Wednesday 21st December 2000. The doctor rushed to my house because I had collapsed. I only remember having really bad pains in my tummy which wouldn't go away and were so bad that I passed out. I knew I was very sick but couldn't understand it. After doing a urine test and examining my stomach and looking at my skinny body he told my mum and me I had Type 1 Diabetes. He called an ambulance to rush me to the Sick Kids in Edinburgh.

I didn't understand what it meant to have Diabetes. I was angry and frightened. Yesterday I was a normal girl looking forward to Christmas, now I was trapped in a very scary situation. On reflection I had been ill for a long time; since the summer I had had a horrible cough and started to lose weight. I didn't notice until one day my sister Chloe ran her finger up my rib cage and told me it felt like sleeping policemen in the road. Mum thought I was like a matchstick girl but no one else noticed.

At the Sick Kids hospital in Edinburgh. I was taken straight away into a room and tests were done. I was scared. I was put in a room by myself in the high dependency unit. This is the ward in the hospital where patients who are very sick have a high level of care with and are looked after by a nurse for twenty-four hours a day. I was lucky because I was in a single room but I was really grumpy and nasty to everyone because I was so unwell. I was on a drip which was connected to my hand. This was to help stabilize my blood sugar levels and I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything - I could only suck ice cubes!

In the next room there were lots of babies connected to tubes and machines - it was very scary to look at. There were children with meningitis and although I didn't know at the time my mum told me afterwards that one boy died overnight.

The next morning I was feeling a lot better but still feeling a bit weak and sick. Mum and dad came to see me and had cards for me from our friends and relatives. Doctors came in and explained to me what diabetes was. They told me I was going to have to take tests every day for the rest of my life to make sure my blood sugar was stable and that I would also have to take injections every day. The dietician who was an Irish lady called Mary, told me that I couldn't eat a lot of sweets. When I was told this I was shocked, I loved sweets. I was so angry, I worried I'd be different to my friends and I would be left out all the time. I thought I wouldn't be able to take part in certain things such as sports. I felt like I was trapped in a maze and couldn't get out.

I was moved into a ward with other kids with diabetes and other conditions. One boy had Tourettes syndrome so there was a lot of noise in that ward even during the night. My mum managed to get a bed in a side room for two nights but she was shattered and didn't get much rest. Every day my dad came in and then my gran and grandpa to allow my mum to go home for a shower and a rest. I was feeling a lot better but was still frightened and upset. After a couple of days I felt much better and started going to the playroom with the friends I met on the ward. One of the girls who had diabetes had a mum and dad who were deaf so they need a lot of help. There's a fantastic rocking horse at the Sick Kids which I loved - my mum's got one like it in her school now.

My mum and dad did lots of research to help myself. They got books for me to read and went onto web pages to get information for me to look at. More nurses and doctors came to see me which made me more confident about diabetes by explaining how I could manage it. "Lots of people are affected by Diabetes", said one of the nurses and when she said this I thought well it can't be that bad after all. I kept wondering about eating sweets, but my mum and dad said I could eat them but I would just have to ration them. This was when my life changed. I realised I was trapped but if I was sensible I could cope and control the diabetes and not let it control me.

When I got out of hospital it was the day before Christmas Eve. I remember our friends being kind but so upset when they saw me. I couldn't understand it because I was still Sophie but now I was Sophie with diabetes. Christmas that year was just a blur.

I went back to school after Christmas - the teacher and support staff were fantastic and really helped us manage. I went to school camp in P7 and did everything everyone else did to. I didn't really like the log pole climb but I still had a go!

However, secondary school is different because you have so many teachers and they don't always know you very well or what signs to look for if I'm hypo. This can be difficult if I have a supply teacher. The support staff are very good and gives me a lot of help. I have a really nice Guidance Teacher who listens to what I say and advises me on lots of things. Of course the hospital staff are still around and we see them at clinics and sometimes home visits. So along with my family there's a lot of help and support around.

Now I have to cope with watching what I eat and although I still really like sweets but I need to be more sensible about my sugar intake. I take three injections a day and do lots of finger pricks to check my blood sugar.

It's a real pain having diabetes but although at the start of this essay I said there was no escape, I now feel I am more in control and it doesn't control me. Although I'll have diabetes for the rest of my life it won't stop me from doing anything - this year in June I'm running the Cancer Research Race for Life!