On 5/25/2012, I was taken to the emergency room by my father and mother, both type II diabetics, because on a whim my father had decided to test my blood sugar levels for four days beforehand, and each day it was over 250 points. On the 24th, however, it shot up to 358, then beeped and switched to only displaying HIGH. We went on a half-mile walk and testing his blood with it showing within the expected range, and my blood after, and it didn't even give an initial point value, just displaying HIGH. I went to bed and we were planning to test it again before work the following day to determine if I should see a doctor or if it was due to a fluke of what I ate recently. My father called his doctor who told him to wake me and take me to the emergency room as I could have a stroke or heart attack at any day without warning. My reading was 383 on the tester that they used and they immediately wheeled me into a room and put me on a saline drip, testing my blood. The a1c test came back 14.9%, and I was diagnosed with diabetes mellitus type I.
I was 25 years old, and my life changed that day. Before I just did what most young adults did, I did whatever I want without thinking on the consequences. I ate a pizza and three scoops of ice cream three nights a week four hours before bed, I didn't do any exercise outside of what my retail job called for, and I hadn't visited a doctor in six years. True, I had twice dropped 70 lbs in 7 months through careful calorie counting and exercise regimen to lower my weight for vanity and general health concerns, but I was starting to let it rise again slowly, weighing 215 lbs. I didn't feel any of the symptoms of diabetes except hunger which I just thought was due to days I had worked harder, and excessive thirst, which I had thought was merely due to the bothersome humidity and heat. I hadn't realized that my pancreas wasn't producing enough insulin, nor that I was at risk for type I as it is generally a juvenile disease, and both my parents had type II in part due to their sedentary disabled lifestyle and eating habits. The notion that eating what I had always eaten, but at a slightly elevated pace compared to my norm for a month or two, would possibly affect my blood sugar that drastically, that is had been borderline diabetes for perhaps years, never had occurred to me. I liked food, and so did my body, until the day we silently betrayed each other.
Now I have to test my blood sugar regularly and take two types of insulin a day in order to not only keep myself from feeling hungry and thirsty, I have to use it all in order to balance myself between hyperglycemia, extremely high blood sugar such as I had on admission to the emergency room, and hypoglycemia, extremely low blood sugar, from which I could slip into a coma. It is a more expensive life, my insulin cost $170 a month even after my insurance covers 3/4ths of the cost, and my test strips being just as expensive, though used taken as frequently as I or my doctor would like due to financial limitations. It is a life of quarterly checkups being reduced to yearly due to insurance coverage limitations and struggles with financial assistance. It is a life of a daily aspirin regimen. It is a life with silent and verbal judgement over an intelligent man falling victim to a 'disease of laziness', over having to use injections and of rampant wide-spread ignorance, even from those who claim to have a friend or two with the same condition. It is a life of spots on the fingers from all the blood tests. It is a life with pricks.
