Beginning college is always a stressful experience with a lot of transitions and change. Whether you’re 15 minutes away from home, or attending university across the country, it’s tough. Moving into our dorms already comes with a lot of bags and boxes, but I’ve got some additional, very heavy baggage that I had to bring in with me. A chronic illness.
More specifically, I am a type one diabetic diagnosed in September of 2011 when I was 14 years old. No, I didn’t get diabetes from eating too much sugar or never exercising. I got diabetes (more or less) because my immune system got confused and started attacking my pancreas: it no longer produces insulin. Diabetes involves 24/7 attention on my part, lots of prescriptions, and lots of doctors. When I decided to go to school three hours away from home in Roanoke, Virginia, it brought up a lot of questions. Would I keep my doctors at home or would I find new doctors in the area? What pharmacy would I get my prescriptions from? If something went horribly wrong, is there a good hospital close to me? Fortunately, we answered all those questions, and so far I’ve been okay. However, the really worrisome thoughts that intruded into my head were more about the people on campus and how being in a different place would impact my health.
Since I was diagnosed in my freshman year of high school, everybody that I was friends with knew about my diabetes and didn’t need to ask many questions and weren’t weirded out by any of it. I was safe and relatively happy in my little bubble of friends and teachers who knew what was wrong with me and needed no explanations when I needed to slip out to the bathroom or break out the fruit snacks in the middle of class. Coming to a new environment where nobody knew about my illness was both a relief and a concern. I could choose exactly what I wanted to tell people and not have them hear more from someone else, but the concern was I actually had to tell people. For so long, I didn’t need to tell anyone about it, and so I didn’t need to make any situation about me and my diabetes.
During the first week of college I felt the need to conceal my insulin pump, not test my blood sugar in front of other people, and keep my lips sealed tightly about my diabetes, but when I had a friend ask me what was on my hip (my insulin pump) I had to break down those walls and start telling people. I explained to her what it was, and then she started asking more questions. It was the first time in a while that I had somebody ask me genuine questions about diabetes and not just the typical ones that all diabetics are tired of hearing like: “Can you eat that?” “Aren’t you like, afraid of needles though?” and “Oh you’re type one? That must mean you’re pretty severe right?”
Once she asked me those questions, I felt better about opening up to the other friends that I was making on campus, and more importantly, to my professors. Chronic illness can be some heavy baggage that you would rather not drag into your fresh start with you, but it doesn’t have to be. I have found that being open and honest about my illness and what I face when the topic comes up makes my life a lot easier, and sharing it with other people makes it feel less like a burden. Having a chronic illness is never an ideal situation, but bringing it with me to college has helped me to educate other people on diabetes and raise awareness, and that has made it worth it.
