Personal Narrative: My Cousin With Type 2 Diabetes

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.

The individual I chose to observe is my cousin who is a 24-year-old male who was diagnosed with type1 diabetes since the age of 14. But before being diagnosed with type1 diabetes my cousin was healthy teenager that would eat just like any other teenager, but his life drastically change right away after being diagnosed with type1 diabetes. He now suffers from weight lost, nausea, body pain, and is insulin dependent. Being insulin dependent was one of the biggest changes in his life, because he had no idea what was occurring to his body and was not inform about diabetes. It took a while for my cousin to get used to the changes that were occurring to him as a teenager, but now that he is older and cautious about his disability, he lives a healthy

My mother’s cousin had type 1 diabetes. He didn’t take control over his disease. He never took shots, he was a drunk, and he never tested. My mom’s cousin never saw the importance of vigilance of diabetes. He died at the age of 51. He did significant damage to his organs which resulted in a short lived-life.

n Mendenhall et al.’s, Speaking Through Diabetes, the authors examine how social suffering may be embodied in diabetes using Kleinman’s concept of cultural narrative. They consider how epidemics achieve social significance, through patient experience and symbolism in everyday narrative. Patients tell their illness narratives to explain their suffering to others but also use narratives to make sense of illness experience for themselves. The use of explanatory models and beliefs about an illness helps patients makes sense of the illness in a particular context. As Mendenhall et al. highlight, Mexican explanatory models often identify stress and extreme emotion as the main cause of diabetes.

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.

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.

On July 14th 2010, when I was twelve years old, I was rushed to the hospital because my blood sugar levels were 407. Before my mom had observed that I was rapidly losing weight, drinking a great amount of water, and was continuously tired. My mom was worried that I had type one diabetes because others in my family has diabetes.

I remember it like it was yesterday. The horror of it. She’s gone. I never thought in a million years it’d end like that. A stroke? After beating cancer, not once, but twice. Seriously? The doctors said she’d never wake up, never talk, never recognize me. Why bother keeping her on life support? It’s not her. My dad told us “she’s not going to make it.” My brother, dropping, fell to his knees. A guy 6’2” 220, lost it. That day ruined our family. Mom was the glue, the one who intervened when my dad went military on us. The one who always had your back and took care of us. But now, because of a nation’s lackadaisical attitude towards type two diabetes, she’s dead.

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.

Did you know that an estimated 11.2 million Americans age 65 or older are living with diabetes? That’s 1-in-4 adults over the age of 60 that will be diagnosed with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. Those who have already been diagnose with the disease have already learned how to many their condition over time. Even after to adjusting your lifestyle over time due to the disease, the initial diagnosis can be overwhelming. As loved ones and caregivers, you want to provide them with the support and help they need to continue to enjoy a healthy, happy life. The Woodlands Family Care Centers has a few helpful tips that can you avoid or delay complications that are found to be associated with diabetes.

When I was five, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Even though this was a truly terrible event in my life, there were people who were extremely helpful to me. Obviously, my parents, other family, and friends helped me through the situation, but I am eternally grateful to the nurses. They made me feel like everything was going to be ok as it was happening in the moment. They were the reason I made it through the ordeal. Since then, I could always picture myself going into nursing so that one day, I can be that same trusted support system for someone else.

Living with a chronic condition not only effects the individual, but it effects the entire family. An adolescent living with a chronic health condition not only depends on their family for support, but also on support from their friends, classmates, and healthcare team (Rostami, Parsa-Yekta, Najafi Ghezeljeh, & Vanaki, 2014). Supporting an individual with a chronic disease leaves an emotional impact and can be financially straining as well. Families living with a sick child must find strategies to cope. Whether the coping strategies utilized are positive or negative, they leave a lasting effect on the entire family, as well as the child living with the condition (Woodson, Thakkar, Burbage, Kichler, & Nabors, 2015). Involvement of the parents in this situation is vital to the child’s future success in managing their illness (Landers, Friedrich, Jawad, & Miller, 2016). This paper will explore one family’s story of living with, and coping with, a child who has recently been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D).

Back in July I found out that I have diabetes, and ever since that day I’ve been trying to figure out what I can do to change my life. I’m not going to act like I haven’t looked for quick fixes, because I most definitely did. I am not going to say that I have been making all the right choices since I found out, because I most certainly have not, but I am definitely searching for the way. My current goals are to make sure I get my A1C down to below 7%, lose 20 pounds, and change my eating habits. The first thing that I need to do is slowly wean myself off to many high sugar, and high carb food items. I do not need to eliminate them completely from my diet, but they should be consumed at a minimum. After I wean myself I can focus on adding higher

It was the end of my first year of medical school, as I sat beside my grandmother I realized a lot had changed from my last visit. My grandmother, the woman who came to Canada to help raise me, who was once strong and full of energy, was now frail, with blisters all over her skin and unable to sit upright without help. Reading about Diabetes is one aspect of learning, but actually seeing its effects gave me a whole new perspective about what it means to be a doctor.

I could feel the acid in my throat; I desperately needed water and couldn’t keep any food down. I had felt like this for the last three months but no one believed me. I started to doubt it myself, my mom said I was fine so why wouldn’t I be?