Although I was only four I remember everything about the hospital. From the sounds of the sirens, the sterile smell, and the cold metal touch to everything I felt. I can recall the 27 tries of I.V that resulted in them inserting it into my toe and the doctor’s voice telling me I had Type One Juvenile Diabetes. Those four days and nights at CHADD hospital changed how I live my day to day life from now until someday, hopefully, they find a cure.

The days before being rushed to the hospital, everything was normal. My family was just on a cruise going all through the Caymen Islands and Mexico. A week spent in sunny paradise on the ocean, everything was good and happy. As soon as we got home, everyone was very sick with food poison from the array of foods offered on the cruise. I, though, was the most sick from everyone, so sick I was unable to even function properly. I was then sent to the local 24 hour urgent care. Previously, I was showing many strange symptoms. Soon, we would find out, they were symptoms of type one diabetes. At the time, we thought they were just from being a disobedient and cranky four year old. They knew I wasn't just sick from food poisoning so they immediately ran some tests and panicked. They checked my blood sugar to make sure the results they saw from my blood tests were accurate and, they sure were right, my blood sugar was in the 800’s. With no previous knowledge of what is “normal” blood sugar we found out it should be in the 90’s.

Minutes later from testing my blood sugar I was being hauled into the noisy back of an ambulance, in my car seat. My brother and sister went in the car with my dad while my mom sat with me to keep me calm on the two hour drive to Dartmouth hospital, or CHADD. The trys at inserting an IV began at the urgent care, continued into the ambulance and finally ended at the hospital with three more doctors urgency in getting some fluids into my sugary blood. It was a nightmare.

One particular employee of the hospital I remember distinctly. Her job was to go around to the children and she told jokes or sprinkled them with a magical fairy dust that magically would cure you of whatever you were going through. Although I can not remember her name, I can recall the features of all the children she visited. The warm flush cheeks that raised up as she came around with stories jokes and glitter/stickers. The smiles of those children like seeing the sun rise for the first time, whether pale and weak or pink and strong every smile was the same, we all had different sickness but shared the same smile when she was around. The kind that was contagious, it uplifted your cheekbones so high your eyes squint and in that moment she throws the fairy dust or the punch line you forget you were even sick in the first place. After we left the hospital my mom bought me a necklace to wear with fairy dust in that I still have to this day.

I have a lot of chopped up memories of those four days at the hospital but the ones i remember in detail are hard to even think about. I obviously needed many shots and tests etc but that doesn't mean I was obedient every of the many times I was poked and prodded, especially when they wouldn't let my parents come into the room with me because they were as well a wreck.

“Youre going to have to come into a room with me and I will give you some medicine to make you feel better, okay?” The nurse coaxed me.

“No, I won't, I’m scared not again, please..” I retaliated.

“Your mom or dad can’t come in with you this time but its your last shot of the night, I promise.”
I continued to cry and refuse so they were forced to hold me down until I got over the scary thought this was how my life was going to have to be from now on with a plethora of syringes a day so Id better get over it.

After I left the hospital on the fourth day is when my month long strew of nightmares began. I still get this same dream from time to time making me wake up, curious to the fact that its still gives me the same chill and fear even after all these years....

My whole family and I are leaving the hospital, running, racing down the stairs to the great big door that had endless possibilities behind it, but I , being little with smaller legs was last and the door had shut as they all left me behind in the hospital. Two mutated nurses come up behind me, strap me to a gurney and put spiders all over me which continuously bite me, especially my finger tips where I check my blood sugar until I run out of blood.

And then I wake up, same spot every time.

Life with diabetes is a rollercoaster. Every day I learn something new about myself and go through daily trials of trying to control and deal with my disease. The hardest thing I've learned about it is you have your good days and your bad days but it never gets easy, if I think I've got the hang of it, the opposite happens. Ten years later from those days that changed my whole life and still everyday seems to be a guessing game, but crazy as it may seem I am grateful for diabetes. It has shaped me to who I am today and what has occurred and the people in my life and I wouldn't trade that for anything.