I grew up in the cornfields of Wisconsin, just on the edge of rural society. I had passed through those cornfields countless times. I loved how they looked in the spring, truly golden in the daytime sun. This time, on May 2nd, 2016, I truly wasn’t paying attention. I was in the backseat of my family’s car, just wanting to go back to sleep. I was 11, and my parents and I were taking a trip to see a doctor because I had been sickly and low energy for days, and it was only getting worse. I was so tired that I remember that I asked my parents if I could unbuckle to lay down and take a nap. It was past noon. I had already slept over 10 hours the night before. After a bit of bickering, my parents were worried enough they let me sleep on the way there.
When I finally heard the rumbling stop, and felt the blazing sun on my eyelids, I was offered a wheelchair just to get from the entrance to the doctor’s office. I am proud, usually to a fault, but I was so hazy that I immediately said yes. My dad was mystified, he almost didn’t let me get into the wheelchair because he thought I was being dramatic. I was an athlete, he knew I could stand. My mom talked him out of it, realizing that I was having so much trouble. Recently, the distance from my room to the car and the car to the hospital entrance was about as much as a full day’s worth of movement for me.
The hospital was oddly devoid of life and movement. When I was carted to the doctor’s office, I remember just sitting totally still (a first), wanting to go home. When the doctor finally came in, my family spoke for me, telling them everything that had been going on.
The past few days had been weird. In fact, the previous few months I had been a little low energy, but the past week had really started to get worse. I went to take your kid to work day with my mom and complained the whole time about having to walk so much. The day after, at my soccer practice, I threw up from a pain in my ear. We had been to the doctor twice already, and they were convinced I had an ear infection. This time, though, it was clearly more than that. I had lost over 15 pounds in 5 days. Almost immediately, the doctor asked the nurse for something, and returned with a small rounded rectangular device. I held my hand out in a haze, and felt a poke on my finger, with some urgent “milking” of my finger, which is an odd feeling the first time. There were a few beeps, and then the doctor frowned down at the weird rectangular device. “Yeah, it’s diabetes.”
I was speechless and confused. My father was the first to respond. “Are you sure?”
“It’s very likely.”
I was in disbelief. It didn’t make any sense. Diabetes was for out of shape people, right? I was a competitive swimmer and soccer player, how could I have it? The rest of the night was a blur. I was carted in and out of an ambulance. People inserted all kinds of tubes into me. When we were entering the Children’s Hospital, I remember one ambulance technician telling me over and over to stay awake so they wouldn’t put me in intensive care. I stayed awake. Or so I thought.
My next memory is waking up some 15 hours later. I was in a new room full of pastel colors, and I had somehow gotten into a hospital gown.
Growing up T1D 