The beginning of 2011 was a mess for my family. My older sister, Chastie, was in and out of the hospital for months. She lost over 40 pounds in just two months and I had to sit back and watch. Throwing up, not eating, and right side pain was a constant thing she had to deal with every day. I would go to school in the morning and see her on the couch, come home and see her in the same spot. In the two month span, she was hospitalized many times but was discharged every single time. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her and one even told my mom they wanted to send Chastie to a psychiatrist because they think the pain was all mental. I knew she was in pain and prayed every night to wake up and see her back to herself.
We used to go every night to the basketball court and watch her play her heart out. Basketball was always her passion and she was great at it. One day while I was at school, my sister went to the hospital for what felt like the hundredth time. When I got home, my mom called me telling me I would need to babysit my sisters for the evening because they are going to take my sister's appendix out. I was happy because I was hoping this pain would finally end for her. My pain of seeing her suffer couldn’t amount to her pain, but it sure did feel like it.
Finally, days passed and she got to come home. She sounded like my sister, but she didn’t look like her. More than 40 pounds lighter can really do damage to someone when it happens in such a small time period. At the end of March, we did our yearly Disney trip for me, my mom, and little sister’s birthday. We would usually go out to eat that week and my sister still wasn’t herself. Every 10 minutes we would stop at Disney so she could go pee. She would go through water bottles like they were candy.
Fast forward to a week when we get home and I am at work. I get a call saying my sister was rushed by ambulance to the hospital because her blood sugar was over 500. For anyone who doesn’t know, the average blood sugar is between 70 and 120. If your blood sugar goes too high, you can actually go into diabetic coma. I don’t know who else to thank except God for looking after her. When she got to the hospital she was so delirious. After tests and many, many things of water pumped through her, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. April 16, 2011, was the date that she will never forget.
It was a shock to us all but even a bigger surprise because this type is usually diagnosed at a young age. With my sister being 15, it really boggled everyone’s minds on what could have happened. Finally, my parents found a doctor who cared as much about Chastie as we did. He did tests and asked many questions and found out that her pancreas stopped pumping insulin at the same time that they took her appendix out. There were only a few cases that were like hers ever, but we didn’t have much time to question it.
Finally, a few days after she was diagnosed she was able to come home, for good. It was hard to see her have to prick herself every time she wanted to eat anything and see her turn down food that was once her favorites. Diabetes is an ongoing illness that doesn’t just hurt the victims but hurts the family of the victims too. I love differently because of her having Diabetes. You learn to put people before yourself because that’s what you’ve had to do when someone you love goes through this. I thank God daily for not taking Chastie from us in 2011, but thank him even more for letting her beat this sad and horrible disease.
