When I first turned Diabetic I didn't really care I just thought I was sick and I was going to get better. But I was only six years old so I didn't really understand. My mum tried to explain to me all about comas but I just thought it was like Sleeping Beauty. She told me that I couldn't eat sweets as often as usual because they would make me go into a deep sleep and that I wouldn't wake up. I wasn't really paying attention, but now when I look back I think, how do you tell a six year old girl that if she eats too many sweets she could possibly go into a coma?

Scary thought, and depressing, which is what I want to write about. Many people treat diabetes like a curse, focusing on the negative side, but what about the positives? There are many. We have our own magazine, summer camp, websites, jewellery, clothing range and handbags. As well as teddy bears!! I've met a lot of people with my condition and we all agree diabetes can be cool! Although I sometimes feel like I have been cursed, there can be good times too. One very good time, was when I was in the hospital after just being diagnosed with diabetes. I was in my bed watching Robin Hood on the television when the nurses started to move things around, I didn't know what was going on. They just kept saying something about a special visitor coming. They arranged and then rearranged and arranged again. Until they had what they thought was perfect for the special visitor. Well what a shock we all got when we found out that the special visitor was Prince Charles!!

The patients were taken into a different room to meet him; it was a little side room that had just been redecorated, one I have been in many times since! We had to tell him our names and then we shook his hand, and got our picture taken with him for the newspaper.

We were all on the BBC news, talking about what it was like to meet a Prince. Apparently when I was asked if he lived up to my expectations I said no. When asked why I said he didn't have a crown, if he was a prince where was his crown? I had a good few laughing at that.

Although moving on now to some not so happy memories. This one only a few know about, I didn't even know it was possible. A diabetic seizure.

It was the day after I had received my 11+ results. I was downstairs getting my breakfast ready when my mum heard banging noises coming from the kitchen. She thought I was bouncing my basketball, so came downstairs to tell me to stop. But when she got to the kitchen, it wasn't the basketball bouncing around the kitchen, it was me. I was shaking violently and foaming at the mouth; I had torn some of my hair out on the point of the chair by shaking and then fallen off the chair onto the floor.

I don't remember anything from that day, only waking up in an ambulance. I was rushed straight into accident and emergency, where I was sick and had blood tests taken. Then I was sent to Maynard children's ward in the Ulster hospital, I was kept in a separate room, until they could find out what had triggered the seizure. All my family were extremely worried, incase I had epilepsy. My aunt had been on the phone to my granny crying, as she was abroad at the time. My granny was in pieces and my parents were worried sick, what happened?

I couldn't answer that, I didn't know. I couldn't remember anything from that day, and I still can't. My little brother used to have nightmares about it, and we can't bring it up around him, because he gets so scared. He used to come in in the middle of the night to check I was still breathing, sweet for such an annoying little person. Afterwards I had to go for tests and brain scans to find out whether or not I had epilepsy, not a pleasant experience. But the real reason was that my blood sugars had dropped really low and that was what had caused it. Anyway, growing up with diabetes wasn't hard for me. I was just so used to it. But now as I get older it gets harder, because it doesn't seem fair, why me? There are so many things I wish I could do but I can't. My friends don't care about it; it doesn't affect me as a person. But still when other people point at me or whisper to the person beside them when they see me doing my insulin, it hurts.

But I've gotten over it now, diabetes is part of who I am, and I'm glad now because even though it imposes many disadvantages upon me there are still the advantages of it. Advantages other people can't use. It gets easier to deal with, to handle. No matter what age you are. It's not a curse, but it's not exactly a blessing either. It's just in between. It's part of who I am. It's only me.