So lately I’ve had people asking me to share my story and I got this feeling that I should and that it may help other with diabetes realize that this is not the way to go about with diabetes even though it feels like the thing that will help you. So here it is…… here is my story!
So it all started when I was in the 4th grade and 10 years old. It was the moth of August and I was losing weight like crazy and I was always drinking to quench my thirst and I was also using the restroom a lot. My parents just thought it was normal for me to be drinking a lot since It was summer and hot and so naturally they associated the frequent urinating with the drinking and the weight loss they couldn’t explain so they just ignored it and then on September 5th my family was all together and told my parents that I looked terrible and that I needed to see a doctor soon. So my parents agreed and they made a doctors appointment for me on September 8th. My mom and aunt took me to the doctor on September 8th and the doctor drew my blood and sent me home. The next morning as I was getting ready for school my mom received a phone call saying I needed to come to the doctor’s office a.s.a.p and then hung up the phone. At this time my mom gets my brother on the bus, tells me im not going to school, calls my dad and tells him what was going on and to meet us at the doctors and we left our house and headed to the doctors. On the way there I wasn’t scared and neither was my mom we just thought it was something simple like I was dehydrated or something like that. Once we got to the doctors we signed in and they put us in a room and within minutes of being put in this room the doctor walked in and told my parents they might want to sit down and so they did. He looked them in the eyes and said “this is very serious we are diagnosing Amber with Type One Juvenile Diabetes. Her Blood Glucose is 939 and she needs to be brought to the St.Paul Children’s Hospital right away”. Then he said “she is minutes to days away from going into a Diabetic Coma. Once you get to the hospital go to the emergency room and tell them your name. We already have a room ready for her.” So we left the doctors with my mom in tears and my dad calming my mom and me confused like none other. On the way to the doctors I just remember asking my mom questions like what is diabetes? How long do I have to stay here? Are they going to poke me with needles? Am I going to die? And every answer I got back was I don’t know Amber but we will know shortly but don’t worry know matter what happens me and your dad love you and we won’t let anything bad happen. We checked me into the hospital and that’s when my week and a half of learning nothing but diabetes and having visitors like crazy. When I was released from the hospital I went home to a whole new life. A life I’ve never known anyone to have. It took a lot of learning but soon I became a pro. A year later my parents came to me and told me that we were moving to Illinois to be by my dad’s family and my mom got a new job. So I was pretty excited but yet sad to leave all my friends. So we moved and in the seventh grade my parents got a divorce and that’s when I decided I hated diabetes and I was sick of living by the rules of taking shots, pricking my finger and counting carbs so I decided to give up. I was so frustrated and I knew nobody with diabetes so I just stop testing my blood sugar and started to get sick. I got so sick I ended up in the hospital with diabetic keto acidosis. My new doctor was confused as to why this happened and I surely wasn’t going to tell them I wasn’t checking my blood sugar so they just assumed it was caused my stressed and got me better and sent me home and days later I would make the same choice and I would end right back where it started. All the divorce drama was happening so nobody noticed and this kept on happening every other week and soon when the divorce was complete my mom started catching on to me and then she fully caught on and I would get in so much trouble but I never learned my lesson and I kept on doing the wrong which was to not check my blood sugar and just give myself any amount of insulin that I felt like and sometimes that was none. So three years went on with me doing this and the same routine happened…… Stopped checking, end up in hospital, get caught, get grounded and yelled at, and then check for a couple days and start all over again. I became well I guess you would say addicted to doing this. Nothing stopped me. It was my life I was happy until I got sick and grounded and then once I started all over again I was happy. It was like the perfect life. No worries in the world. It got so bad that the nurses all knew me by name and basically just gave me my own room in the hospital. My mom and dad were so upset and I was hurting everyone. My parents got to the point where no matter what they grounded me from it never taught me a lesson and so they told me they were sending me to a rehab place for teens like me and it made me cry but I really didn’t care because I knew they would never do that to me. Turns out I was right and they didn’t. But I continued and my mom and family sat me down and said look we aren’t ready to burry you with grandma but it looks like we are going to have to prepare ourselves. That broke my heart but not enough to make me stop. My family was a mess and had no trust in me. I would lie to them about checking my sugar so I didn’t have to deal with the fighting that I was causing at the moment. So this all kept on going and I hid my diabetes from everyone and then just for kicks one day that I wasn’t grounded yet about 4 months ago I found this site and I decided I would get on and see what it was. I found it pretty cool and I met an amazing girl named Alyssa and I felt like I could tell her anything and she would understand and be the only person not mad at me so I told her my whole story and was I was doing and she talked to me for a week or to and then randomly was like if u want to give up your addiction I am willing to help you and so I felt I was ready and so she helped me and I broke my addiction! I was so happy and so was my family! I was a much healthier happier person until I somehow got locked out of juvenation and had no contact with Alyssa anymore and I started falling back into my addiction and then I was like I cant do this and a month later I signed on and made a new account and reunited with Alyssa and she helped me and reminded me how far I had came and helped me starve my addiction and im proud to say it has been 3 months straight that I have done exactly what I need to do! Alyssa has left juvenation for a while and it kills me knowing I can’t talk to her everyday but I can talk to her through email like once a week and she still helps me. I’m not completely clean of my addiction but im pretty darn close to it! I am so thankful for Alyssa! I still have bad days were I want to give up and it seems so easy to leave everything I fixed and go back to my old ways but I fight myself to not. I want to thank every one of you who helps me on those days and assures me I don’t want to go back. Thank you
I wanted to share my story to show other diabetics that this is not the right choice and this is definitely not how you want to live. I am very lucky to be living right now and I am very lucky to have met Alyssa and everyone else on Juvenation that has been a big help! I am always willing to talk to anyone who is going through this or has the feeling to give up. Let me tell you from experience… you think you’re happy and feeling good until you do the correct thing and then that’s when you’re in total happiness! I hope my story has helped you guys. I’m very nervous to be posting this because I don’t want people to think of me differently.