By Peggy O'Farrell
The Cincinnati Enquirer

When singer and actress Della Reese found out she had Type 2 diabetes, what she knew about it "was all negative."

She says the people she had known with diabetes eventually died from it. That didn't inspire hope.

IF YOU GO

The conference features Della Reese, and experts. Registration opens at 7:30 a.m. Saturday at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center in Covington. Cost is $35 per person. Child care is available. Information: Web site or (800) 998-2693.

But she talked to her doctors, did some reading and asked a lot of questions. And after learning how to eat right, exercise (though she won't call it that) and manage her blood sugar, she says, "I am stronger than diabetes."

Reese will be the motivational speaker at Saturday's "Taking Control of Your Diabetes" conference. The daylong educational conference opens at 7:30 a.m. at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center in Covington.

Speakers will emphasize practical strategies families can use to manage and live with diabetes. Sessions are geared toward adults and children, and include carb-counting, staying motivated, exercise, insulin pump techniques and overcoming diabetes burnout.

Tammy Dimuzio, a diabetes education specialist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, and Dr. Barbara Ramlo-Halsted, an endocrinologist with the University of Cincinnati, co-organized the conference.

An estimated 18 million Americans have diabetes. Roughly one-third of them don't know they have it.

Diabetes can be brought under control, but it takes work: Counting carbs, testing blood sugar, taking medication, exercising. It's not easy, but it's doable.

"It takes a family's support to live well with diabetes," Dimuzio says.

Diabetes doesn't have many symptoms: People who have it might feel tired a lot, or thirsty, or notice they have to urinate more frequently. Some might have dizzy spells or pass out when their blood sugar gets too low or too high.

But uncontrolled, the disease has nasty side effects: It contributes to heart disease. It can cause kidney failure and blindness. It's a leading cause of amputation of the feet and legs in adults.

Reese was eventually diagnosed after a dizzy spell on the set of Touched by an Angel. It wasn't welcome news. The peers and friends she'd known with diabetes - singers Ella Fitzgerald, Mabel King, Mahalia Jackson - had lost limbs, their sight and, eventually, their lives to the disease.

"You lose your legs, you go blind and then you die. I wasn't ready for any of that," Reese says.

She was ready to fight back: She changed her diet, increased her activity, learned to test her blood sugar and manage her medication.

"I found that if I changed my mind, I did indeed change my life," Reese says.

Ice cream, for example: Reese rarely had it when she was a child. Growing up in Detroit, her family could only afford to treat the kids to a cone once in a while. So she decided that once she was all grown up, she'd have ice cream whenever she wanted.

Somewhere along the line, that turned into a big bowl of butter pecan ice cream every night.

That habit changed. She learned you can do more with a chicken than fry it.

She learned to eat small, regular meals throughout the day - not to wait to eat one huge meal after her nightly performance.

And she learned that going dancing with her husband counts as exercise. So does going for a walk, using her husband's Bowflex and splashing around the pool.

"I don't like the word exercise, so I've changed that word to activity. I'm never going to run 10 miles; ... . But I'm an active person," she says.

And, with new eating and activity habits, Reese is healthy: Her blood sugar, which once peaked at 500 after meals (normal is about 100) now holds steady at about 93.

"Diabetes is not a death sentence. It's not terminal cancer. You can do something about it," she says.

E-mail pofarrell@enquirer.com