Personal Narrative: Diabetes

Right when we heard those life changing words, “He has diabetes,” we knew our lives, especially Billy’s, had changed. My mom started calling my dad to meet them at DuPont and my grandparents to watch my brother, Matt, and me. When we got home, my mom started rushing around the house making sure she had enough stuff for the hospital for that night. Billy, who was eight years old, had

I asked my mom “what’s wrong,” she replied with a sorrowful “your Aunt Lisa is in trouble, we must leave now.” The worst part of all of this was my Aunt Lisa’s son was with us, Matthew. He did not know what to think or believe. No one knew the world would slowly start shattering beneath all of us that morning. We drove to her house, we saw ambulances and police cars driving by, that did not help our nerves at all. We finally arrived at her apartment, we never thought all of those emergency vehicles would be going there. My brother and I stay in the car since I was only eight and he was only eleven. My mom and cousin run into the apartment hoping to only find my Aunt had fallen and is unconscious, or she is passed out drunk, just let it be something that is not permanent. What they come to find is that my Aunt is laying on the floor, unconscious, but cold as ice. It was not from someone killing her, or us getting there too late. She had died twenty-four minutes before that phone

That day when I returned home from school, my mom’s boyfriend called me asking to speak to my grandmother. Typically, Gus would call my grandmother himself if he wanted to speak with her, which was rare. I found out about my mom going to the hospital from my grandmother after that phone call. The doctor told my family that a stroke afflicted her in the middle of the day. My mom confused the date with her birthday, had trouble getting words out and remembering our family member’s names. The nurse had to take her for walks periodically and exercise her legs and arms because they were weak. Seeing my mother in this condition made me appreciate my mother and everything she does for me tremendously. However, I was terrified for my mother’s health.

When I was five years old, I was diagnosed with type one diabetes. It was 11 years ago on New Year’s Eve, and I was celebrating the holiday by consuming an immense amount of sugar. My mother, who already had two other young children with diabetes, immediately recognized that I was suffering from the symptoms of hyperglycemia. After I was diagnosed, I was given a book and a bear. The book was about how the other kids would react to my diagnosis, and the bear was covered in colourful patches that corresponded to the areas on my own body that I could give my insulin injections.

The most significant difference between the regular insulin and the rapid acting insulin is the onset. The onset for rapid-acting or lispro is 10-15 minutes, and for the regular it is ½-1 hour.

At 4:30 am, my alarm went off; I was more tired than ever. I rolled over stepping onto the wood floor. I walked to the bathroom feeling as if I could collapse and fall back into my deep sleep. After my shower, I went back into the snug, little room I was calling home for the time being at my grandparent’s house. I was at my grandparents house due to the fact that my dad and Stacy were already in the Dominican Republic. I packed my last few belongings and crawled back into the bed to fall asleep for a few minutes. I assumed that ten minutes had passed when I remember hearing my grandparents talking about how we had to leave soon. My grandma came in asking us what we had wanted for breakfast. Mickenzie and I told her we weren’t hungry and got out of the warm cozy bed to get in the car. After changing, we went out to the kitchen to say bye to our grandma, seeing that there wasn’t room for her in the car. She gave us a huge, tight bear hug telling us to be safe.

A couple years back when my mother had back surgery, I would always help her up, which I seemed pretty good at, because she would always say, “Whenever you help me I can never feel it. You are really good at this.” At that time it had gone in one ear and out the other. That’s not until two years ago when my grandmother was really sick, so we had to stay days with her because she couldn’t be by herself. She was sleeping the whole day, so something just told me to wake her up. After I woke her up, she sat up for a few minutes. My family gave her some medicine and then her eyes started rolling behind her head, and she was unresponsive. At that time I rushed and called 911. The whole time I felt as if I was in a daze. At that

My life wouldn’t be considered normal. My parents were immigrants from Pakistan trying to create a better life for them and their children, and they’re the only ones from their families to move to America. They moved from New York, to Richardson, and lastly to Rockwall, Texas in 2005. I was born in 2000 but when events in my life truly started shaping me was in the summer of 2004.

Around the end of January I began to feel ill. I was becoming weaker, I couldn’t even stand in the shower by myself. I lost around 10 pounds too. In the beginning of February, I went to the doctor with my mom. The doctor said we shouldn’t worry about it and it was probably just the flu. She also took a couple blood tests just in case it was something else. My mom took me to work with her, because she didn’t want to leave me alone at home. Later on that day, the doctor called my mom and told her to bring me into the hospital as soon as possible. At the time I had no idea what diabetes was. I was only 8 years old. It was February 9, 2007, and I was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes. I ended up staying in the hospital for that whole week, and stayed

During Christmas vacation, three weeks before my 4th birthday, I began eating more; more than I had and more than I should. I was always hungry, extremely hungry. Hungry, thirsty and tired, painfully dragging myself to and from day to day activities. I gorged myself with food, yet my pants became looser, arms thinner and stomach flatter. The world swirled around me; I couldn’t stand without stumbling. On December 23, 2001, I entered the hospital kicking and screaming, tired and alone. Since that day, I haven’t seen food the same way.

I was awoken from the lights coming on and my grandma yelling at me saying “Wake up, we got to get to the hospital your brother was just in a car accident!” At that moment I was dead I didn't know what to do or say, so my only option was to get up and get dressed. When we were going to the hospital it was a straight down pour and I sat there looking out the window with my mind racing with questions like “What's going to happen to my Connor?” and “What's going to happen

Imagine pricking your fingers with a needle five times a day. As a type 1 diabetic, this is a reality for me. My fingertips are callused and scarred. I was frustrated that after years of having diabetes, there wasn’t an easier way to check my blood sugar. I scoured Google Scholar for alternatives and I found a contact lens technology that would be capable of checking sugar levels using only tears. This would eliminate the need to prick my fingers for blood! If an unassuming tear could simplify diabetes care, what else the eye was capable of? My curiosity led me to volunteer as an optometry intern for blind motivational speaker Nancy Solari. Nancy is based in California and I live in Maryland, so I was a remote intern, communicating with Nancy

In this paper, I chose to do a how to on something that I hold dearest to my heart. Which is how to be a diabetic. I’m 18 and I’ve had to come to terms with a lot of things that I never in a million years thought I’d have to deal with. It’s nice to share this information others any chance I get to just spread awareness. Some people may think that this couldn’t happen to them, but if your careless about your health. It could happen to anyone.

We looked at each other, stood up, and headed down the big hallway and around the corner to find my mom gasping at the fact that her water had broken. This was a surprise seeing as she was not due to give birth to my little sister for another two weeks. Once again, we were out the door and in the car. My grandmother did not put me in my car seat right and I remember struggling to free my arms the entire ride. My mom sat in the front seat yelling and muttering words under her breath. I was afraid because my mom was in such a strange state but I soon realized that she was yelling more at my grandmother than at her painful stomach. Every time we approached traffic, she gasped and turned behind her with her hand on my car seat, as to secure me from some ejecting force. It was not until years later that I was told all of the stories about what a terrible driver my grandmother was and how many cars she destroyed in various "incidents," as my grandfather calls them. We reached the hospital in plenty of time, but with one problem remaining, my grandfather and dad remained uninformed and unreachable as the resided among thousands of intoxicated football fans. They arrived in just enough time to see my mom before she had my sister, but not without strategic methods to get a hold of them. They first had to be paged over the intercom and when that seized to succeed, event staff members were sent to find them standing

June 11, 2015. It was a regular summer day, or so I thought. Only five days until my fifteenth birthday and I was super excited. My mom had taken the morning off from work to take my grandmother to the doctors. She was going for her regular heart check-up appointment. As we always did, my mother and I drove that morning over to the nursing home in St. Matthews, South Carolina. My mother had recently entered my grandmother into the nursing home because my mom needed to start working more and could not fulfill the obligations of taking care of my grandmother like she normally would. When we got to the nursing home, we parked the car under the awning which was in the front of the nursing and covered a little walkway where people loaded their family members. I got out first and headed back to the room as my mom followed closely behind. When I walked into the room, I saw my sweet loving grandmother sitting there. As always, my beautiful grandmother, with her white hair, her green eyes, her frail but beautiful skin, and her smile glistened as she awaited her day out. My grandmother did not get out much so even going to the doctors was a good day out for her. We helped her into her wheelchair, a normal struggle for my mother and I, and we rolled her down the hallway to the car. We loaded her into the car, another struggle, and we headed off to Orangeburg which was where the doctors office was. While riding to the doctor's office my grandmother mentioned that her hands looked green