Support JDRF during October's Diabetes Awareness, Walk for the Cure! Month

Today marks me officially having Type 1 Diabetes for 20 years.

October 18, 2002. First diagnosed, at 12 years old.

To date: over 45,000 finger pokes and 6,500 injections.

Coincidentally, October is also Diabetes Awareness Month.

Sometimes I pretend don't realize my birthday is in a few days and I've often let Christmas and holidays creep up on me, but this date resonates oh-so-very-clear in my brain, every year.  Which is odd, seeing as that original day, everything seemed rushed and panicked, but now I feel like the details grow clearer with time.

The challenges, the fears, the cost (both monetary and mentally), I've always turned these into positive outcomes--perseverance, responsibility, advancements.

I never wrote about how some days, I don't feel like everything is sunshine and rainbows. Or what it's like to have your pump be nicknamed "robot parts" as a humorous coping mechanism.

Usually, going to my endocrinologist is a simple check-up.  Blood sugar level-good, A1C-within range, overall mental status towards the disease-decent.

Except, last week I went for my quarterly check-up, and then the doctor and I got personal.

He read the extensive notes about complications and illnesses that often times caused me to go to Urgent Care, and a few times, be hospitalized.  He read about how I cannot feel a large part of my left thigh due to irreversible nerve damage.  He adjusted my medicine that makes my nerves calm down a bit, so that my feet don’t always feel “prickly” from nerve damage too.  He read about the viruses that I’d caught during teaching, or other’s germs, that landed me in the hospital because my blood sugar spiked high, or went low because my immune system is compromised and wasn’t strong enough to fight the illnesses on its own. 

All of these, no matter how well I try to keep my diabetes under control, are just complications and side effects I can try my best to fight, but will occur as the years go on.

I used to think being a Type 1 Diabetic wasn’t such a bad thing. I've adjusted to being a Diabetic, and the finger pricks, pump site injections, and continuous glucose monitor (CGM) doesn’t bother me too much.  This year was a struggle. Not from the daily diabetes monitoring, but rather from the unfortunate complications associated from being a Type 1 Diabetic.

A few weeks ago, my blood sugar went low at night, and The woke up to my sensor going off, and me struggling to find a fruit snack, and led to his and my first real scare of nearly passing out. He’s also dealt with my blood sugars going above 475 when I have an illness, and the struggle of several shots through the course of the day, and measuring dosages to try to avoid DKA.

As a teacher, I’ve now had students who see my pump and then smile and flash me theirs.  It’s almost comforting for me and them—there’s a common bond, and a sense of “it’ll be okay, I get it.” Unlike the time, I had a teacher who literally said, “I don’t want her in my class, because I am not willing to cope and administer accommodations because of her illness.”  This was very emotional for me, but it led me to having one of the best teachers, and now close friend and mentor, so the outcome worked well, but no child should ever feel like they don’t belong, because they have an auto-immune disease that they were unable to avoid.  I have them for the year to understand their same battles, for them to feel more comfortable when their monitor or my monitor beeps from an alert, and they don’t seem to feel how I did when I was their age…going into the restroom to take an insulin injection (because an insulin pump didn’t exist my first few years) and feeling uncomfortable taking a shot in front of strangers.

Type 1 Diabetes is not something I want my students or future children to have; it’s a strong reason I support and advocate for stem cell research and funding for JDRF.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which a person's pancreas stops producing insulin, a hormone that enables people to get energy from food and occurs when the body's immune system attacks and destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, called beta cells. While its causes are not yet entirely understood, scientists believe that both genetic factors and environmental triggers are involved. Its onset has nothing to do with diet or lifestyle. There is nothing you can do to prevent Type 1 Diabetes, and-at present-nothing you can do to get rid of it. Type 1 Diabetics need insulin, blood glucose testing supplies, among other expensive medical tests, visits, and supplies to proactively control this disease.

Positives from JDRF Research:

• Multiple injections have been replaced by insulin pumps, and multiple meter reads into a real time glucose sensor have greatly enhanced my quality of life pertaining to health.
• In 14 years, I've gone from trying to record everything in a paper ledger and sneaking to the bathroom for injections to flipping through digital computer reads and pushing buttons on my pump, which has allowed me to become more integrated with people and events.
• I am able to help others understand that though this disease will always be part of me, it does not define me.
•  People ask which Type I have, which shows progress and information spreading to others!

Works-in-progress that JDRF Research will help:

• Probably the most groundbreaking is something that comes out in 2017: An insulin therapy pump that acts almost like a pancreas!  It can sense your blood sugars, and if it detects a high, can automatically infuse insulin to counter!
• Research can help counter those days when I feel like I’m never going to hit that target A1C, can’t understand why my numbers have been outside the target range, or why it’s so hard for others to understand why I don’t feel well so often.
•  Finding a cure can stop the wondering if anyone else shares the fear of passing on the disease to my children.
•  It will help eliminate going to bed thinking What if my sugars drop too low in the night and I don’t wake up? 
•  It will help current Type 1 Diabetics not have to “deal” with the awkward places we put our pumps when we wear bathing suits, dresses, or work out, and let’s not even mention how diet Coke doesn’t taste like regular Coke.

Please visit their site here to learn more, and also feel free to donate to help support the research that helps benefit people like me, and future diabetics, like the 80 children who are diagnosed each day.

Please, please, please consider donating to JDRF (go to jdrf.org and click “Donate”). I’m fortunate for all I’ve learned, for my parents, for Mike, and for my family and friends: for their strong support system.

I’ve grown and adapted to this disease, but there is still progress to be made!