Welcome to the world of a diabetic who's never really
figured out up from down.
I was thrown into an
unfamiliar situation at a very young age. And then he told my mother to sit down, he had something to tell us....... wait a minute i better back up and start at the actual
beginning. When September comes around what do you think about? I'll tell you i think new school cloth's and backpack's , I think the sound of school bus engines starting and children saying their goodbye's to the last day's of summer, I think girls giggling when they walk through the doors and see their friend's and new Sneakers marking up the polished floor's of the hallway's. What i
don't think about is a child consumed by an unknown disease
ravaging her body, What i
don't think about is that this child is the only one not giggling with her gal pal's at school, What i
don't think about is that the child wrapped tightly around her mother's leg in the crumby waiting room of the doctor's office for the third time in two week's. Well now that's all i think about when i hear or see the word September because that little girl holding securely on to her mother's leg was me. For almost three month's my imbecile of a doctor kept telling us that it was nothing and i was fine i was just a little stressed because i was starting the first grade, but my mother's gut instinct always told her that he was wrong something was up with me. It had started in August one day my mom was doing my hair when she realized the shirt i was wearing fit me
snugly just a week ago, she pulled up my shirt and you could see every one of my rib's , so she ran over and put me on the scale the number it showed almost gave her a heart attack right there it said i weighed 53 pounds when two weeks ago when she last weighed me it clearly said that i weighed 62 pounds. I had lost 9
Pound's in two weeks, that day was the first of many times she took me to the doctor's office. As the weeks went by my condition grew worse: The next week after i went to the doctors i started eating and
couldn't stop i would make a round from the bread box, to the fridge, to the pantry every twenty minutes but i
wasn't gaining any weight. The next thing that happened was drinking i would guzzle water all day and probably lost a good two hour's of sleep all together when i would drink at night , after the drinking came the peeing i had to go it seemed like every five minutes non-stop. Every time i had a new
symptom or one of the other's worsened mom would rush me over to the doctor's and every time he would say she's just
extremely shy and stressed about school, this went on for three month's
until he finally decided to do a blood test.
December 8, 1999, the doctor had gone to get the result's of my blood
tests when he came back in the room he told me and mom to have a seat, the next word's out of his mouth were going to change my life forever. Mom went off on him like a hawk on a mouse , she
couldn't believe that we had been back and forth for three month's now and no one had bothered to take a blood test when they new i was having all the symptom's of having diabetes. He tried to calm her down but that was just not going to fly with her , he had said that my blood glucose
levels were over seven hundred and that i needed to get to the hospital
quickly. They said they were trying to decide weather to send me by helicopter or
ambulance to the hospital mom had told them neither, that they had done enough already and she was taking me. The next few week's were a blur for me i
didn't totally understand what was going on but i
wasn't enjoying it. A few week's later dad just up and leaves his 6 year old just diagnosed with
juvenile diabetes, my
Little brother 3 years old , and my mother who had just had major
neck surgery and was in a brace. And that is how it all began!
" The only use of an obstacle is to be overcome. All that an obstacle does with brave men is , not to frighten them , but to challenge them."
- Woodrow Wilson
