…wasn’t doing for a long time, especially [because] of my schedule and because it hurts like a motherf*cker when you constantly poking your finger.”
“I used to just go by my body to determine when I needed to take my insulin, but I really need to start regularly monitoring. You can live a long time with diabetes but it’s all about the diet and taking care of yourself. Take your medicine and eat right but exercise is #1.”
“It just caught me out there, but God will hit you with whatever and I had to respect that,” admits Ghostface. “It took me a while to understand why me but now I don’t even get mad no more [because] I would have been out there on some big sh*t… Instead God slowed me down like, ‘Here, hold that.’”
The experience has inspired him lyrically. In his “Trials of Life” (on 2010’s Wallabee Champ), Ghost says, “In ’96, When my chain was thick/my body went through a change quick/not the same kid/lost 30 pounds rapidly/my neck got skinny. …Then I found that I was diabetic/but my conscience was telling me ‘Ghost, baby boy, not to sweat it,’/so I built my confidence back up/work out, eat right/stay strong so I can continue to eat these mics.”
It inspired him to reach out to others, too. In 2011, he started Making Diabetes Ghost, a nonprofit organization with goals of providing education, support and treatment to people affected by diabetes, “to ‘Ghost’ the disease and silence its echoes.”