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This is one of the contributions to:DIABETES ESSAY AND POEM COMPETITION 2010
I was thirteen years old when I met Amy at a sponsored walk for Diabetes UK, we clicked instantly. She was a diabetic as well and we had all the same interests, drama, singing, same taste in books and movies and we were best friends within days. Almost as if were back in primary school when you met a kid for the first time and by the end of the day they were your best friend.
At first we never talked about our diabetes, even though if it hadn't been for our illness we would never have met. It didn't play a big part in our friendship, it was just another thing that we had in common. But in November that year I was admitted to hospital with a virus and I was in for nearly two weeks. I was really sick and Amy came to visit me every single day, I could see how scared she was as she sat beside my bed. It wasn't as though either of us hadn't been in this position before, but I was getting worse day by day. My blood sugars were all over the place and a week later I was still vomiting anything I ate. The doctors had told Amy from the start not to visit, the virus was most likely contagious and the last thing we wanted was for us both to end up in hospital so close to Christmas. But she still came everyday for a few hours and we'd talk and laugh and we realised that diabetes was a big part of who we are.
Eventually the doctors told Amy's parents that it wasn't a good idea for her to be with me everyday, they still weren't sure what I was suffering from and they didn't want Amy to catch it. I understood and Amy did as well, and I stayed in the hospital for another week making slow but definite progress. I was discharged from hospital on the 4th of December, I'd lost loads of weight and still felt pretty miserable but at least I was home. Amy came over as soon as she heard that I had left the hospital, she stayed for hours and we chatted and watched DVDs and flicked through magazines, all the normal stuff that we usually did. But for the first time since we'd been best friends, almost a year, we talked about our diabetes. How we felt about having the condition, what things scared us about it and what things were great about it. The main thing we both agreed on was that it was a good thing we had diabetes, otherwise we'd never have met. But I was surprised to find that Amy's control over her condition was terrible. I know I'm not exactly a perfect diabetic, it's a struggle to get me to do my blood sugars at the best of times and once in a while I forget to take my lantus on time, but Amy really shocked me. She never did her sugars and she guessed what insulin she should take everyday on the size of her meal, not what was in it. She thought it was okay to drink ordinary fizzy drinks once in a while and even drank boost and lucozade behind her mum's back.
I'm not sure if she even realsied the harm she was doing to herself, so I showed her the website 'My Life' and went through every step with her. Showing her mainly the risks and side affects of what she was doing to herself. She cried through most of it, it really did shock her. It was heartbreaking to see her so upset over something that could have been prevented so easily. Nobody had ever mentioned the site to her before and she was completely blind to the problems she was causing herself and I think it scared her into taking more care of herself more than anything else. Time went on and Amy began to control her diabetes better, we talked more about it and if we were ever down about it the other would convince us that everything was going to be okay. And it always was, it wasn't as though we didn't get upset once in a while that other people just didn't seem to understand how serious our condition is. But no matter what we had each other to get through those hard times.
It was Christmas time next year when we heard about the parties people in our school were having. Everyone was invited and we all got ready together and arrived together and we all had a great time. But most people were drinking, and even though we agreed we wouldn't because we knew it couldn't be good for us Amy went ahead and had a glass of apple cider, and another, and another, and another. By the end of the night I'd lost count of what she had drank, and even though I tried to stop her she kept going. Eventually me and some other friends stormed off, we'd had enough and we weren't going to stand by and watch her make a fool of herself. But there was nothing we could do to stop her, we'd already tried. We left her with some girls in our class that we were friendly with and told her to meet us inside and half twelve, when my mum was going to pick us up.
We stayed at the party and chatted to everyone, listened to music, danced, we all had a really good time. At twelve o'clock we heard people shouting and screaming outside, we thought someone had started a fight or something and rushed out to see what was going on. Down at the bottom of the driveway there was a crowd of people standing in a circle, we walked as fast as wecould in our heels and pushed our way through the crowd. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. Amy was lying in a heap on the ground, white as snow and everyone was just standing looking at her. I screamed and fell to my knees beside her, I was choking on sobs and my tears seemed to be neverending. But my best friend was lying on the ground unconscious and I had no idea what was wrong. Her chest was rising and falling slowly so I knew she was alive, her bag was lying beside her and her BM machibne was inside. Instinct kicked in and I don't even remember doing it but I tested her sugars and the meter read 'HI'. That was when I realised how bad things really were. I screamed and screamed for someone to call an ambulance and sat crying my heart out holding Amy's hand making sure she was still there. Everything was a blur around me, I couldn't make out the faces in front of me and I couldn't hear what they were saying. All I could see was Amy's lifeless form on the ground, she was so cold and pale.
The paramedics had to wrestle me out of the way. I was in such a state that I couldn't veven tell her Amy's details but I travelled to the hospital in the ambulance with them. I don't remember much about what happened to the hospital, I was too upset to take it all in. All I could see where needles and wires and machines attached to Amy from every angle of her body. She wasn't Amy anymore, she was a girl in a coma. It shouldn't have happened to her. I stood with her parents and cried my heart out, I could barely recognise her.
Amy died that night. Due to her lack of control the previous years her body couldn't cope with what she had done. I blamed myself for a while, I shouldn't have left her and I should have tried to do more to stop her. But after a while everyone told me that I did everything I could, even her parents said they were proud of what I had done for her. All I can do now is hope that Amy is in a better place and I know she wouldnlt want me to blame myself. Not a day goes by that I don't miss her, but she's not coming back and I know that she hasn't really left me. She's with me everyday.