- Home
- About Us
- How We Can Help
- Contact us
- Donate
My name is
Derrick Wade and here is my story.
I started my journey with diabetes at the age of 30. While I was not afflicted with type one
diabetes, I was diagnosed with type two diabetes. While growing up, I loved playing sports,
basketball, football, and baseball. I was athletic and a healthy young man growing up. I kept
my weight between 175 and 185 pounds into my early 20’s, then things changed. I started
gaining weight and as life would have it as with all of us, dealing with its many obligations and
distractions, I didn’t take care of my body and my health. I stopped working out and exercising
like I did before and ended up weighing almost 310 pounds. That weight gain threw my body
into shock, and one faithful day when I wasn’t feeling well, I ended up in the emergency room. I
had cramps and a thirst that I could not quench no matter what I drank. In the emergency room,
the nurse offered me an insulin shot and the pain went away. She and the doctors explained to
me that I was pre-diabetic. Ignoring what they had told me, I continued to live my life the way I
had before, eating unhealthy foods, drinking soda, and not taking the medication prescribed.
Unfortunately, I ended up being no longer pre-diabetic but was now a full-blown type 2 diabetic.
I now started the journey of life as a type 2 diabetic taking medication and doing dialysis three
times a week.
Having realized that I had burnt the candle at both ends pursuing the American dream of
success and riches, I had taken my body for granted in the process. I was now limited as to
what I could do. I was on dialysis three times a week four hours a day. I had a very strict diet to
follow, and it became very hard to work as I was able to do before. I realized that my life would
never be the same. I could no longer do what healthy people enjoy doing, and yes, folks, that
means enjoying Intimacy. I began to think that for the rest of my life, I would have to be on
dialysis until I could become eligible get a kidney transplant, if I was even eligible to get one. If I
was not eligible for a transplant, my life expectancy would be between 15 and 20 years. That’s a
hard pill to swallow when you are in your mid-30s to early 40s. As a wise man said: “When I was
young, I gave up my health for wealth and when I became older I gave up my wealth for health.”
Well, the journey to get a new kidney did not come easy. Having a blood type of O -positive
meant I could give to people, but not everyone could give to me. I am a very spiritual man, and
with God by my side, a new kidney became available after five years of being on dialysis.
Thanks to the doctors at Cedars-Sinai Hospital and their transplant team all working together, I
received a new kidney and pancreas transplant. That’s right, a double transplant. In qualifying
for a double transplant, I found out that my bone density had become weakened. My arterial
blood flow was slow and congested, and my eyes suffered from diabetic retinopathy as well.
Then, along with everything else, depression set in.
Before the story gets too sad, rest assured that today I am living life as a healthy, happy, and
stronger man with a new lease on life. I am wiser and more appreciative of my regained health
and want to share my journey and what I learned from it to help others and their families that
struggle with diabetes. What I learned is the importance of self-education and self-advocacy, as
well as the need to be open to potential solutions outside your comfort zone. To be accepting of
the fact that your body will never be the same again and finally, find a good nephrologist, who
truly cares and helps you navigate the complex process. If this information had been available
to me sooner the journey would have been much easier. I am passionate about helping provide
resources to make type 2 diabetes more manageable and to help families create a better way of
life. Out of that desire, The D foundation was born.
