but that something is wrong with us. Women know their bodies. And I knew there was something really, really wrong with me.

My symptoms were dizziness, almost passing out sometimes. I didn't have the typical diabetic symptoms the first three years -- that's what threw a lot of doctors. They weren't testing my blood sugar, which is really one of the first things they should do. But they just said, 'Oh you've got vertigo, go away little girl.' And I'm like, 'This is not vertigo, this is something else.' My eyes were getting gray; I was extremely tired, lethargic. I was in the middle of the Color Purple [run] in Atlanta when it started to really get bad. I would get back to my hotel room and collapse. And I would sometimes just lay my head down in rehearsal and people would say, 'Are you OK?' and I'd say 'I'm fine.'

One day my co-writer Allee [Willis] went 'Are you OK?' and I just burst into tears. And she went, 'OK, we're finding a great doctor here in Atlanta.' Which we did. We found two great doctors. One of them properly diagnosed me. They said, 'Go to the hospital emergency room right now.' My blood sugar was about 750. Normal is about 100. OK? So I was pretty close to a diabetic coma. And that's what turned my life around.

Being in Atlanta was probably the best thing because I was working and I couldn't stop working because we had a show that was opening. And everybody was looking at me like, 'Honey we know you're sick but we've got to keep moving' [laughs]. So I had to pick myself up and change my diet. Because you know with diabetics you have to cut out all the white stuff -- the bread, the sugar, the rice, potatoes. You just have to change your whole diet, which I did. I was diagnosed Type 1, which is unusual for an adult. Usually kids get Type 1. I was not overweight. I think someone in the family might have had diabetes. Sometimes it's genetic.

It's funny because some days, I'm very grateful that medicine is at a place where they have something that keeps me alive, but there's an odd day where I'm just so depressed that I have to be kept alive by these injections. And I say this because I know that a lot of diabetics go through this -- feelings of depression. Because you're keeping yourself alive by medication. But then you have to be grateful that you have the medication. The alternative is not being here at all.

The community definitely needs to know that if you have diabetes in your family, you must get your blood checked. Get your children checked, especially if there are weight issues. And it's simple. Just a blood test. It's really important because a lot of people can bypass the whole trip that I went through. And I know lots of people who are susceptible because they have it in their family and they do all the right things before it blows up on them. And they never cross that line into diabetes. You can ward it off with exercise and proper diet. There are plenty of people who do it.