On a recent Friday, 41-year-old Kevin Wren was exhausted, drinking apple juice to raise his blood sugar.
“I’m not sweating anymore, so that’s great,” he said in his dining room overlooking a steep street in Seattle’s upper Fremont neighborhood. “I’m feeling better.”
Wren, who lives with his parents and his dog Mocha, has Type 1 diabetes. He’s too sick to work much — he manages about five to 10 hours, and makes about $300 a month. There have been times when he went to the hospital several times a week, a time that he was in a coma for two weeks, a time that he was in the ICU for three months. High blood sugar has destroyed his eyesight, so he can’t drive. One of his toes has been amputated…