For 16 years of my life I’ve been living with type 1 diabetes. Because I was diagnosed at such a young age, I had a difficult time accepting it when I reached my adolescent years. So for almost 10 years I was what the doctors described as being “non-compliant”. I never knew how to accept something I didn’t want in the first place. For years I did the bare minimum to stay alive. I rarely ever checked my blood sugars and on average only took 1 shot a day. I referred to myself as being a “walking dead woman”.
When I turned 21, I met the person who could finally get through to me and show me that life isn’t that bad, even with diabetes. My A1c went from a 16 to a 9 in a little under a year. It seemed like everything was actually beginning to feel normal until one day I woke up and couldn’t see. I went to a retina specialist and was told the words that will change my life forever. I’m blind in my right eye and the damage cannot be reversed, due to poor circulation. For a few weeks, I was so depressed I didn’t even want to get out of bed until I decided that the only way to get through this was to get out and be proactive.
My goal in life is to work with young children who are going through the same things I went through and to show them that they are not alone. To be able to work with them and know exactly where they’re coming because I can reach them on a personal level because I’ve been there.
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