Well this is a little embarrassing - I'm coming up on 10 years of blogging about my adventures with Type 1 Diabetes and all things space but haven't ever formally shared my diagnosis story. Sheesh.
Continuing with Leah's (@the.insulin.type) MAY you be a #happydiabeticchallenge today - day 2 is all about #throwback to diagnosis.
Honestly, there isn't anything particularly unique about my diagnosis story, but maybe that's precisely why I should share it. The more people who know the signs and symptoms, the better.
What we all thought was just your standard run-of-the-mill December cold morphed into some odd symptoms. I was 11 years old and my grandparents were in town just like every Christmas. Normally we would stay up late playing cards and eating chocolates, but not this year. All I wanted to do was go to bed and then, once I was there I had to get up to pee 8-10 times. I was incessantly thirsty and just plain miserable.
My mom (bless her heart), thought I may be suffering from a urinary tract infection and like the good 'ol-wive' she is offered cranberry juice as a homeopathic remedy. Unbeknownst to her, this was the opposite of what my body needed. We started going to the pediatrician - and I say "started" because it felt like 5 days of going to the pediatrician, peeing in a cup and getting a blood test before they finally diagnosed me with Type 1 Diabetes.
I didn't need cranberry juice - I needed insulin.
To say the diagnosis was 'out of the blue' would be an understatement. I had never heard of Type 1 Diabetes and my parents seemed clouded by a fog of fear. We had no idea what the disease would entail, how our lives would change or what caused it to hit that Christmas break. And even now, 20 years later, I still don't have concrete answers to those questions. I am very much a work-in-progress-diabetic.
And her? That girl up there in the astronaut costume blissfully unaware of a rogue gene mutation that will change her life in just a couple months? I wouldn't change her a bit, or warn her it's coming, or burden her with even a single thought of diabetes. There will be a lifetime for all that later.
PS - I would love for you to hop on Instagram and give @nerdyapril a "follow"!
Continuing with Leah's (@the.insulin.type) MAY you be a #happydiabeticchallenge today - day 2 is all about #throwback to diagnosis.
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| Stop rolling your eyes, of course I was an astronaut for Halloween (for like 6 Halloweens - pretty much every year this jumpsuit fit). |
Honestly, there isn't anything particularly unique about my diagnosis story, but maybe that's precisely why I should share it. The more people who know the signs and symptoms, the better.
What we all thought was just your standard run-of-the-mill December cold morphed into some odd symptoms. I was 11 years old and my grandparents were in town just like every Christmas. Normally we would stay up late playing cards and eating chocolates, but not this year. All I wanted to do was go to bed and then, once I was there I had to get up to pee 8-10 times. I was incessantly thirsty and just plain miserable.
My mom (bless her heart), thought I may be suffering from a urinary tract infection and like the good 'ol-wive' she is offered cranberry juice as a homeopathic remedy. Unbeknownst to her, this was the opposite of what my body needed. We started going to the pediatrician - and I say "started" because it felt like 5 days of going to the pediatrician, peeing in a cup and getting a blood test before they finally diagnosed me with Type 1 Diabetes.
I didn't need cranberry juice - I needed insulin.
To say the diagnosis was 'out of the blue' would be an understatement. I had never heard of Type 1 Diabetes and my parents seemed clouded by a fog of fear. We had no idea what the disease would entail, how our lives would change or what caused it to hit that Christmas break. And even now, 20 years later, I still don't have concrete answers to those questions. I am very much a work-in-progress-diabetic.
And her? That girl up there in the astronaut costume blissfully unaware of a rogue gene mutation that will change her life in just a couple months? I wouldn't change her a bit, or warn her it's coming, or burden her with even a single thought of diabetes. There will be a lifetime for all that later.
PS - I would love for you to hop on Instagram and give @nerdyapril a "follow"!
Everybody knows that the cranberry juice is no good against diabetes. We all know that takes the ink form three jelly fish, the rust of 14 nails, grass clippings,maple tree bark and cumin (lots and lots of cumin).
ReplyDeleteMy mom was T1 so we knew almost instantly what the issue was and what had to be done. We also knew we were at Disney world and my mom and dad had saved for the trip. So we decided to stay. Mom being my mom decided that a few days would not matter much and lots of pancakes, ice cream and a few times to throw up was a good way to manage diabetes for two weeks.
As she said, hey you wont die and lets face it you may never come to FL again. LOL. I laugh about the cranberry juice or the stay tow weeks in FL based on how we do things today. But as my mom used to say, hey a few weeks wont matter and you probably wont die. :)
Wow, wow, wow!!! This is an amazing story! Sometimes we look back on the past and say "thank goodness we didn't die because we didn't use seatbelts" but this, THIS, is something else! So glad you made it through that Disney vacation!!
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