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A Life with Diabetes 
A cotton candy moment before Melissa changed her attitude toward diabetes.
When I was a little kid, my mom tells me I used to put sugar on everything. Extra sugar on my Frosted Flakes, powdered sugar with maple syrup on my French toast, even sugar on my white rice. I loved sugar, and for 14 glorious years I ate sugar without consequence. I wasn't overweight, I didn't have attention deficit problems; I was just an average girl ... who had a good strong sweet tooth. But in the fall of 1986 my sugar-filled, care-free life changed forever. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. In 1986 I guess I was an average junior high school student. I was a lanky, energetic, know-it-all girl who wore parachute pants and listened to A-ha. However, at the beginning of 7th grade I started feeling tired all the time, got a lot of headaches, and was always thirsty. I don't mean "I could use a glass of water" kind of thirsty. I mean "I just ran a marathon and will need that entire cooler of water bottles to start, while someone goes to the store and buys me more" kind of thirsty. Not surprisingly, I was also going to the bathroom all the time - countless times during the day and at least three or four times in one night. However, due to my history of faking illness to avoid school and the fact that most parents don't consider "thirsty" a sickness, my mother continued to send me to school rather than sending me to the doctor. So I went on with my life as normal, normal as I could anyway. That year, like the year before, I wanted to be on the school swim team. Like the last year, we were all required to get a physical at school before starting our tryouts. First step, pee in cup, wait in line, and go in to talk to the doctor. I watched each of my friends follow this protocol and all was moving along smoothly -- that is, until they got to me. I walked in the smelly locker-room-turned-doctor's-office and knew something was up. He looked at me, then the chart, and said, "You have glucose in your urine. Go home and tell your mother you need to go to the doctor." With this confusing information, I went home and reported the event to my mother. She laughed, thinking that her young, seemingly healthy daughter couldn't possibly have a disease. The next day, we went to our family doctor, and that very night, I was in the hospital, diagnosed with diabetes. |
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 A Life with Diabetes: The Archive
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The Diagnosis
