It's been 16 years today since I was diagnosed with a life changing illness, 16 years since I could eat without counting a carb or injecting myself with insulin, 16 years... I was 15...if you do the math that means more than half of my life has been spent poking and sticking and testing and bleeding...I can't believe I've been this way more than half of my life! I ran some numbers and with an average of 4 test strips a day (I know I'm underestimating especially now with 3 pregnancies and testing 8-10 times a day) I've used more than 23,360 test strips. With an average of 50 units of insulin a day (again I'm estimating, at the end of pregnancy I'm triple that a day at least) I've used more than 284,800 units of insulin. Since starting on a pump at 18, I've used an estimated 1581 infusion sets and reservoirs. My insurance company loves me…don't you think?
So, I was 15 years old and I had been going through some weird stuff. I kept telling my mom that my boobs were shrinking, which she laughed at of course. What 15 year old has incredible shrinking boobs (if I could figure out how to do that now I'd buy into it, definitely not the case today at 20 weeks pregnant!)...turns out I had lost about 15 pounds, which on a tall thin 15 year old was a lot and contributed to my shrinking boobs. I wasn't obsessed with weight at the time and didn't even realize it. I told her that I thought we should get my eyes checked, it was really weird but sometimes when I was walking down the hall at school people had this hazy fog around them...but it would come and go. She thought that was odd, but took note and told me we'd go see the eye doctor. I had never had vision problems, but it was a possibility. I had days where I couldn't focus, days where I studied and knew information for a test and got to class and blanked out. I had days where I wanted to do nothing but sleep and couldn't pin point what was wrong or why I felt bad, I just did. In those few months before diagnosis, I was so thirsty all of the time. I was proud of myself for drinking so much water, I craved it...there was nothing so delicious, and it's good for you! It made sense that I was getting up to pee 6 or 7 times a night because I was drinking gallons of water a day, there was nothing weird about that...right? Then I got a yeast infection...gross...I was 15 and thought this was the worst thing ever to happen to me (if only)...treated it and two weeks later I got another one. At this point my mom thought there must be something else going on, so she called the doctor and took me in. They did a pelvic; again, at 15 I thought this was the most horrible thing I had ever been through and again...if only...it got worse. They took a urine sample, came back in the room and asked what I'd had to eat or drink today. I told them we had a party at school, and I ate a cupcake and some punch, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary. They said I was spilling a lot of sugar in my urine and told my mom we should go get some blood work done immediately...and then they mentioned the word diabetes. My mom looked like she was going to choke. Her own mother had type 2 and had a lot of horrible complications which contributed to her death just 4 years prior to this, but that was really our only experience with diabetes. I felt great that day and thought there was probably some mistake. Nothing serious could be wrong with me, right? My mom knew otherwise. I'm sure she was thinking back over the past few months and realizing that I was showing all of these symptoms...she knew. So, we went and got our blood work done and went on home. That night I was jumping on the trampoline when my mom got a call from the doctor's office. They told her my blood sugar in the office that day was 875 and my 3 month average was 375, they had ordered the insulin, called the endocrinologist and wanted me in their office at 9AM the next morning. They said since I seemed okay today, they didn't think I would need to be hospitalized, unless there was any crazy turn over night, they said it's better to start dealing with this in real life if you can, and I seemed okay to do that. Congratulations Shannon, you have a diagnosis that you can never run away from-type 1 diabetes. My mom burst into tears and ran out of the house. I guess she didn't want to upset me knowing what I was being sentenced to. She went to her friend's house and came back a little later, and calmer. I was certain at that point that I was dying, but she told me otherwise. She was upset and the next few weeks would prove to be a trying time for sure, but she told me we could get through this, and we did...somehow.
The next morning was the day of the Oklahoma City bombing, we were getting ready to leave the house for my first injection and crash course on diabetes. The days that followed, our whole state was a mess and people were crying and suffering, digging through tons of rubble to try to find someone still alive. That day 168 lives were lost, and mine was changed forever for different reasons, I felt selfish worrying about myself in those moments…but I was. We went to the doctor and they did my first injection...in my stomach. I thought I was going to jump off the table when they told me that, and then it didn't hurt...I was amazed...and didn't want to try a new location for weeks for fear it would hurt in the arm or leg. Of course eventually I tried and it was fine. People told me they could never do that to themselves, but you'd be surprised what you will do to survive. People told my mom to be thankful her daughter wasn't buried under the building downtown. Of course she was glad for that, but we had to grieve our own loss at the same time. I was told it's like grieving the loss of a part of your body and it was. There were weeks of denial and anger, depression and fear, and eventually acceptance, but that took time. It was tough for sure. Funny, it's been 16 years and sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday. So, tomorrow while the country remembers the loss of those 168 people in Oklahoma City, a day no one will ever forget, I will also remember the loss of my little pancreas. It was good while it lasted. I had 15 years of fun with it, and have had 16 years of fun without it. Thanks to modern medicine I can get up everyday and lead a mostly normal life and for that I am grateful.
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