I'm Angus and I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes on the 9th of June 1998, when I was almost age 3. My 10 year anniversary for having diabetes is coming up and I am still hoping for a miracle cure before I'm a teen.

My friends are all really interested in with my diabetes and I always get questions when I do a blood test in class. For me, the easiest way to explain diabetes is: I can't have sugar unless I do a test and then I have to make sure I have enough energy for the rest of the day. People sometimes ask if it's an allergy to sweets. I suppose you could say it is when eating a dessert or ice-cream, but otherwise I'm just a normal everyday child.

As bad as 4 injections a day is, and not being able to eat sweets when I want to, diabetes does give me a few advantages, I am allowed to leave the lesson before lunch early to do my blood test and/or insulin, (depending on my number), before lunch starts. I also get to skip the queue for lunch and take a friend. (Who to pick.)

In my family there are 2 other diabetics, my Uncle and Granddad. Sometimes this gives me worries as my Granddad, not having the technology we have today, became half blind in his forties. He was the first ever person to have Laser Eye Treatment in the U.K. but sadly did not fully cure his bad sight, and all because of diabetes.

I have other worries as well, one of which is driving. I may only be twelve but it is still something I occasionally think about, stopping the car every half an hour to test, do insulin, get snacks etc. What if I forget?

One of the weird, and afterwards, funny things about my diabetes is having a hypo. I think it is the one time where your imagination completely takes over your brain. I had a hypo where I'd just woken up and there were bugs all over my bed! A giant insect walked in AKA Mum and took me to my parents' room where there were yet more bugs. What a strange morning, it must have been linked to a dream or something.

There are also scary situations in diabetes. I am a keen dinghy sailor and was doing a course at Datchet Sailing Club. We were playing pirates - where you jump on to another dinghy tip it over and jump back - when I got stuck under a capsized boat.

The water was freezing and I remember trying to untangle myself from the ropes. After a while I got out, with an instructor's help, but I was very very cold. When I got in I did a test and my number was 0.9! I had to have a heat blanket put around me for about 20 minutes. At that time I was 9 and in the 3 years since I haven't had any more extreme hypos.

Coping with diabetes is the hardest part, you have to be careful and watch what you're eating, and when, every day. You can't just switch it off when you're at a birthday party; the only way is turning down whatever you could eat. This is probably the one time where I hate diabetes apart from the going to the loo and back to do an injection (unless I am wearing shorts). However there are times when I get jealous looks especially when I have a hypo in the middle of maths.

I can still vaguely remember the day I was diagnosed with diabetes, I was in hospital for only one night as my parents tell me I wasn't in a coma or seriously ill. In most cases if you were capable you would have to do your insulin before leaving the hospital, but because I was only 2 years old, I got let off and my parents did it for me. Now 12 years old and looking back, I can see I had better average blood sugars when I was younger than now when I'm a lot more responsible. Either way my average is 8.1 which I think is pretty good. I would like to get it lower but that will take a lot of time.

There was a day when I still had 2 shots of insulin, one in the morning and one before dinner, where I had a double dose in the morning as we forgot I had already done it. With so much insulin I was guaranteed to go low so I ended up having about 3 mars bars and some lucozade to keep my number up in the right area. There have been other times where I haven't done any insulin at all because the cartridge broke or the needle bent but I've been lucky and can keep a reasonably good balance between high and low numbers.

I sometimes ask my friends what I look like when I'm low, they usually say I have big pupils or look a bit drunk. I've had help from friends taking me to the school office during lunch if I've had a hypo so I thank them for their help. I'd also like to thank my parents. If it weren't for them always looking after me I'd have very little control over my diabetes and would probably have a double- figure average.

At the moment there are 3 diabetics at my school all with type 1, one of them now drives to school and I've asked him what you do if you go low as this is one of my worries for the future. Usually, he will say you just have to test a lot more often and take breaks more regularly than other people. I have learnt a lot about diabetes and how to cope with it and one of these things is food. I now know what food will be fast acting and slow acting and if I tell someone that has a high glycaemic index they'll just give me a questioning look.

Diabetes has taught me to watch what you eat and control what you do to stay away from being high or low. I now know what has high sugar and low sugar and if I pass down the condition to any other family members I'll be able to tell them how to cope as well as they can. The cure for diabetes is getting closer and I hope to get one before I'm 20, this is because then I can go out and have a clear head and it wont matter if I have a drink or any sugary food.

Overall I would prefer not to have diabetes but it has taught me a lot of things and it is better than other conditions where there is no cure whatsoever. If I had the choice I would go for diabetes over something like blindness or cancer. It doesn't stop me doing anything and there are many people that parachute or achieve amazing things to raise money for diabetics. If I won the lottery, I would give half of it to diabetes U.K.