Allison's Story: Deal with It

It's hard to remember what happened when I learned that I had diabetes, considering it was 6 years ago and I can hardly remember events that happened 6 minutes ago. I'm thirteen right now and in the 7th grade. I can remember sitting on some lady's lap and being told that I would have to get injections every day for the rest of my life after she poked a syringe in my arm. I think that I was too young to understand what was really going on, and it didn't occur to me that I had a disease that would affect everything I did for the rest of my life. I don't even remember feeling the syringe in my skin, just that it happened. My younger sister remembers more than I do.

I think that is was easier to be diagnosed when I was 6 because I was to young to manage it by myself. After a few years, I became more independent and didn't have to call home from school at lunch time if I had a high blood sugar. It's most definitely harder to deal with diabetes when you are 13. You want to become independent, kind of irresponsible and carefree but diabetes holds you back when other people are moving on. Around others, I feel kind of inferior. It's just this unexplainable feeling you get when you know everyone else around you doesn't have to deal with the everyday problems that you do. Even when I'm around people with the same or close to the same problem, it takes a while for my mind to click into the fact that, duuuhh, we're all the same here.

Of course, having something different than everyone else gives you a chance to look at life differently. Diabetes really has not given me a life-death experience like it has for others, but you can still look at life and live it for what it's worth. I don't think that diabetes could really ever kill me, but it could change my life so quickly that living wouldn't seem worth it.

You feel this kind of maturity for the way you look at things, which is easy to say about others with similar problems. You can look at petty things that other people are worrying about and scream "Shut up!" without feeling guilt.

Trying to tell people what it's like to live with a disease doesn't work because you really can't understand the difference unless you know what it's like to live without one. And I don't remember how it was to not have a disease. There's probably an extreme difference, but as far as I'm concerned, since I can't remember, I would rather not have to think about it. I just want to keep living whether or not I am inferior to everyone else I know.

My family has always been very supportive and helped me learn about my disease so that I can deal with it by myself. Of course, having diabetes also makes my family more protective of me than a lot of my friends' parents are of them, which is a real drag sometimes when I want my freedom. I have always basically been very good about managing myself and I don't understand why I'm still hovered over like a sick animal. Of course I should also show gratitude for my family being so supportive and all. They understand that living with a disease is difficult, and they do their best to make it as easy as possible for me.

If I sit around and think about it, diabetes isn't that bad, but you have to have a positive attitude to understand that. You can spend your whole life wishing for your illness to go away, or you can continue to live with it as if it was a side effect from the pill of life.