My Story

I was living in Guam when I was 13. We'd just moved there and I didn't think I'd like it because it was so different from where I'd previously lived. It was around the end of July when we moved there and I was doing fine. We lived in a hotel for a little while and I was still unhappy, but fine. Finally we moved into a three story duplex and I got my own room and my own bathroom, which made me a bit excited to be there. I figured it would be a new school, a new impression I had to make, it wouldn't be that hard because I was starting the first day of school and I already had a friend through another friend I'd been talking to. This is when I started to get sick.

I started to lose weight rapidly and wasn't hungry anymore. I was always tired and I was always thirsty. My mom and I figured it was the change in temperature and a bit of depression mixed in with that. I had an appointment for August 28th just in case it wasn't just that. I was still losing weight and I was not able to hold any food down. My body was rejecting all food other than mashed potatoes and tums.

It was the first day of school when we finally went to the E.R..We had just got a new puppy, along with new neighbors and she was my puppy. So it was 4 in the morning and I had to get up with her to take her to potty. I let her out and stood on the concrete waiting for her to come inside when I really needed some water. So I got a cup and drank some. It made me nauseated. I didn't think anything of it because that was how I felt all the time until I couldn't walk up the stairs. Breathing was hard and I had to go up three flights of stairs.

My mom took me to the E.R. and left my siblings with my neighbor down the street. There I was diagnosed with type one diabetes, who was also going through DKA. We were told if we had waited any longer that my body would've started to shut down. This is a scary thought to anyone, but it terrified me as a 13 year old. I had to fly to Hawaii to go see an endocrinologist and a few months later, we moved back to the states.

And that is my story.