Valerie's Story: Living With Diabetes

Hi! I'm Valerie. I am almost 13-years-old and I live in New Hampshire and am in the seventh grade. School is important to me and I am a good student. I am very interested and active in sports. I like basketball, softball, field hockey, and I like to play the drums. I also like to go camping and jump on our trampoline.

It all started out when I was eight years-old and in third grade. I kept complaining to my teacher because some days I could see the chalkboard and some days I couldn't. I also had to go to the bathroom a lot and remember riding on a Brownie float in the Winter Carnival parade and crying because I had to go to the bathroom so bad! Shortly after that, I was skiing at Mount Sunapee and every time I took a run down the mountain slope I wanted to go inside the lodge to get a drink of water. My grandparents came to watch me ski that day along with my mom and dad, and they all wanted me to go down the slope one more time but I was too thirsty and tired. In fact, I was so tired I laid right down in the snowbank to rest. I didn't have the energy to move. That's when my mom suspected something was not right.

My symptoms of thirst, tiredness, and the need to always go to the bathroom continued over the next few days. I was even getting up many times in the middle of the night. So my mother, who is a teacher at the school, discussed this with the school nurse who then told me to get on the scale. I had lost over seven pounds in just a couple of months, another symptom of diabetes. It so happened that our school principal was also a diabetic so she brought in some urine test strips the next day for me to use. The results showed that I had a high glucose level as well as large ketones. Then she told my mom to call my pediatrician right away.

That afternoon the doctor examined me and asked me questions and did another urine test and confirmed the nurse's suspicions. With tears in his eyes, the doctor told me he had good news and bad news. The bad news was that I had juvenile diabetes, or Type I diabetes, and it would never go away.

Then he said the good news was that it was treatable. He sent me to the local hospital and they drew some blood and once again, there was no doubt I had diabetes.

I came right home that Thursday night, February 16, 1994, to pack for the hospital. On my bureau was the heart-shaped box of chocolates my parents had given me for Valentine's Day a few days before. I carried them into my mom's room where she was packing her clothes to go with me to the hospital and I told her I wouldn't be needing the candies anymore.

I don't remember the ride to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital because I slept most of the way. I had to go to the Emergency Room to be admitted and shortly after I arrived I was given a room on the third floor because there was no room in pediatrics.

The doctors and nurses there were very friendly and helpful. They enjoyed having me as a patient because I was the only child on the floor! They taught us about the disease, caused by having a pancreas that no longer produces any insulin, which causes glucose or sugar levels in the blood to rise and fall. They showed my parents and I how to test my blood and draw up my shots, and ever since then, I have been doing my own testing and injections. They explained to us what to do and what not to do, and also what to do in case of an emergency, like a very low blood sugar. I think I was more upset that I had to miss a planned trip to Disney on Ice in Boston because I had to stay in the hospital over February vacation than I was about finding out that I had diabetes.

Over four years later, I do not look different or feel different than other kids my age. I do have to take three shots a day and always be careful of what I eat and when. I also need to keep my diabetes supplies and extra food with me all the time. I go four times a year to clinic at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center to meet with the doctors and to attend a support group for other diabetics my own age. I truly feel that diabetes really has not changed my life. I can do anything I want to, and I do. I just have to plan a little more.