An article appearing in The Washington Post on Thursday details how Georgetown’s inestimable junior guard Austin Freeman was recently diagnosed with diabetes, and how that is the illness — not a stomach virus, as initially reported — that’s caused him to feel poorly in recent days.  It was this which caused him to play only reduced minutes against Notre Dame and miss the game against West Virginia this past Saturday.  He was, in fact, taken to the Georgetown University Hospital emergency room on Monday at which time the diagnosis was made clear.

The article mentions that Freeman is doing better and has now rejoined his team for practices, but Hoya head coach John Thompson III was reluctant to rule Freeman either in or out for Georgetown’s final regular season game on Saturday against Cincinnati, or even for the Big East Tournament.

Diabetes is pretty common, affecting about 3% of the world’s population.  It’s characterized by having high amounts of glucose (sugar) in one’s bloodstream.  This is a problem because if you go for a long time like this, you can do permanent damage to your eyes, kidneys, nerves, heart, and pretty much any part of your body.  Usually, the pancreas counters high amounts of sugar in the blood by automatically producing insulin, a substance that makes the sugar move out of your bloodstream and into your muscles.  This makes the level in the blood normal again.

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