My strappy, expensive size 0 black dress that my mother had bought for me from Black House White Market back in November 2010 for my Tri Beta induction ceremony was sliding down my chest. I pulled it up and pushed out my chest to keep it in place. Well, it wasn't ideal, but I think it would stay on that way - as long as I kept adjusting.
It was March 2011 now, and one of my friends was celebrating her sweet 16.
My makeup wasn't done yet and my gold hair was haphazardly messy in layers of curlers. My eyelashes were long but fair; my skin was clear. I felt plain. Not stunning, but ok. I was in curlers after all. Normal: this was the face I knew, the face I belonged to. This was my body, though I was confused as to how my dress had gotten so large in just the span on a few short months.
I finished my makeup, putting it on with care and took my hair out of the curlers. I put on perfume. I went and I danced and I had an incredible time. There was a photographer snapping pictures before we all started dancing. I shied away from him at first.
"I don't like people taking photographs of me," I said.
"Are you kidding?" One of the girls said. I pursed my lips. I always felt shy, like they wouldn't turn out well. I felt pretty enough, I just didn't recognize myself in pictures - it didn't seem like me, was weird.
But at my friend Melinda's beckoning, I was pushed up the line and the photographer snapped a few.
That was one of the first times I'd noticed my body slightly differently in those months. In fact, a string of weird things started to occur. None of which I paid much attention to.
In March after the dance I got sick with the flu for a few days, and it was miserable. I had to take a few days off of running (I went fairly regularly back then) to recuperate even when I was well enough to crawl out of bed. I was thirsty all of the time - and I don't mean just passively thirsty. I would get so desperately in thirst that I would run to the fridge and just spend a solid five or ten minutes just filling and emptying my water cup. Then at night, I'd do it too.
I was hungry all the time. No matter what I ate, I just couldn't get enough food.
I would get up three times in an hour sometime to use the restroom, and 3 or 4 times a night to use the restroom. I hadn't had a period for 4 months by the time April rolled around, and although I was worried I didn't voice anything. I had usually been irregular in the past, anyways.
But I didn't notice the weight. You would think that's impossible - stupid, even - but as I literally shrank over 15-20 pounds in just the course of a few months, I didn't notice that my clothes were big. Thought people were just being "nice" when they said, "Oh my gosh, you're so skinny!"I didn't think I was that skinny, I felt the same way I always did, and besides, I'd always been reasonably slim.
I didn't think much of the fact that I was running one day and collapsed on the track for no reason except for weakness.
Maybe not noticing it was the wrong way to put it. But I didn't spare a thought to it, didn't take the time.
And then April 4th, 2011 my life changed, and suddenly all the puzzle pieces of why I had felt the way I did fell into place.
The weight loss.
The constant restroom breaks.
The stomach pains, the insatiable thirst, the weakness, the strange taste in my mouth.
But I didn't know, couldn't know, that it was Diabetes, because it was a world I had never even considered. A world I didn't know, and didn't understand.
This world became the world I lived and breathed over night. I never asked for it - never considered it, until it was there, right there in front of me.
And suddenly I was an 89 pound, 12-year-old looking girl in the hospital asking a nurse what it meant to have Diabetes, and crying when two nurses stood on both sides of her and injected insulin into both of her arms.
This is what I'm reflecting on today - these flashbacks.
And am I sad? Yes, because part of my life was taken from me, and even were I ever healed, I would never have it back.
The sadness is when I see the bruises on my legs, or fresh blood from an injection accidentally flows out and stains my clothes.
The sadness is when somebody asks me if it still hurts.
The sadness is when I look in the fridge and see only 9 boxes of Humalog left - a dwindling supply that was supposed to last me the next two years.
But with sadness, there is hope. And happiness.
The ability to share my story.
The ability to have this blog, my shining hope and joy amidst this disease - the reason I've been able to turn my story around from a sad one, to a good one.
The future book I will write, and am writing now.
The underlying hope that even if I am never cured, I will not let this disease steal the joy I have for life or my ability to live like a normal person.
The ability to have experiences that lead me to other Diabetics just like me - out of the blue, in places like comic book shops and seeing an insulin pump on a girl's belt at swing dancing.
It's a steep price to pay, and yes, I have to dig deep to find the bright sides sometimes.
But will I be alright? I will be. Because I push on, like I always have - one insulin shot at a time, one carb count at a time, one blog post at a time.
Yes, it's a steep price to pay, but I'll pay it.
Because this life is and always have been worth it.
Wow, you've told your diagnosis story so powerfully. Thank you for sharing. Mine was so long ago I don't remember much of it, and it's always interesting to me to hear the experiences of others. (Although, of course, I wish this never happened to you!!)
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