This November, National Diabetes Month will be observed to bring awareness to those living with Type One or Type Two Diabetes. Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease in which a person's pancreas stops producing insulin, a hormone that enables people to get energy from food. It occurs when the body's immune system attacks and destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, called beta cells. While its causes are not yet entirely understood, scientists believe that both genetic factors and environmental triggers are involved. Its onset has nothing to do with diet or lifestyle. There is nothing you can do to prevent T1D and no cure. Approximately 1.25 million Americans live with T1D. Type One is one of the world’s oldest, deadliest, and most pervasive diseases. It affects everyone from babies to adults. It doesn’t care how old you are if you are otherwise healthy, your social status, anything. It can and does affect anyone. People with diabetes want to be understood. They want people to care, and I know this because my best friend has Type One, and I watch her every day try to kick its ass. Sami was diagnosed December 26, 2006, at age 9. She will celebrate her 10th "diaversary" this December. She spent her 4th grade Christmas break in the hospital and has had hundreds of appointments and stays there since.
What makes me the most upset is that my best friend never gets a break from this horrible, complex, unrelenting disease. It is a disease without a rule book that you have to figure out all on your own. I don’t even understand the disease. I do try, and my friend knows that, but it is truly so confusing. I wish I could take it away after seeing what my friend goes through on a daily basis.
Whenever we want to leave the house, she has to make sure that she has her short acting insulin that needs to be injected into her body every time she eats or drinks, or has high blood sugar. (Type One diabetics try to keep their levels between 80 and 150 mg/dl. Those without diabetes have their blood sugar naturally regulated by their pancreas and liver between 70 and 120.) Every evening before bed she has to make sure to take a long-acting form of insulin to keep her levels steady during the next 24 hours. A lot of the time her blood sugars fluctuate and she has to end up sliding herself down the stairs to her kitchen and back up to have a 4 am picnic in her room to treat her low blood sugar with juice or another carbohydrate. Or she has to wake up and inject more insulin if she feels or tests that her blood sugar is high. Just think about how many needles are pricking the skin. Way too many and sometimes she pricks her finger multiple times to get enough blood for the test strip. I never tell her this, but whenever we go anywhere, there is always a fear in the back of my head that she is going to pass out at any second and it’s scary. I can’t even imagine how she feels. I am someone who has a huge phobia of needles, but I know that I would never hesitate to stick her with one if she needed it. I might scream, cry, and throw up but I would get that s**t done because she’s my best friend and it is always a life or death situation.
Sami tells me how hard it is that no one understands what it is like to Live with Type One but a person also living with Type One. She got an insulin pump this July and has had so many ups and downs with it. Some think insulin pumps make managing Type One easier, but they are just as much work. One time she told me that she ripped it off and chucked it at the wall our of frustration. She is learning and working every day to understand and control an uncontrollable disease. I hope that my best friend knows just how I honestly do try to understand her disease. How proud I am of her and just how excited I am that she has taken steps to manage her disease better.
People don’t understand or truly even know about it. One of the most common things people say about diabetes is that “it could be much worse.” Of course, there is always something in life that can be worse. However, that statement is utterly heartless. Just because something in someone’s life could be worse doesn’t mean that their struggle is any less. People with Type One have to fight every single day for their health. There are complications big and small. Those who don't understand Type One think blindness and amputations. But headaches from high blood sugars and depression from carrying the weight of a life-threatening illness are much more widespread. Then there is always the horrible risk of seizures, comas, diabetic ketoacidosis, or even death. My best friend had been in diabetic ketoacidosis (when the body produces acidic blood and organs start to shut down) 15 times. She spent 3 of those unconscious in the ICU. People with Type One are always walking a tightrope and have absolutely no idea how they are going to be feeling in an hour, much less the next week or year. Being trapped in a body of a prison is the way to describe living with T1. Your body is trying so hard to attack itself and the only way to stop it is by hundreds of finger pricks and injections into the skin, per week!
It physically pains me when my best friend tells me about things that occur in her daily life. The comments/opinions/remarks in which she receives from people. There are days where she has multiple doctors’ appointments that she NEEDS to go to and she gets so much crap for it, making her and me so upset and hurt. People with life-threatening diseases and compromised immune systems clearly need more frequent and longer appointments than those who do not so don’t give people s**t for coming into work late, leaving early or taking a day off when you don’t understand what is going on in their life. Sami's body can not fight off illnesses of any kind, and what an average person would need some rest for lands her in the hospital. I can guarantee you that these people aren’t taking the day off to relax by the lake and read a book. (Though Sami wishes she was!)Overall, loving someone with diabetes is making sure that they are okay at all times, even if asking "Do you feel ok?" gets annoying to them. Loving someone with diabetes is knowing the smell of insulin. (It smells unpleasant, like hospital medicine.) Loving someone with diabetes is going to 24/7 pharmacies at 2 in the morning, checking carb counts at restaurants when her phone is dead, and skipping school to drive her supplies and insulin 45 minutes to her work because her pump site came out. It also involves lots and lots, and LOTS of worrying. Loving someone with diabetes is donating to organizations and hoping that they do everything in their power to find a cure or even just a better solution than what is available now. I love someone with diabetes, and everything we go through is worth it because it means that she is here with me today, being my best friend.
Supplies for diabetes costs hundreds of dollars a month for the rest of the patient’s life. It isn’t just a vial of insulin; people require multiple. Not only do you need insulin but syringes, lancets, test strips, pumps, including things insurance doesn't cover. Apple juice, glucose tabs, adhesive tape, alcohol swabs, and more. My best friend is one of the lucky ones and has excellent insurance coverage. Without her insurance, her prescriptions would cost about $4,000 a month which is insane. That is more than double her income. Some people are not as lucky and do not have insurance that covers what they need resulting in them having to buy black market supplies for themselves or their children, or do not to get anything at all. There are so many people who die because they don’t have insulin. It’s not fair. I want to help change that, and I hope there are others out there who do too because something in the system needs to change and it needs to change before even more people lose their lives because of it.
This is my best friend Sami, and she kicks Type 1 Diabetes' a** every day.
You can donate to several diabetes foundations at these links which are helping to find a cure and new techniques to control diabetes:
Beyond Type 1 - A non-profit co-founded by Nick Jonas working to change the T1D landscape. https://beyondtype1.org/revlonandbeyond-million-do...
Kisses for Kycie - An non-profit organization created to help bring awareness about the dangers of type 1 diabetes by sharing its signs and symptoms. http://www.kissesforkycie.com/donate/
American Diabetes Association-https://donations.diabetes.org/site/Donation2?1904...
Juvinile Diabetes Research Foundation -https://www2.jdrf.org/site/Donation2?2376.donation=form1&df_id=2376&s_src=adwordsPaidDiabetesFoundation&s_subsrc=buttonHero
Insulin For Life-http://ifl-usa.org/donate-now/
