Griff's Story: Unwanted Responsibilities-My "New" Lifestyle

Hi, my name is Griff, and I'm 16 years-old and a sophomore in high school. A few years ago, when I was 13, I was very active in a lot of sports. I played hockey and I mountain biked a lot. I skied and snowboarded and basically did anything that could cause me pain if I fell. And as I was going through my hockey season that winter, I started to lose my edge. I began to lose a lot of weight. A couple of my teammates noticed it, but my parents and I weren't worried because we just thought that I was growing taller faster than I was gaining weight.

But as the season progressed, I started falling a lot more on the ice and I eventually started leaving practices early. I was probably drinking about three gallons of water a day. I could come home and literally swig down a liter of water in about 20 seconds. If you've ever stayed up for 20 or 30 hours straight you know the feeling of absolute exhaustion. I was feeling that way 24/7. The weekend before I was diagnosed, I slept on a Saturday, and I NEVER sleep during the day. Towards the end of the hockey season, it was getting near spring and things were starting to melt, and I was anxious to get out on my bike. I was going out by myself and as I rode on the trail, all of my muscles stiffened at once. I fell off my bike and couldn't move for about 30 seconds, and when I stood up my muscles seized again. When this episode was over, I leaned on my bike and hobbled home. When I got back, the cramps had gone away, so we didn't go to the hospital.

Then the next day, my mom came upstairs to wake me up for school, and as soon as she woke me up I had cramps all over my body once more. I couldn't move, and at that point my mom was so worried that she forced me to go to the doctor.

When we got there, I had a blood test and it turned out I had juvenile diabetes, a disease in which the pancreas doesn't produce insulin, which you need to keep the sugar

in your blood at a normal level. The way to control diabetes is to give yourself insulin injections. But they didn't tell me this right away. I didn't even know I had it for awhile, because it took over an hour to get the test results. In the meantime, my parents took me to a restaurant and I got an ice cream- a big ice cream. And even though my parents didn't tell me what was happening and that I probably had diabetes, I knew. So I told my parents, "if there's one thing I'm going to have before I go through this, it's an ice cream- a guilt-free ice cream." And when I got back they said that my blood sugar level was at 800, and that this was over 8 times the normal count. It was so high because I wasn't making any insulin to keep it down. The high blood sugar explained why I was feeling so sick. So I was going to have to be in the hospital for the next three days, and was going to have to miss school (which was a plus for me!).

The first insulin that I ever took, I injected myself. I never in my entire life have liked anyone doing anything for me, and this includes shots. I figured I would have to do them eventually, so I might as well do the first one.

My mom cried when I was diagnosed, and surprisingly, my father was upset too. The whole thing was slightly unusual, because I was the only person in my family to get diabetes. There were signs on each side of the family, but no clear diagnoses. My mom always tells me that if there's anyone in the family that would be good at handling this disease, it is I, because none of my sisters could handle it!

Since the time of my diagnosis, I have come to terms with being diabetic, although there are some things I can't do and some things I'll never be able to do. Really, it's not as bad as a lot of people think! Some people come up to me and say, "How can you DO that?" when I give myself a shot. My response is always the same: you'd be amazed at what you do if you knew you'd die if you didn't. And there are a lot worse things I could have.