My Story

In 2017, my life got flipped upside… FAST. What I thought was the healthy me, was actually the unhealthiest I had ever been! I didn’t recognize any of my signs or symptoms until it was almost too late. I was living out my best college life, so everything I was experiencing didn’t feel out of the ordinary. Lack of sleep, minimum appetite, constant thirst, every college student experiences this right? Wrong. Thank god for yearly health wellness check ups. Never would I had guessed I had a chronic illness!

Looking back, I started noticing my symptoms about 2 weeks before I was diagnosed. I would drink 4-6 bottles of water a night before bed, I would sleep about 12-16 hours a day, and I had zero energy. I had absolutely no appetite and dropped about 10 lbs in two weeks. I was super busy between school, nannying, and working out; so I thought these were just results from my chaotic life at the time, not that my body was actually shutting down. After a urine sample at the doctors, I found out that I had large traces of protein in my urine throwing me into DKA (Diabetic Ketoacidosis), and my blood sugars were averaging in the high 500’s. What?! How?!

In the beginning of my diagnosis, I always had people say to me “it could be worse” or “at least you can live with it”… and to this I want to say yes, thanks for the obvious folks. I am blessed it’s “just” type 1 diabetes… but for those who don’t have a chronic illness, don’t realize how unlucky we are at the same time. These comments I got and still receive; which I am sure will be for the rest of my life, is what helped lead me to this blog as a whole.

The world doesn’t understand chronic illnesses, especially Type 1 Diabetes. It is what I like to call, a “silent disease”. Most diabetics look fine on the outside; but MAN, do we fight daily struggles on the inside. There are things people don’t see, such as: the daily outfit struggles because I now have an artificial organ hooked to the outside of my body, I can eat the same meals daily but my blood sugars will be completely different, exercising takes twice as long thanks to the extra finger pricks or juice box breaks because the smallest motion can cause a high or low blood sugar, weight loss/gain, infertility, hormonal imbalances, and infection risks are now higher than they’ve ever been… all because a little organ most people don’t even know their body has, decided to fail me. “Just Type 1 Diabetes”, changed my life completely at 22 years old.

With the help of family, friends, and my amazing endocrinology team, I am now a well controlled T1D. It doesn't happen over night, I am working on my 5th year of this illness and still learning new tips and tricks. You are not alone in this fight, and can be in control of your diabetes too. No day is ever the same and that’s what makes a chronic illness such as Type 1 Diabetes, ever so complicated. Us diabetics face fear every waken moment of our days, please leave your advice at home. We get enough low carb diets will cure us, have you tried the sugar free kind, and if we have one bad blood sugar we will have to have a limb amputated from our health care teams, we don’t need it from our support systems too. You don’t have to know what someone is going through, to offer them support. Simply ask them how they are or if there is anything you can do to help them. With all this being said, always remember to: remain teachable, listen to what your body is telling you, never down grade other peoples battles, be nice, & go love on your ‘betes warriors if you have any… but not too much, we are already “overly sweet.”