When I was 15 years old, I started showing the usual symptoms of diabetes. I started to notice I was losing a bunch of weight, but thought nothing of it. After a month I ended up losing 40+ pounds. It all hit me at once after that, i was constantly drinking something and using the restroom more frequently than normal. On November 7, 2006 I woke up and started throwing up and felt really sick, so my mom scheduled me an appointment to see my doctor at 3pm that day, but I had to wait for my sister to get home from school to take me.
My sister finally dropped me off at the doctors. As i was waiting in the doctors office I really had to use the restroom, so i asked them if they wanted me to just give them an urine sample, so I did. After the doctor finally came in and did the normal check up, he didn't really know what was wrong with me. I told him about the sample I gave, just in case he didn't know about it. Sure enough he didn't, after he checked it he came back and said I had ketones in it and that I had Type 1 Diabetes. I didn't know anything about the disease except that my friend also had it. My mom worked at the hospital, so once I got there she met me in the ICU. When I first arrived my blood sugar was 1000+, they told me one more day I would either have been in a coma or possibly dead.
7 years later, I am still learning how to manage the disease, but I've also learned not to take life for granted. Each day is a struggle and a learning experience. I am now in college and i'll admit that it's not the easiest thing to manage while at school. But I take it one day at a time. Being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes was definitely the biggest life changing moment of my life, but it has made me a stronger person.
Big Rapids, MI
