40 something years old single mom.

About 2 years ago, I went to bed one day full of energy, and woke up the next day feeling so sick. shortly there after I went to visit my doctor who told me there was nothing wrong with me, go home.

Fast forward a few months later, the pre-ops department called me to tell me I had to see my PCP right away. My fasting glucose in less than 6 months went from 61 to 274.
I told my doctor it made no sense. I was eating healthy, exercising daily and had already lost over 60 lbs of extra weight. How could my fasting sugar go up so quickly.
His answer “why are you crying? I have to tell people they have less than 6 months to live, all you have to do is to take a pill every day.”

I was able through hard work (exercise and “extreme” clean eating) to bring down my a1c from 13.5 to 9, with no medication, which just convinced my doctors that I was indeed type 2 and not type 1.

Finally my (previous) endo, was moving out of states, and needed to do some blood work for my new endo. I convinced her to include the auto-antibodies in my blood work, she was sending me for blood tests anyway.

When I met my new endo, she was happy to tell me that “my previous endo had decided to test me for autoantibodies”, and it came back positive. It was then made official, I was type 1.

My new endo never had the perception that I wasnt a compliant patient, just not following their protocols. She got to know me as a t1, and right away decided to treat me as such. that was the biggest gift I could ever get.

I know and understand how many people struggle when being diagnosed as a t1. Quite frankly, I cried in my Endo’s ofice when she gave me the diagnosis. but very shortly after, I became so grateful. Now that im on insulin, my life has turned around so much.

I was so sick, felt so sick. always falling asleep at night, blood sugars over 400. screaming and losing it at my baby girl, being in a constant fog, my body being in so much pain, and just not remembering anything.

I remember taking her to the restaurant almost every night for dinner before my diagnosis, because I could barely put one foot in front of the other. and cooking, cleaning and everything else was just too much. All I could do was putting down my head on the restaurant table, wanting to cry out of pain and exhaustion.

I would take prickling myself 10+ times a day and injecting myself 4+ a day anytime over how sick and desperate I felt for almost 2 years. I would do so much to never EVER have to feel the way again.

For the first time in a very long time, I feel alive and I am so grateful that I was diagnosed in this day and age, where even though there is no cure yet, treatment is easy and we have access to great technology to help us make the best of our lives.