by Nina Erickson

Created on: November 04, 2008

November is National Diabetes week in the United States. Coincidentally, each fall I have an anniversary of sorts to celebrate, or at least acknowledge. This year my diabetes turned 31 years old. My diagnosis came in October, 1977, when I was 8 years old.

My favorite school picture of myself growing up was the one taken of my in the 3rd grade, because it doesn't look like me at all. My features that September were all sharp angles, and it is the only picture ever taken of me where I thought I looked kind of like a model. My mother, on the other hand, couldn't look at this photograph without cringing.

"I hate this picture," she once told me, "You were sick, and I didn't realize it."

She suspected something was wrong, though. By the time October rolled around, I had lost 14 pounds, which is quite a lot for an 8 year old of normal proportions. She didn't notice a change in my apatite, but she also didn't realize that my best friend's family ate dinner at 4 o'clock and that I was eating at Laura's house and then going home to eat with my own family at 6 o'clock, by which time I was starving. Literally.

With no insulin, the cells in my body were not able to use the food I was eating. You can fill up a car's gas tank to the limit, but if the ignition can't be turned on the car can't burn any of that fuel. This is what was happening in my body. No matter how much food I took in, my cells were still sending the message to my brain that I was hungry. My brain, figuring we must be in some sort of famine, sent out orders that my fat reserves and muscle should be broken down and consumed. If someone had thought to take my picture every day during this time, you could have seen me grow thinner day by day.

Sugar (in the form of glucose) fuels the human body. Everything you eat, whether it is a cookie, and piece of bread, or a t-bone steak, must be converted to sugar in order for your body to be fueled by it. The food I ate was being converted into to sugar (glucose), as were the soft tissues of my body that were being broken down due to the perceived famine at hand. Since this sugar could not be burned, it built up in my bloodstream. When my kidneys noticed this, they were overwhelmed, and sent an order to my brain that I needed to drink some water to flush all this stuff out. So I began to drink water. And more water. And more water.

I can't describe the thirst; it was intense. I always craved water, and as soon as I drank it I needed to relieve myself, as my kidneys were shouting,

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>