Nora's Post #1: My Life

I wrote about Nora applying for JDRF's Children's Congress and some of the questions she has to answer you can read about it HERE. With her busy school/sport schedule we decided to break the questions down one at a time and then compile her answers into one long essay. However, that means multiple posts for you to view. With her permission here is HER answer to "Tell us your personal story living with T1D":

My Life

            It all started June 13, 2005. Why am I in a hospital? What is diabetes? Why are the doctors and nurses poking me with a needle? Why are people giving me all this attention? I didn’t get it. At four-years-old I had a LOTof questions and even some of the questions haven’t even been answered. I didn’t really know that there weren’t many four year olds without diabetes. I thought that everyone went through what I was going through like taking shots every time you eat and every time you blood sugar is high or drinking an apple juice when you blood sugar is low. I wish I still had the confidence I had when I was little. When I was seven I got the Medtronic Mini Med pump. I was so happy that I didn’t have to take shots anymore but to be honest, I had no clue what a pump was. Why was this purple thing attached to my stomach? This is when I started to feel “different”. Now at the age of almost twelve I know there are a ton of people my age that judge others. They shouldn’t, they shouldn’t at all. It’s just another way of pointing out the obvious that you wish you could change. I have to wake up in the morning check my blood glucose, eat breakfast, and plug my carbohydrates into my insulin pump (I have to do this every time I eat). At nine-o-clock I have to take my blood glucose and treat for it if it’s high or low. I have to check it AGAIN before lunch but I don’t treat for my blood sugar. Than after I eat lunch I correct for my food. At three-o-clock I have to test my blood glucose and treat for it and I do the same EVERY three hours. I also test when I don’t feel good which is plenty times a day. Did I tell you that during all this I am either in school or playing sports? Well it’s true. I am very active; I play basketball, softball, volleyball, and track. It’s so hard for me to stop playing whatever sport I’m doing at the time and test my blood glucose if I don’t feel very good. The number one question or being told from the referees or umpires is “What’s that thing around your waist” or “What is that,” pointing to my emergency alert bracelet or “You have to take that off” pointing to my pump or bracelet. It gets annoying, really annoying actually but, does that stop me from playing sports, NO! Now believe it or not I’m not the only person in my family that has T1D! My eighteen-year-old sister just got diagnosed this last summer. I busted out into tears once my dad told me. It was kind of weird because I got a flash back to when I was in the hospital. I felt like my life was just going to come to an end. I’m just happy it didn’t! So now my sister and I have diabetes and my little four-year-old brother has a bleeding disorder called hemophilia. Hemophilia is a disease in which if you start to bleed or get a bruise you cannot stop bleeding until you get a special type of medicine. I just pray and pray over and over again that he doesn’t get a bleed. I wish both diseases didn’t exist! I may be different but I can do everything you can do.