I was dragging my feet, lost close to 20 pounds, and I always felt tired. I started to realize that something was wrong when I needed a glass of water every five minutes, I got around two hours of sleep at night, and it felt like it took all of my energy just to walk up and down a set of stairs.

On Friday, May 1, 2009, I dragged my feet into the doctor’s office not knowing what to expect, but hoping that nothing was too wrong. I was zoning out in the waiting room, when they called my name. I slowly stood up, and walked down the hall, turned the corner, and walked into the check-up room and fell into a chair. I was starting to think “why am I here?” and finally after a few blood tests, I got my answer.

The doctor opened the door, and the look on his face told me that something was wrong. After what seemed like forever, he finally started to talk. “After those blood tests,” he said, “You have type 1, juvenile diabetes.” He said nervously, “You are going into the hospital today. You will probably be there for close to a week.” I could not believe what I just heard, and I was trying to make sure I didn’t hear him right. After that he stood up and slowly left the room, and closed the door behind him. Soon after that me and my mom got up and left, not knowing what to do, or how to feel.

We drove home first so I could get clothes, my iPod, and phone charger. There was also a box on the front porch with the shoes I ordered, that were just dropped off. That was the only good thing that happened that whole day. After I got back in the car, we started the long drive to the Yale New Haven Hospital. I was sitting in the front seat, lacing my new shoes and listening to my iPod like nothing happened, and my mom was driving looking really worried.

I arrived at the hospital, and was put in the emergency room right away. They were testing blood pressure, listening to my heartbeat, and I felt a sharp pain as I turned and saw a nurse was putting an I.V. in my arm. It was about 8:00 at that point, and I was sitting in the E.R. for over an hour starting to get hungry, remembering I did not have lunch. I was not allowed out of the room to get anything, and even if I was, they were pumping some kind of fluid through a tube connected to my I.V. so I could not move.

Finally, at around 10:00, I was put in my room, and the second I walked in I colapsed on the bed. Around a half an hour later, I was allowed to eat, so my ninety year old nurse came in with an injection needle, and a vial of insulin. She filled the sirynge with the insulin, and right when I thought she was going to give me the injection, she handed me the needle.

“You have to learn how to give yourself injections.” She said, after I refused to give it to myself. “You can’t eat anything until you do this.” And finally I gave up. I pinched the skin on my arm, and stuck the needle into my arm. I was expecting it to hurt, but it was too small to hurt. I finally got my food after that, and was in the hospital for the rest of the weekend, and stood home on Monday, when there was school, just to make sure everything was alright.

Right now, I have had it for around seven months, and it never goes away but it does get easier. My blood is at normal levels most of the time now, and at first I was on three injections a day for four of those months, and now I have an insulin pump, which eliminated the injections for me.