The middle of my 8th grade school year I went to the doctor’s office for a checkup or so I thought. They ran a few tests and the doctor left and came back with the test results. She told my parents and I to go home and pack my bags there was a room waiting on me at the hospital and to go straight there. When I got to the hospital the nurse showed me where my room was they ran more tests and the doctors told me I had Type 1 diabetes and they explained to me what it was and they said sadly there
is no cure for it.

I now take 3 shots a day of insulin to keep me alive and I denied I had diabetes at first and it took me a while to get use to it. I realize you can die from it so there I was going from a normal teenage girl to a sick girl with a disease that can’t be cured. I spent 4 days in the hospital with doctors explaining to me what to do and what not to do, what to eat and what not to eat, waking me up at all hours of the night which I did not like that because I needed my sleep. I also have to check my blood sugar 4 times a day.

The day the doctors told me I could go home I was so happy, but I was not going home to what I was use to. I have a new normal now and it will be normal until a cure for diabetes is found. Before I went home the child life specialist gave me a Rufus the diabetic bear. It is so cute I thought to myself the day I got out of the hospital I went to school. The next day my Dad said you just got out of the hospital are you sure you want to go to school. I told him I sure do miss my friends and I have a lot of work to catch up on.

Truth is I also did not want to fail, he said ok. My friends started acting different around me, but they got use to it. I have passed out several times from a low blood sugar. The scariest thing my Dad says I become unresponsive and when I wake up I can’t remember anything. That is very scary. I’m afraid to go to sleep at night,what if I do not wake up it always pops into my head. My Dad had to give me sugar to wake me up when I entered high school all my new friends were like why do you have to leave class early everyday before lunch to go to the nurse and eat lunch early so I told them living with diabetes is not easy nowhere close to easy but I have to live with it.

There will be a cure found one day I have hope and I will never stop fighting and never give up hope. On a good note I just graduated from airport high school June 1st. This is what I would say to people with diabetes, never give up, fight until a cure is found because one day there will be a cure and when there is we can scream yes no more shots, no more pricking ourselves. Just recently. on June 5, 2012 I received some bad news. I got a nerve test on on my feet at the foot doctor and I had issues with my feet from the disease. One foot is mild the other is severe and I’m only 19, as you can see I live a complicated life.

When I got diagnosed my blood sugar was in the 600’s. It was a week before my 13th birthday, even more bad news as my health insurance just cut me off and I can’t afford my medicine or supplies and I was really hoping to get an insulin pump but they cost way to much. I love inspiring others, I wish I could share my story more, don’t worry about me I am going to make it.

Crystal Phillips