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This is one of the contributions to:DIABETES ESSAY AND POEM COMPETITION 2009
It was October 2008, in the school holidays I was diagnosed with diabetes. I had been feeling really thirsty for about a month and in the school holidays I asked my mum to take me to the doctors to see what was wrong with me. She took me one Wednesday morning and the doctor asked me if I wanted a blood test there and then or if I wanted to come back another day. I said I wanted it there and then just to get it over and done with. That night I went to the cinema to see High School Musical 3 with my mum, dad and big sister. When we got back home, there was a letter from the doctor through the door saying that we had to phone a number that was written down ASAP. My mum phoned the number when we got in and the woman on the other end of the phone said that we had to go to the sick kids hospital at 11.30pm. At 11.30pm we all went to the hospital, they took lots of tests and then they told us that I have got diabetes. I got taken down to a ward at 2.00am, after a doctor had spoken to me and told me all about diabetes. I asked my mum to stay with me since I hadn’t been in hospital before and I was scared of what was going to happen. Before I went to bed that night I got told that I was going to have to do 3 injections a day and 4 or more finger pricks a day. I was really worried and scared because I have always hated going to the doctors to get tetanus jags and now I was having to do three jags a day.
The doctors did my injections and finger pricks on the first day that I was in hospital but my mum got taught how to do the injections on the second day and I managed to do the finger pricks. I was really scared for my mum to do my injection at first because she had never done anything like that before. I kept asking the doctors ‘what if something goes wrong when I get out of hospital?’ But they said that nothing could go wrong.I also asked them if I could still keep up my hobby dancing and they said yes, diabetes doesn’t stop you from doing anything that you want to do. I still do dancing, swimming and go to the gym.
The doctors told me that I had the option to go home, this was on the Friday night. I told them that I wanted to go home because I hated hospitals. I went home that night with a huge bag of things that I would need to keep my diabetes under control with. It took me half an hour or more until I let my mum to do my injection when I got home that night, and for the first month or so it took more or less half that time as well. I just thought they were far too sore to do, but now I know that the quicker I get the injection done the easier it is.
When I went back to school after the holidays I told some of my friends that I had been diagnosed with diabetes and they didn’t believe me. I had to tell them the whole story until they actually believed me. At lunchtime I have to leave 5 minutes earlier than the rest of my class so that I can go to the medical room and test my blood. Some people ask me when I am leaving ‘why do you always leave early?’ and I just ignore them. There are already 4 people in the medical room when I go in, but they are doing injections as well and I don’t want to do one at lunchtime yet.
Just after Christmas I learnt how to do my own injections and I like doing them myself now better than my mum and dad doing them. My mum and dad still have to do some of my injections because I can’t reach round to inject in my hip but I do my thighs.
I have stayed over at my friends houses a few times since I have been diagnosed with diabetes and there mums are always asking me ‘do you need anything to eat or drink?’ and they didn’t used to say that to me, it gets pretty annoying.
I have to go to the hospital 4 times a year for a check up with my diabetic nurse Harmony. She is very nice and she tells me lots of good information about diabetes. I have other nurses as well and they are nice too. I have to go and get my eyes tested once a year as well because that’s one of the things that diabetes can affect badly.
I don’t know anyone else who has diabetes, so I didn’t have a clue what it was when the doctors told me that I had it. I just thought it was a diet where you had to watch what you ate but it wasn’t and I have now learnt what it actually is. Every time I go to the hospital for a check up I learn something new.
Why me? Why do I have diabetes and not someone else? I hate having it because I can’t eat as much as I want and I can’t drink some things that I have liked to drink in the past. I always have to think ahead, like if I get invited to a party I have to think when I am going to do my injection and when I am going to eat. I have to always carry a snack with me and my blood testing kit and my bag gets very heavy. I wish that I didn’t have diabetes, but if I want to live, I have to inject and test my blood when necessary.