Q: How did you find out about your condition?
A: “When I was four-and-a-half, I had a kidney infection. I was really sick and it got to the point where my mom took me to me to the hospital. The doctor tested my blood sugar and it was too high to read.”
Q: How can you tell whether or not a person’s blood sugar is high or low?
A: “You can tell visually if someone has low blood sugar. They might be walking funny, or they can be shaking. If that’s the case, then they need sugar. The most common conclusion that people jump to is that diabetic people can’t have sugar. But that’s not true. They still need sugar but only a small amount of it.”
Q: Does being a diabetic affect your relationships with other people?
“The thing about being a diabetic is that you have to educate people on what it is. If you want to be friends with them, then they need to know about it. Every once in a while, my friends would annoy me by saying ‘Hey. you need to check your blood sugar.’ They don’t offend me, but it is annoying. It drives me crazy”.
Q: How has this disease affected you?
A: “I live a life of a normal teenage girl, but the only different thing is that I need to check my blood sugar seven times a day and take my insulin shots. [Diabetes] doesn’t affect me in a bad way, but it tells me that I need to live my life differently.”
