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This is one of the contributions to:DIABETES ESSAY AND POEM COMPETITION 2009
When you are little, you believe in anything. Your imagination runs away with you and can stretch as far as the sunset. You believe in fairy’s the size of toothpicks who carry round bags of teeth! And witches in wizards who can turn that pretty prince into a frog. And without even realising, you believe that your life, that you lead and live, on a day to day basis is the same as everyone else.
So at four years old when you find that actually; none of your other friends have to do injections, hardly any one you know has to go for regular blood tests and there is no one else that has the strange lump on their stomach from insulin, your faith in everything else you ever believed in shatters.
That is where I think it began. From that moment I saw myself as different, an outcast, contaminated and un-important. And I was scared. For the first time I realised this wasn’t ever going to leave, this “thing” that I had, that I hated was part of me and there was nothing I could do about it. But when your that young, what can you do? You don’t know how to tell anyone, you don’t want to talk to anyone so instead, perhaps absentmindedly, you wear a mask. You try to fit in with the world, try and act like your one of them but in your mind there’s a clear divide, a line separating you from everyone else.
Despite this, life carried on. My parents looking after my diabetes and I got on with my life. I didn’t understand it, it was always done for me, my mum would call me down to do my blood tests and injection, my dad would give me a biscuit before I went to bed. And unintentionally I found I ignored that part of my life and carried on, I like to think as I would of done if I didn’t have diabetes.
But this soon ended, sooner than I expected. I longed for more freedom, to act like a grown up and have independence. So like in a fairytale I was granted my wish. When I was 13 my parents decided it was time for me to be responsible. Who knew a word with such innocence could cause such chaos and contained so much venom.
That year, with my new found responsibility in mind we went on a two week trip to Scotland, and for the first time in my life I was uncontrolled. But I carried on as I had before, unaware what I was doing to my health I made the biggest mistake of my life. I did my blood test a total of three times in that week, each time it was high, but I did nothing to bring it down.
I can remember clinic and seeing my nurse, I can remember the wave of guilt that filled my body as I promised it wouldn’t happen again. But how could I keep that? I had found an escape from it, I could hide within the lies and deceit and not deal with the truth.
But this led to more trouble. I couldn’t grip back on to reality, I tried again and again but I couldn’t do it. Then one day I woke up. Feeling hot and confused I can remember repeating my sisters name.
My mum was sat by my side and told me what had happened, I had a massive hypo in the night she then explained it was March. The last thing I could remember was Christmas day. For a while after that I suffered from short term memory loss but I will always remember my little sister walking up to me, holding my hand then having to walk away.
Things ran smoothly for a while until last year. I was waking up in the night having hypos but instead of sorting them out and going back to sleep I was hallucinating.. Every night. The same image would come back but each night it got worse and worse. He terrified me, he was my worst nightmare who wouldn’t leave me alone. He spoke to me, called himself “the doctor” he told me horrific things, things that he would do to me and to my family. Everywhere I went I didn’t feel safe, at school, in my room even at home, I felt threatened and petrified he would find me. Then one morning sitting in my mums bed, (my dad had to sleep in the spare room, for months they had been switching who would have to look after me in the night), the bathroom door opened and he was there. He looked directly at me and told me, “I’m going to get Amy”.
Screaming and crying my dad and my sister ran into the room, my mum and dad tried to calm me down whilst force feeding me lucozade and hypo-stop. But my sister tried to show me nothing was there. She walked up to the bathroom door and pulled it open and for that split second I thought I was going to have to see my sister die.
It was in that moment I realised Amy was always there, through the good times and the hard, I used to think I was so unlucky having diabetes, but I then realised having it showed me having Amy as my sister makes me the luckiest person in the world.
I don’t remember much after that, I know I ended up in hospital but for how long I couldn’t say. I came back home and went back to school, I took my GCSE’s and to my surprise passed them all.
Over the last three years and since I was diagnosed with diabetes it has caused trouble for many people, and the words thank you really aren’t enough. So earlier this year I decided next year when I go to university I’m going to train to become a nurse. It was then that I realised that all these years I didn’t look after myself because I didn’t think I was important, but this made it so clear that for me to save others first I have to save myself. And for the first time in many years, the mask that I used to hide from diabetes has come off, and the smile on my face.. It’s a real one.