“You have diabetes.” I’ll never forget the day my doctor told me that dreadful news. A week before my sixteenth birthday, I went in for my yearly checkup, with a friend, no less, and not my parents. I didn’t expect anything unusual. “Something seems off with your urine sample, so we’re going to do a couple more tests,” the doctor said, telling me not to worry. Thirty minutes later they called my mom to come in and gave me the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. My ordinary day turned out to be not so ordinary after all.

Some kids get a car for their sixteenth birthday, or a sweet sixteen party; I got a disease. Just imagine instead of a car parked in front of my house with a huge bow and my name on it, I ran downstairs and found a year’s supply of medical equipment. A box full of needles is every teenager’s dream birthday gift. I mean, I did get a car, it just wasn’t the way I pictured my sweet sixteen, but then again, nobody plans for these kinds of things.

It was an ordeal adjusting to the disease. Being able to eat whatever I wanted for sixteen years, and then one day having to watch what I eat and take insulin shots was difficult to adjust to, not to mention my huge fear of needles.

Looking back at the first time I had to give myself a shot seems funny now, but at the time it might as well have been a death sentence. I looked at the enormous needle in my hand for the longest time, thinking about putting that painful object into my stomach. I imagined the process in my head, but I couldn’t do it. Two hours later, and after a lot of tears, I gave in. Now that wasn’t so bad, I thought, until I realized that for the rest of my life I had to do that every time I wanted to eat. Total bummer. So I attempted to swear off all food until I got what I wanted and the disease went away. That didn’t last very long; I got hungry.

Feeling like the world had ended, and everything in my life was a total mess, I made a trip to a hospital to get educated about my disease. That changed my outlook on everything. I remember riding up in the elevator that day for my appointment. I was throwing myself my very own pity party, the “poor me, everyone has it better, nothing good ever happens to me” thoughts going through my head. Then in walks a boy with his head shaved and a face mask on – leukemia. He was wearing his high school letter jacket filled with patches. He had been quite an athlete, and now he had leukemia: a boy my age who now was on the verge of death. My pity party came to an abrupt halt and ended from then on.

Diabetes taught me a bunch of valuable lessons. It forced me to grow up quicker. It’s a new responsibility I must follow, or lose my life. It made me realize everything I have to be thankful for and how much worse things could be. I appreciate doctors and what they do a lot more, and realize that they are here to help. Plus, modern medicine is always progressing, and many people dedicate their lives to finding a cure or a treatment to make my life, and others’, easier. And in the meantime I can cope with this disease just fine.