"You have Type 1 Diabetes". Those 5 words would change my perspective on life. It's really quite unbelievable that I am alive to write this article after what I went through back in April. I guess I should probably get you up to speed on how this all went down earlier this year.
It all started in mid-April after a day shift at work. I remember having a beer with one of my co-workers. It was a nice afternoon and her and I decided to have a drink on the patio. We both were having a great time but she had to go and I decided to head home as well. Shortly after getting home, I felt kind of sick and weak. But I figured that might be myself getting dehydrated from the hot day and alcohol consumption. I felt fine after drinking some water and decided to order a pizza. After all, it was the weekend and didn't feel like cooking something myself. The pizza arrived and I started to enjoy my meal while watching some ESPN. About an hour after eating it, I felt really ill and started throwing up a lot. "Ohh man", I thought. "I must have got food poisoning from the pizza". If only it was food poisoning. I thought I had that or the flu, given my high fever.
About a week had passed and I noticed that I had been going to the bathroom a lot more than usual. This is the first warning sign of diabetes, and it is because of the high blood sugars and your kidneys are trying to expel the excess glucose in your body. If left uncontrolled for an extended period of time, you can enter something called diabetic ketoacidosis, which is basically a diabetic coma. I decided to go to the doctor to get this under control and figure out what was wrong. I figured that I had type 1 diabetes but I was praying for the best. I had the doctor look at my tongue, which was coated white. It was an oral thrush and my doctor prescribed me an oral rinse to get rid of it. Just before leaving I started to cry and asked him if I had diabetes based on what he saw from me. He said I can check with a glucose meter. He left the room for what felt like an hour and came back to test my sugar. The first reading was off the charts high. 422. He double checked to make sure. Same reading. I was headed for the hospital and I broke down it knowing what was in store for me. The unknown made me extremely sad and fearful. I stayed at the hospital for two nights where they told me I would have to control my sugar using insulin pens or a pump. I am using pens right now but I am looking into getting an OmniPod, which will automatically dose the correct amount of insulin when I give the command to using a CGM, a remote to control the pod.
I will skip the part where I sank into a deep depression because I don't think it relevant to the story. I now lead a regular life, just like I did before having diabetes. I just need to be more aware than I was before and keep myself healthy through diet and excercise. There is hope for type 1 diabetics though. Fingers crossed, in 2018 there is expected to be a bionic pancreas called the iLet, which will automatically dose the proper amount of insulin during various activities during the day and night. It will help keep type 1s in range for a great majority of the day, and keeping away complications from high blood sugars. It's not a cure, per se, but it would absolutely help us tenfold and is a vastly superior method to what we are doing now, be it pens or pumps. You can read about this exciting device and others by searching for them on the Internet. I just want to let people know that type 1 diabetes won't stop me from achieving anything in life and everyone should take that to heart.
