Dear Reader,

Diabetes. The word makes me cringe. It makes me feel so self-conscious that I avoid saying it at all costs. Nevertheless, it’s my reality.

Regardless of how long you’ve been reading my articles here on Odyssey, (if this is your first one, I apologize because my articles are usually on lighter subjects than this) the main goal of Odyssey has been to provide people a place to share their thoughts on things that are important to them. This is important to me.

Imagine this: It’s Thanksgiving, and you’re excited to spend time with family and stuff yourself chock full of carbs. The day after Thanksgiving, you wake up at 3 in the morning, constantly running to the bathroom because your food just won't stay down. You get up that morning at 8:15, feeling lousy, and your mom offers to take you to urgent care. You deny it, saying you're fine and it’ll pass, but she insists and takes you anyway. You lie in the waiting room in agony because people who are definitely better off than you are getting treated first. You go into the office and you're checked out, and the physician there calls an ambulance to take you to the hospital, where you're poked and prodded with so many needles you feel like a pincushion, slipping in and out of a semi-comatose state.

This is only the beginning of how it happened. How I went from a completely normal and happy kid to feeling like i’ve done something wrong in the span of about 2 days.

Not a lot of people really know what constitutes having Diabetes. They don't know that you have to self inject insulin because your pancreas decided to give up on you in the middle of your teenage years. They don't know that doctors are constantly watching, looking at your numbers (blood sugar tests, that is) and judging you because of it. They don't see the emotional scarring that happens because of this disease, yet people are so quick to judge. And you can't bring it up to new people because they switch from friend mode to pity mode in half a second.

It’s frustrating, too, to converse with your doctors and explain to them that you’ve done everything in your power to keep your numbers in range, but nothing’s working. Each time you return to the endocrinologist you dread it a little more, because the higher your A1C, the further away you get from having a pump, or candidacy to do so. It’s difficult to decide to do a diet when you're diabetic, especially if your numbers fluctuate like mine do. I wish I had the motivation and support I need to get healthy and stay that way. The constant stereotyping that people put on diabetics makes that even harder.

“Did you get that because you ate too much sugar?” they would ask.

And you’d reply with a downcast “No.”

The jokes, I get that they’re jokes, they're supposed to be funny. Some are, but some are just upsetting, especially to those who have Type 1 like myself, for whom the disease was not caused by lifestyle.

So, I wonder, why isn't anyone working on a cure? Is anyone working on a cure? They say they’re close, they say they're a few years away from finally having a cure, but they've been saying that for years. It frustrates me that this disease isn't getting more attention. I understand that cancer is the big research topic these days, but did anyone ever even CONSIDER the life differences of those afflicted with diabetes?

This letter goes out to all the human pincushions of the world, and this is me saying I GET IT.

At least someone in this world does.

And as for all unafflicted readers, maybe this article will inspire you to learn more, or maybe next time you want to judge someone or make a joke about this disease, just take a minute to think before you say anything.

-Caitlin