The only way to truly learn from an experience is for you to live through it yourself. I was always told stories that impacted my life by I never fully understood the meaning until I learned it myself. The older I get the more I learned, but I will never forget my first real life’s lesson. When I was in elementary school I was always told not to judge a book by its cover. When I was in fourth grade and I was diagnosed with type one diabetes I realized that that could also apply to people. When you look at a person you may have no idea what the person is battling with or what they are going through. After being out of school for a couple of weeks I had an irrational fear that people would look at me different, judge, or be afraid of me. I was starting to look at myself differently. As I walked into my fourth grade class for the first time since I got diagnosed I realized nobody was looking at me any different. They still saw the same me. They asked me where I had been but I just said I was sick, and then the subject was dropped. They had no idea I was in the ICU learning about a disease I had never heard of, and learning how to make a life change and be able to handle the challenge.




When there is challenge in your life that is constant that is there every day you rather learn to accept it, or fight with it, and I always wanted to fight with it. As my friends were playing sports, I would always have to stop and check my blood sugar. The more I had to do it the more I’d try to fight with it, but I realized as I did this that I was increasingly my responsibility realizing my body’s signs.
Even now, as a senior in high school, I still ask myself why me, why did I get diagnosed? The more I think about it, though, the more I see it as a blessing. When I was a freshman in high school and I made the varsity swim team, I told my coach that I was a diabetic and he was impressed. He told me he didn’t think a diabetic would be able to handle the practice. Diabetes made me responsible for something most kids and teens could not even imagine dealing with. It made me closer to people I never thought I would be friends with and people I thought I’d never meet that end up being my hero. I began educating people I barely know because they want to learn what diabetes is. I educated my co-workers so now one family feels comfortable leaving there 5 year old diabetic with more people I work with then just bringing him there when I work. When I was younger, I use to go around hiding the fact I was a diabetic. I had an irrational fear of people judging me. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that diabetes has played a key role in shaping the person I am today. Why not turn my experience into a positive one?
One day, when I was teaching gymnastics class, this one boy who was newly diagnosed went up to me and told me he won’t let diabetes get in his way. He said he wanted to be just like me he said I was his hero. That pushed to show him what I was capable of doing and prove to him diabetes isn’t a disease it’s a life style, and you have control of it. If you want it to take over your life it will but it won’t if you do not let it. Now I think of it as I have diabetes, diabetes doesn’t have me. I’m no longer afraid to give myself a shot in public and hide the fact that I am a diabetic, instead I enlighten the fact, after all it’s a part of me and I do not regret the person I have become because of it today.