November is National Diabetes month and here at GRC we have 11 different students who are affected by the auto-immune disease. Type One Diabetes is unpreventable and incurable. Here is a glimpse into the lives of some of the Type One Diabetics who walk our halls.

Christian Cook

12th Grade

My Life With Diabetes

Hello, I am Christian Cook and I have diabetes. I have had diabetes since I was 11 months old and I am almost 17 years old.

Diabetes is a very important thing to take care of. Every day I have to wake up and take a shot with something called insulin. I take two types of insulin — Novolog and Lantus.

It’s very important for me and every other diabetic to take their insulin or something bad can really happen.

When I was 14 years old, I started being lazy and didn’t want to take my insulin and I almost lost my life.

I was staying at a friend’s house at the time and I didn’t take my medicine. I started to get really sick but I didn’t know what was wrong with me so I ignored it, resulting in me getting even sicker.

I called my dad and he picked me up and told me I need to start taking care of myself or I will lose my life.

I got home that night and I couldn’t stop vomiting. It got so bad that I had to go to the hospital, and when I was in the ambulance they

had to resuscitate me, and my dad was really upset.

I don’t remember everything that happened but when I got to the hospital, all I remember was I heard the doctor say that he didn’t think I would make it and I was crying because I thought I was going to lose my life over something that I shouldn’t have ignored.

After that the doctor had to resuscitate me again, and it was so bad that I was in the hospital over a week and didn’t wake up until the day before I left the hospital.

When I woke up they had gotten my blood sugar back to normal and they let me eat and gave me medicine so my sugar wouldn’t go back up.

I noticed I had something in my right arm and asked the nurse what it was and she told me it was called a pick. The pick traveled from my arm to my heart and was keeping me alive.

I was just so upset that I had to experience that all because I was being lazy.

After the nurse explained what the pick was she told me that she had to take it out and said it might hurt. When she started to pull it out I felt it traveling through my chest, up to my shoulder, and out of my arm, and it was a terrible feeling.

After that she had to take a sponge with alcohol and it hurt so bad I almost cried. She told me to make sure I kept it covered because it could get infected and I could die from that.

Basically what I am saying is no matter how hard or boring it is, you have to take care of your diabetes or really bad things could happen like they did to me. Believe me, it is the worst feeling to go through.

I learned from the mistake that I made and now every day I do exactly what I’m supposed to do so that doesn’t happen again.
My advice to you is to never give up and always stay on top of your diabetic stuff because I don’t want anybody to go through what I had to go through.

It’s not worth the struggle and the pain that can happen.

CHELSY HISLE age diagnosed: 7

Biggest daily challenge: Handling sugar spikes when they happen for no reason.

Biggest misconception about T1D: That Type One Diabetes is caused by eating too much sugar. When you have Type Two Diabetes your pancreas cannot keep up with your sugar intake and produce enough insulin. When you’re a Type One Diabetic your pancreas just stops producing insulin all together.

What I have learned from this experience: That Type One Diabetes can be hard to handle but with the right education, management, and support system you can handle it.

REBECCA EAVES age diagnosed: 11

Biggest daily challenge: My biggest challenge is remembering to check my blood sugar.

Biggest misconception about T1D: People think I can only eat sugar free foods.

What I have learned from this experience: Diet Pepsi is the best thing ever invented.

LAUREN PALMER age diagnosed: 11

Biggest daily challenge: Losing sleep. Every night I wake up around 2 a.m. to check my blood sugar. Some nights I lose up to an hour of sleep trying to get my blood sugar back in range.

Biggest misconception about T1D: That my insulin pump is a pager. It’s 2017 and I’m a high school senior, why would I need a pager. Also that my insulin pump is something dangerous. Every time I go through Airport security my pump gets checked for bomb residue.

What I have learned from this experience: Faced against adversity, people come together. I’ve met some of my best friends through diabetes events. If we didn’t have diabetes we wouldn’t have met.