It was the summer of 2001, I was 19 years old. I started working at a photography studio, the kind that develops school pictures. I was working with a lot of chemicals and would come home after work feeling really sick and smelling like glue (I later found out the smell was not from the chemicals but ketones that were in my blood from the high blood sugar) I was really very nauseated and thought it must be from the chemicals I was working with to develop the photos, and also the cause of the rash I had, so I thought it best to leave that job, eventually obviously I found out later the sickness was not from the chemicals.
I remember that summer being really hot and making me thirsty, I don't know if that summer was really all that hot, but I blamed my thirst on that reasoning. I could not get enough to drink! I was always a very active kid and teenager, but lately all I wanted to do was sleep. My mom of course thought I was starting to become lazy, then she thought maybe I was on drugs because all I wanted to do was sleep all the time, I stopped hanging out with my friends completely. She then thought maybe I was anorexic, I lost so much weight, I noticed my weight loss too, I thought it was because I started doing leg lifts, haha I laugh at this now!
I went for a walk to my sister's place, she lived down the street from us at the time, we sat outside on her front steps and she noticed this giant bruise on the side of my calf. It started just below my knee to above my ankle. It was a very strange blue-green-yellow-brown but not like a normal bruise color, it was also a very hard lump which was weird. I thought a bug must have laid eggs in my leg. She took me to the doctor to have it checked out. I was convinced a bug laid eggs in my leg and stressed this to the doctor, he laughed at me and told me that was ridiculous Canada doesn't have those kinds of insects. He sent me to the lab for blood tests and told me they would call if anything. I also was getting a bunch of little bruises all over my arms and legs at this time.
A few weeks go by, no phone call so I think everything is fine. Actually I forgot all about that appointment and went on with my summer. Closer to fall I went out for lunch with my mom and ordered a large root beer, and another and another and another, I took two bites of my food and just wanted to drink something anything, I was so thirsty the water in the mop pail looked really good! My mom noticed this, and I noticed her worried look. She was married to my dad when he was first diagnosed with his type 1 diabetes at the age of 21, he was doing the same thing I was with the thirst. She started asking me questions, I told her about feeling sick, thirsty, headaches, the rash and the bruising and the smell of glue I could not get rid of.
I went to work at my new job I just started. My mom thought about everything I said earlier that day at lunch and how I had all the symptoms my dad had before his diagnosis. She got out my dad's blood sugar monitor and tested my blood sugar, it was 33mmol/L(594mg/dl) a person without diabetes normal blood sugar would read 5.0mmol/L. I was rushed to the hospital. In the hospital they did numerous tests on me, stuck tubes in my arms, the vein in my wrist where they tested the gasses still sticks out of my wrist and is very noticible.
The doctor eventually came back into the room after hours apon hours and told me what we already knew, I am a type 1 diabetic. Even though I knew before they gave me the actual diagnosis that night I layed in my bed and cried my eyes out until I fell asleep, I was really scared. I started having nightmares that my feet were going to fall off. A year before my own diagnosis my dad had his leg amputated.
The strange thing is a year before I was diagnosed I had recurring nightmares that some really bad scary person was chasing me with a needle, and if he caught me and stabbed me with it I was going to get diabetes. I always got away in every dream but he kept getting closer and closer, then he caught me and that was the last time I had that dream.
I remember that summer being really hot and making me thirsty, I don't know if that summer was really all that hot, but I blamed my thirst on that reasoning. I could not get enough to drink! I was always a very active kid and teenager, but lately all I wanted to do was sleep. My mom of course thought I was starting to become lazy, then she thought maybe I was on drugs because all I wanted to do was sleep all the time, I stopped hanging out with my friends completely. She then thought maybe I was anorexic, I lost so much weight, I noticed my weight loss too, I thought it was because I started doing leg lifts, haha I laugh at this now!
I went for a walk to my sister's place, she lived down the street from us at the time, we sat outside on her front steps and she noticed this giant bruise on the side of my calf. It started just below my knee to above my ankle. It was a very strange blue-green-yellow-brown but not like a normal bruise color, it was also a very hard lump which was weird. I thought a bug must have laid eggs in my leg. She took me to the doctor to have it checked out. I was convinced a bug laid eggs in my leg and stressed this to the doctor, he laughed at me and told me that was ridiculous Canada doesn't have those kinds of insects. He sent me to the lab for blood tests and told me they would call if anything. I also was getting a bunch of little bruises all over my arms and legs at this time.
A few weeks go by, no phone call so I think everything is fine. Actually I forgot all about that appointment and went on with my summer. Closer to fall I went out for lunch with my mom and ordered a large root beer, and another and another and another, I took two bites of my food and just wanted to drink something anything, I was so thirsty the water in the mop pail looked really good! My mom noticed this, and I noticed her worried look. She was married to my dad when he was first diagnosed with his type 1 diabetes at the age of 21, he was doing the same thing I was with the thirst. She started asking me questions, I told her about feeling sick, thirsty, headaches, the rash and the bruising and the smell of glue I could not get rid of.
I went to work at my new job I just started. My mom thought about everything I said earlier that day at lunch and how I had all the symptoms my dad had before his diagnosis. She got out my dad's blood sugar monitor and tested my blood sugar, it was 33mmol/L(594mg/dl) a person without diabetes normal blood sugar would read 5.0mmol/L. I was rushed to the hospital. In the hospital they did numerous tests on me, stuck tubes in my arms, the vein in my wrist where they tested the gasses still sticks out of my wrist and is very noticible.
The doctor eventually came back into the room after hours apon hours and told me what we already knew, I am a type 1 diabetic. Even though I knew before they gave me the actual diagnosis that night I layed in my bed and cried my eyes out until I fell asleep, I was really scared. I started having nightmares that my feet were going to fall off. A year before my own diagnosis my dad had his leg amputated.
The strange thing is a year before I was diagnosed I had recurring nightmares that some really bad scary person was chasing me with a needle, and if he caught me and stabbed me with it I was going to get diabetes. I always got away in every dream but he kept getting closer and closer, then he caught me and that was the last time I had that dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment