She was frail, tiny, and sickly skinny. That day I saw her in the hospital changed everything between us. Erica. My sister. With Diabetes.

We knew something was up when she started using the bathroom excessively, being very irritable, and when she showed an ample of other symptoms. However, we really didn’t think she would actually have diabetes. It just isn’t one of those things you really expect to have.

On a slushy, snowy day, our Mom took Erica to the Pediatrician’s office. While she expected nothing to come of it, she was sadly mistaken. Erica’s blood sugar was up in the high 500’s, it is supposed to be around 100. When they came home, our Mom was a basket case. She was as upset as a kid might be after failing a test. Erica had to pack her bags to go to the hospital and our Mom did the same. I did my best to hold myself together, but my other sister, Anna, was a wreck. She was crying, sniffling, and sputtering. I did all I could to soothe her, but it was hard. I didn’t know what to say because we didn’t know exactly what was going on.

After saying a quick goodbye to my Mom, Dad, and Erica, our grandparents came over to watch Anna and me. For dinner that night, we had a piping hot pepperoni pizza that was as tasty as a giant is tall. As I bit into my second slice of pizza, the yummy taste suddenly turned sour in my mouth. Spitting it into a napkin, I excused myself and bolted up to my room.

She could have died, I thought to myself. All this time, I had been so mean to her, and she had been hostile right back- but only because of her diabetes. I was just being cruel.

That night, I didn’t fall asleep until the wee hours of the night. I was up thinking; eyes wide open with my mind swimming. The next morning I sat up groggily and rubbed my tired eyes. Erica was still at the hospital with Mom, and Dad hadn’t gotten back until very late the previous night. This was going to be a long couple of days.

Two stressful days later, I arrived home from school after a miserable ride on the bus. I slid my backpack onto the floor and sighed. Then, I saw Erica peeking at me from around the corner! I ran over to her and said “You’re back!” She smiled wearily, and gave me a hug. I noticed she had to bandages covering where her elbows bent. Averting my eyes, I asked her how she had been.

To my surprise, Erica actually enjoyed her stay at the hospital! After the first night when they were done poking and prodding her, she had crackers and she said they were the best food she had ever eaten in her life. The next couple of days, she got used to her newly diagnosed diabetes and ate what she called “delectable” food.

After we were done conversing, Erica had to test her blood sugar. It took three times before she got a good measure. I cringed every time, whereas she was as calm as a sleepy cat. When she heard the sharp intake of my breath when she was giving herself an insulin shot, she looked up and grinned. “You’ll get used to it; I have to do it for the rest of my life.”

From there on out, most things went smoothly, and Erica started to be very peppy and happy a lot more often. While there were those days where she thought she had ruined everyone’s lives with her diabetes, we told her that she hadn’t.

Life is like a Rubik’s cube; it starts out with all the colors matched up and perfect, but it ends with all the colors mixed up and peeling off. That is what makes life so special though, the mixed up colors. While they do complicate things a whole lot more, we couldn’t live without them because life would be so boring. Diseases like diabetes make really people learn the true definition of family; and what it means to actually pull together as one. The earth keeps on spinning all the time, and so does life, we just have to roll with it.