"who has time for a cure"
The intelligent question is:
"WGAF for (diabetes) prevention?"
Adult-onset Type II diabetes is almost exclusively a lifestyle disease, aka bad diet (high-sugars, high carbs, overweight, obese) and no exercise. A self-inflicted disease.
Joe should have been told that his disease is not only manageable, but also mostly curable, if he changes his life-style, becomes lean and fit, hits the cardio and resistance training hard, re-sensitizing his body to insulin, cuts out the processed foods, refined sugars, sweeteners, high-calorie-density cheap crap on hand everywhere, aka S.A.D., Standard American Diet.
Paleolithic or Mediterranean diets are recommended (sorry about those greasy, salty Tex-Mex and fast-food disasters and soft drinks).
iow, Joe's toe loss is no accident or bad luck. He's a victim, with due sympathy, of the culture-wide ignorance about how maintain health, how not to inflict yourself with disease.
"We have met the enemy, and he is us."
$200B annually in US is the cost of obesity, obesity-complicated, -caused diseases. There is a epidemic of adult-onset Type II diabetes, removed body parts, dead kidneys/dialysis, cardio-vascular disease, and wheelchairs, especially in in the Hispanic and black communities.
By the time your toes start going dead and cold and unfeeling, or diabetic gangrene and infection arrive, it's crunch time.
Glucose meter finger-stickers are cheap, well under $100, compared to the many $1000s wasted in co-pays and increased insurance premiums (if you can even find a private insurer to give a toe-less diabetic a policy).