The sugarless plum

by Zippora Karz

It started as the perfect story. Zippora Karz was a member of the famed New York City Ballet by the age of eighteen. By twenty she was starring in The Nutcracker and traveling the world.It was the stuff dreams are made of until, at twenty-one, Karz became exhausted, dizzy and excessively thirsty. Heavy makeup covered sores under her arms that would not heal. When she finally went to the doctor, she was diagnosed with diabetes. Once placed on insulin to regulate her blood sugar, she would inject herself with unsafe doses before going on stage in attempts to obtain peak performance...with potentially fatal results.Balancing ballet and blood sugar would be a long and difficult struggle for Karz, but eventually she learned to value her body and work with it, rather than rage at its limitations. In The Sugarless Plum, Karz shares her journey from denial, shame and miseducation about her illness to how she led an active, balanced and satisfying life.