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List of Lessons

I love to learn. Which is why I love school. Truly I don’t know what I’ll do when I graduate. I love to seek out and learn new things constantly.

But school is not the only place I learn. I learn at home, I learn online, I learn from movies, books, TV, and people I talk to. But there is one thing in my life that I have learned from more than any of those listed above.

Diabetes. Diabetes has taught me endless lessons about life. I had to learn to grow when I was diagnosed at 8 years old, along with every child who has been diagnosed with D at a young age. That wasn’t where the learning stopped.

Below is a list of what I have learned from Diabetes in the 12.5 years I have been living with D.

Being “high” has more than one meaning.
Just getting out of bed late can completely throw my body off.
Weird looks come from patrons of McDonald’s when your Mom orders you a happy meal with a diet soda. (Well when I was growing up it was weird anyway)
Candy can have more uses than just rotting my teeth. It can save my life.
Yes I can have cake, ice cream, soda, doughnuts, candy, muffins, and other various sugar filled items.
The smell of insulin is a very unique smell.
When you’re in 3rd grade and you’re testing your blood glucose level, EVERYONE wants to test.
Diabetes camp is AWESOME!
The connection between two people with diabetes is a pretty cool experience.
Carbohydrate counting is not just for crazy fad diets.
Low blood sugars always show up at the most annoying times.
Believe it or not I don’t want to know about your Great Aunt’s Diabetes complications.
There should be a Hogwarts esque school where only People with Diabetes attend. We could do our magic with sugar and insulin. (Yes, I have given this much thought. Don’t judge me)
Diabetes is an invisible disease but that doesn’t mean it NEEDS to be hidden. It’s okay to take an injection in public and its okay to test my blood sugar at the lunch table.
Kids can be mean, and words can hurt.
Insulin can freeze in the refrigerator.
Substitute teachers sometimes don’t want to believe that I need to leave class right NOW to take care of my diabetes.
Not everyone knows everything about diabetes. I must be patient.
Yelling at someone for incorrect diabetes information solves nothing.
High blood sugars make me grouchy.
Getting out of bed while low is much more difficult than it needs to be.
Getting independence from parents is really cool and also really nerve racking.
Walking down stairs can drop a blood sugar faster than walking a mile.
Puppies like to chew on insulin pump set tubing while sleeping is occurring.
Insulin Pumps love doorknobs. They love them so much that at any and every point the insulin pump will jump toward said doorknob.
Driving while low is not good.
Creativity must be used when finding a location for an Insulin Pump in a prom dress.
Dogs can sense when something is wrong. I knew one dog that saved a life.
I am afraid of my mother and sister having lows and I am not there to help.
Low blood sugars that are not my own genuinely scare me.
While low I feel that if I ask for help I failed.
Some of my closest friends are from the diabetes community. (Online and off)

I will be making a blog post about everything on this list. I don’t know when. I don’t yet have these posts written, or even thought out. But I will be working on sharing these stories.

Diabetes has been a very large and important thing in my life, which is why this list is very large.

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13 January 2012 ·