Diabetes-Vanity.

I have never been the kind of girl to roll out of bed, brush my hair, put something on, and be ready to go in 5 minutes.

I feel gross when I don't take a shower in the morning, brush my teeth, and make myself look presentable.

I have always taken pride in appearing neat and well-put together. Rarely will you find a day when I don't smell good and have my hair done at least decently.

I always, always wash my face and take great care to manage my skin.

I like to wear makeup in public, as I think that for women it is professional to do so and shows that you go the little extra mile to look good and take care of what you look like.

I will admit it, because I'm being very honest these days:

I am very vain about my appearance.

Last week when I got into the hospital, it was a bit of a routine-shock to me.

It was the least of my worries, I didn't even think about it -

But I possessed no soap, no skin lotion, no makeup, no blowdryer, not even a hair elastic.

I probably looked terrible, as I was completely unkempt and in the hospital.

But for the first time in a long time, I didn't care.

My first day in the ICU, and my mom brushed my hair and gave me a hairband.

That was a big deal.

The rest of the week I would take a shower with the one kind of soap I was provided, brush my hair, put it in a hairband, and be ready to go.

In a way, it was refreshing.

I enjoyed my week without worrying about my skin, my hair, my makeup, my appearance.

It was like a bit of freedom.

No one expected me to look pretty or even look good, for that matter.

But despite that, it was a boost to my self confidence because it gave me time to remember that appearance doesn't make the person.

That there are so many more important things.

I would stare in the mirror for a few brief seconds at the hospital, looking at a girl I barely recognized.

Fresh-faced, young-looking for her age. Too skinny; at only 99 pounds now, I looked practically emaciated. Bruised from IV's and illness, covered in red-tipped pinpricks. Mousy hair, chapped lips, sad eyes. A blemish on my chin, a scar above my right eyebrow. Band-aids lining both my arms.

Sometimes it takes courage to face who you really look like, who you truly are behind the makeup, the fancy clothes, the confidence you wear like an accessory; only to take it all off at the end of the day.

This was me, at my worst, facing my imperfections.

And it's funny.

I would gladly give up wearing makeup or looking pretty or even caring about my appearance, for the rest of my life, if only I could be healthy again.

It's funny how easily your priorities are realigned.

Nowadays I find the one thing I am particularly vain about is no longer my appearance. I care less about makeup and nice clothes and doing my hair. I care less about following a militarily-precise skin care regimen or that my teeth are two shades less white than I'd like them to be. I see the minuscule laugh lines around my mouth, the creases on my forehead, the lines under my eyes; signs to remind me that I, too, will age someday and lose the beauty of youth that I still possess.

I exercise now, and it is not merely because I want to look nice in a bikini.

It is because I want to live long, be healthy, and control diabetes; NOT let it control me.

No, the one thing I am vain about is my diabetes itself.

Every time I hear someone say I have diabetes or ask me if I have diabetes, I always specify after the word diabetes: Type 1.

Not Type II.

This was not my fault, this was not my lifestyle that caused me to incur this illness. I was born this way. I cannot help it.

I worry about things such as ever getting an insulin pump because of what people might think when I go to beach, or go swimming with a computer attached to my bathing suit. "What the hell is that?" They might ask.

Or what the waiter thinks when I order from the menu, my nutrition book in hand; I can imagine them saying to themselves, "what a snob!"

Or what people think when I now specify: diet or sugar free, please. "She's too young to be worrying about her figure," I imagine them thinking.

I am not free of vanity, and I doubt I ever will be.

So I still try and look nice, well-put together, pretty.

I still try to manage my life as if it were perfectly normal, as if pretending will give me back what I have lost, or at least make me forget.

I try to make people see that I, too, am a normal teenage - almost-adult - girl. That I have the same capabilities as anyone going off to college, that I can manage the same schedule that they can despite the full-time-job-without-pay I now have of managing my Diabetes, Type I.

I am still human, I am still imperfect, I still possess vanity.

But it is incorrect to say I have not changed.

Never again will I take things for granted, never will I forget what a blessing it was once to be able to be normal.

I hope I will live long, I hope I will one day be able to look back on my life and say: "Wow. That was all worth it."

It's going to be hard, it's going to be a struggle.

But I hope that Diabetes will at least teach me how much life really means.

I have Diabetes, but it will not beat me.

It shapes me, it changes me.

But it does not, will not, ever define me.