Looking back, it probably was not that bad of a day, but as I was living in the moment, it felt like the longest, worst day of my life. So many things went wrong. I felt like my life was falling into a million pieces, and every piece was a different problem. I probably could have made a few things better for myself, exaggerated things less. However, I will never forget the year that I was diagnosed with diabetes.

I was in eighth grade. Eighth grade was an ok year in school, by itself. I made new friends, had great classes, and great teachers. I felt like I was doing everything right. That was until November. Ironically, the month of November is diabetes awareness month, which had absolutely no meaning to me, until I was diagnosed, with type one juvenile diabetes.

It was a regular day, a Monday, the 24th of November. I had been having a pretty good day. My friends and I had aced our biology test, and I had eaten my weekly treat of an ice cream sandwich at lunch. I was in 6th hour, and an announcement came on the classroom speaker that I was needed in the office, ready to go home. I was confused, I didn’t know the reason. I wasn’t sick, or so I thought. Lately, I had been feeling….different. I was extremely moody, tired, thirsty all the time, and mostly, I felt out of place. I had pushed those feelings aside, assuming that this was just a part of growing up. I reached the office, and saw my mother waiting for me. She told me that she was worried about me. I hadn’t told her about how I had been feeling lately, but I guess she knows me pretty well. I shrugged, but I could feel my heart pacing. I was nervous; what was wrong?

We pulled up to that small doctors office in downtown clarkston, the one with the green roof. I was trying to calm my nerves by taking deep breathes, and singing my favorite symphony in my head, Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. I could feel time passing by me, in slow motion. I love the decorations in the different patient rooms; they have different Disney themes, to calm children. That day, they were not calming. My mom looked worried. She started saying “No matter what happens”- but she was cut off by the door opening. It was our regular doctor, a very tall, sweet woman with poofy blonde hair. She smiled, and told me that she was concerned about me, and that she was going to run a few tests to evaluate my health, and some other confusing terms that only made me more nauseous. She shook my mother’s hand, and left the room. I couldn’t hold in my feelings anymore. I erupted into tears, trying to control it but I couldn’t. My mother’s eyes were swelling too. I was very frightened.

The doctor came back in the room with a handful of scary equipment, and began to explain all of them to me, but there was absolutely no point because I was focused on not crying, definitely not listening to anything that she was saying because I was scared. She took out an odd looking device, and pricked my finger with it. I yelped with pain. She apologized, and measured what she called “my blood glucose”. She waited, it beeped. I could see in her expression that something, something very bad, was very wrong.

She left without saying anything, and seconds later, she was back with four more doctors, who swarmed me examining everything about me. “Back up!” I screamed in my head. They did not back up, in fact, even more doctors came in the room. The original nurse eventually cleared the room, and closed the door.

She explained that she was diagnosing me, with type one diabetes. I burst again, into a million tears; each tear representing a different piece of my heart. She told me that we needed to go to the hospital immediately, because my blood sugar was at 575.

The next few hours are a blur. We drove home quickly, to pack clothes for the next few days. The drive to the hospital was quiet, except for the phone calls that my mother was making to our family members. The only person that she hadn’t told by the time we got to the hospital was my Father. I was worried that he would be as scared as I was. I remember being very hungry, but I wasn’t allowed to eat anything until my sugar was stabilized.
Many nurses came in and out to check on me, and to explain that I would need to do 3-4 shots everyday. I would have to learn to use a syringe, fill them with the right amount of insulin, but the most scary part was that I would have to give myself my own shots. I finally got, what my mother still describes as “a hockey puck” of a cheeseburger, but I thought it was delicious because I was so hungry.

After everything settled, I gained some acceptance. I knew that so many things were going to change, but that didn’t mean that all of them were going to be bad. My mom cheered me up by offering me to skip a few days of school, which I declined, but she also said that I would need a new bag to keep all of my new supplies in, and because the Beaumont Hospital was so close to the Somerset Mall, we could go pick one out, which I smiled about.
I learned that there are a lot of things that can change your life, but it’s the way that you look at them that will determine the way that they affect you. You have to stay positive. Being diagnosed with Diabetes was a dramatic, tragic time for me, but it could have been so much worse, and I have grown so much since that day almost a whole year ago. I had so much support, and now, I can support other people who have been diagnosed, and who are confused and need some extra positivity. So yes, it probably was not the worst day of my life, although I will remember that day for the rest of my life.