For a few more days (until April 22nd), T-fal Actifry is donating $1 to the American Diabetes Association for every person that visits stopdiabetes.org and takes the Diabetes Risk Test. I took the test and scored 'low.' The irony for those that don't know is I'm a type I diabetic. However risk factors for the two types are dramatically different. Type I isn't preventable, it just happens. Type 2 can be prevented, especially if caught early on.
Diabetes is an issue I can talk on for hours. I've never felt awkward or uncomfortable discussing diabetes and my life. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones, but I hear the stories about people feeling different because of the chronic disease, and I don't doubt their experiences. However my story is a little different. Here's my story...
When I was 5-years-old I broke my arm in three places in late August. Random-freak kid accident where I fell off a swing. In hindsight my diabetic story starts here, but that's what it is hindsight... not what anyone thought at the time. When I was 5, I was just another kid with a broken arm. My arm took a longer time than usual to heal. I went through multiple casts through the duration of kindergarten, and actually had to learn to write and use scissors with my left hand! (I'm right handed) All-in-all, a good six-plus months for my arm to heal.
Fast forward only a few months to the summer of 1994. I'm 6-years-old and while on a week vacation at my Oma's (grandma) house I got pretty sick and un-6-year-old like. While my Oma lives 3 hours away, she decided to schedule me a doctor appointment in her hometown to see if maybe I just had a summer time flu. At the appointment they discuss running some blood tests, however I ate that morning so realistically the tests might not be accurate. The doctor sends us home, tells my Oma to keep an eye on me, and if it keeps up to get me in at my home physician.
When my parents pick up my sisters and me at the end of the week it's clear I'm not better. They call my doctor, tell the office my symptoms, tired, losing weight, can't keep anything down. The doctors office schedules me for their soonest appointment which is weeks away and instruct my parents to keep me hydrated, give me Gatorade. (red flags might be going off here for some) I live on the couch for the weeks up to the appointment, continually drinking Gatorade and continually throwing up. By the time the appointment rolls around I can't even walk into the doctors office and I weight less than 40 lbs.
Dr. Burke quickly called in the life flight team (helicopter ambulance) seeing that there is something seriously wrong. While doctors and nurses begin checking every possible cause, my mom suggests to check me for "sugar" as it runs in the family. One little blood test and they are certain that is the cause. With a blood sugar level of 811, I'm loaded into a helicopter equipped with a flying bunny to be my companion, yet quickly slip off into a coma.
After 3 days I 'woke up.' I was terrified, in the ICU at Geisinger Hospital in Danville, and wanted only my Mom and Dad. I had a great doctor and diabetes educator (Dr. David Langdon, and C.D.E. Jane Evans) there every step of they way to equip my parents and I to go home and face the challenges of diabetes. I practiced giving shots to an orange, my parents, heck probably even my 2 sisters who were not even in their teens. I learned the correct way to poke my finger and have it get enough blood but hurt the least. I learned to measure out foods in my hand and know the value of carbs. All as a 6-year-old.
While my parents controlled and monitored my diabetes every step of the way, very early on they let me take control of the daily tasks on my own. Their philosophy was I was the one who had to live with diabetes, I needed to be able to test my own sugar, take my own shots. I returned to school, missing at least the first month, and found that being diabetic was kind of "cool." Every day I got to have two snacks at school. (I LOVE snacks!) I had a watch that would cock-a-doodle-do when it was time to check my sugar. Every time I had to check my sugar I would go from group to group so the kids could all take turns watching me. While surely no one envied me, I wasn't chastised by the other first graders. And luckily that would continue throughout my entire school career.
At the same time, those first few years especially, weren't all fun and games. There would be days in gym class where I would have to sit out because my sugar got low, or in a few cases in the early years the nurse would have to come get me from class because I was close to passing out. When my sugar was high, I would be sent to walk the halls with a friend and drink water (which usually wasn't something anyone minded!). But these differences didn't last all that long, and became less and less common after I left elementary behind.
Personality plays a lot into how well and adapted I was, and still am, with diabetes. In no ways have I ever considered diabetes to restrict or hold me back. I've played soccer competitively all my life, run, play sports, went to college, gone on vacations and trips without my parents growing up. I eat candy (maybe even more than a non-diabetic) and LOVE cake and ice cream! I can skip any meal I want, or pig out at all-you-can-eat buffets. I hate sugar free candy, and rarely eat it. And majority of the time I don't order a diet soda when I'm out. Technology and medical advancements have come so far, that as long as I can count the carbohydrates in any given food I can eat, or not eat, whatever I want. I wear an insulin pump that makes my life even easier... I call it my pancreas. Just on the outside!
So my story isn't a complex-sad one I like to think. And really I don't even look at it as an overly inspiring and motivating one. I look at it as a story of a challenge that was thrown at me that I've managed, with help from a lot of people, to minimize and practically eliminate (the challenge that is). Type 2 diabetes isn't quite the same. Everyone is different, and treatments differ from one type 2 to the next. However, the great difference between me and a type 2, is a type 2 can prevent from ever facing the challenge. If the signs are caught early on, the risk can be minimized. So I encourage you to take the test. Maybe I make diabetes sound not to bad, but it is still something I wouldn't wish upon anyone... and if I can help keep the diagnosis from occurring for even one person, then I helped stop diabetes. And if nothing else by taking the risk test, you help contribute $1 to research to find a cure.
Take the test here or take the test on Facebook.
Back to those red flags way up there... Gatorade has a lot of carbs and sugar in it and didn't help the already present symptoms. I actually refused to drink Gatorade into my teens.
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