Many people living in the 'Diabetes Belt' are plagued with medical debt

Delores Lowery was diagnosed with diabetes in 2016. Her home in Marlboro County, S.C., is at the heart of what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls the Diabetes Belt. (Nick McMillan/NPR)

Delores Lowery remembers vividly the day in 2016 when she was working in a weaving plant near her home in Bennettsville, S.C., and the world around her seemed to go dim.

She turned to her co-workers. "And I asked, I said, 'Why y'all got it so dark in here? They said, 'Delores, it's not dark in here.' I said, 'Yes it is. It's so dark in here.'"