At 23 I was overweight and tired of it. I went in for a check up and went on a diet. After loosing 30 lbs I started feeling just tired all the time, so, i went in just to get checked again. There it was after LOOSING weight i had T2D. For several years after that i lived in denial and depression, not really paying attention to the fact i have this illness. I was young a mother and wife. I was a good person in college to better mine and my family's lives, why was this happening to me.
At 27 i had just gotten a job i was loving as a Respiratory therapist in a children's hospital, when i got pnuemonia. My mother came to check on me and thought i was dead and took me to the hospital. My skin was grey and you could count my ribs...all of them. While in the hospital for a week and a half i learned i was in DKA and at some point my pancreas has stopped producing insulin. I was now a T1D.
Here it is almost 5 years later and i am doing much better only one other MILD bout with DKA. I am on an insulin pump that i now feel without i would no longer be here. My sugars are still high and i still have my stints with depression, but I am learning more and more with every day and becoming more accepting that this is part of who i am. I will never understand why or how... just that it is. I will continue on and not let it own me.
satsuma, AL
