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This is one of the contributions to:DIABETES ESSAY AND POEM COMPETITION 2009
My Life with Diabetes
It was on of the worst days of my life, the day I was diagnosed with Diabetes. I knew what to expect. My mum has had the condition since she was just 3 years old. So I had experience of diabetes from a young age, having seen her do injections every meal time for as far back as I can remember. But I never thought to myself that I could get diabetes.
The first sign that I might have diabetes was when I went to Edinburgh for my brothers eleventh birthday. I was constantly drinking and felt tired almost all the time. It was not until we went home that my mum realised that I was going to the toilet a lot as well. I remember it was two weeks before Christmas and my mum said to me that I’d been drinking loads and that she was going to do a blood test on me. She stabbed me in the finger and it hurt a lot. Then I put my finger on this blood strip that sucked up the blood.
It made a loud bleep and my blood glucose read HI (which is off the scale!) So my mum took me to Dr Grays Hospital and the doctor made me do a blood test there and yet again it read HI. That was when it was confirmed I was a Type 1 diabetic. I cried and so did my mum unusually. That was when my future career of being a pilot in the RAF was gracefully chucked out the window. It is discrimination how diabetics are not allowed in the Armed Forces.
While I was in hospital I was looked after very well by the nurses and doctors at Dr Grays. They did a super job in trying to get my blood sugars down. I was sent home after only two days because my mum was diabetic as well so she would know how to deal with certain stuff. If my mum had not been diabetic I would have probably been in hospital for about another week at least. My mum and dad were very kind to me because they let me take the rest of the week off school so that I could recover. So I spent the next month or so trying to get my blood sugars down which they eventually did. So everything was back to normal (almost).
Then suddenly in the summer of 2007 I came to an obstacle. I saw my friends eating sweets almost all of the time. This was because I had started hanging around with new friends and my old friends didn’t give me anything at all. My new friends were actually kind enough to give me sweets. I was stupid enough to accept them. Then my blood sugars started going up. I told my mum and dad I was eating them and they went nuts! They insisted I should stop eating them straight away. If your blood sugars are high for long periods of time you could get liver failure, kidney failure, heart failure and the list goes on. So I did stop eating sweets of any kind.
The summer of 2007 was also the year that I went on my diabetic holiday at Weymouth in the south of England. I had a great time and was looked after brilliantly by the staff there and made some new friends and met a lot of people who were going through and had been going through the same as me. It was a very interesting experience. I’ll never forget it.
Living with diabetes has been a real challenge to me. I’ve had to change my diet and also not eat as much as I would like to, even though I am constantly hungry (being a teenager you generally are).
It has also made me look on things differently. I realised how hard it must have been for my mum being diabetic at the age of 3, but it also must have been hard for my Gran and Granddad having to inject my mum twice a day, every day.
But in a way I am happy about being diabetic because I would not have been able to meet all those amazing people who have exactly the same condition as me. I also would not have understood what diabetes is. I may be diabetic, but I am just like any other person I can do whatever a non-diabetic can, and that I am proud of.
So then how is my diabetes doing now? Well my blood sugars are a little on the high side, but not too bad. I still don’t know what to do as a career though. I am Grade 8 on the guitar and doing a concert exam in May and my Grade 8 in May as well. Then in December I am doing my teachers exam.
Sports wise I play football, badminton, golf and tennis, so diabetes is not stopping me do anything in life (except eating sugary snacks).
Finally I would like to thank all the people who have helped me over the last couple of years. Firstly the doctors and nurses who helped me while I was in hospital. Secondly Dr Van Ijperen and Alison Wilson who have given me advice and who have given me the right doses of insulin to get my blood sugar levels down. And finally my mum and dad who have given me all the love and support that have made me believe that I can do anything as long as I set my mind to it. Also if my mum had not found out I was diabetic I probably would have had lots complications and at worst probably would not have been here to live to tell the tale.
But whatever happens I am still diabetic and I would not have it any other way.