Type I Diabetes: A Short Story

June 18, 2009, a beautiful, summer, rainy night, the clock reads one after midnight and instead of waking up in my bed, I woke up in a hospital bed, wearing a hospital gown, and nurses huddled over me injecting needles into my bare skin. A million questions rise in the back of my mind with fear in my eyes. The last thing I remembered was eating a chocolate bar in my living room. I hear my brother across the room shouting, “Dad, she’s awake!” My father rushed over to me with joy in his eyes, “Hi sweetie, you fainted and I rushed you over to the hospital, you’ll be okay”. One of the nurses then explained to me that I have been diagnosed with type I diabetes. I could not have imagined that my life would make a complete turn at such a young age.
Living with type I diabetes has been a constant struggle. A beautiful, summer, rainy night turned into the worst night of my life. I was twelve years of age at the time I was diagnosed with type I diabetes.
I was lying on the hospital bed, hooked up to a bunch of machines, the strong smell of antiseptic in the air making my stomach turn as I was trying to wrap my head around what type I diabetes was. The clock reads four in the morning, “ beep… beep… beep” the sound of the medical equipment keeping me up throughout the night. I turn my head to my right shoulder; my grandpa scrunched up on the hospital couch beside me peacefully sleeping, while the nurses walked in and out of the room, pricking my bruised fingers every hour throughout the night to check my blood
sugar. The clock hit nine in the morning, the sun shining from the window onto my drowsy, sleepless eyes, and my head throbbing with unbearable pain. The physician and his nurses walked into my room greeting me with smiles on their faces. They led me through the basics of type I diabetes; how to manage and live with the disease, to check my blood sugar before and after meals, what to eat and what not to eat, the risks that I can develop if I don’t take care of myself, how to count carbohydrates and so on. I just lay there on the hospital bed, watching them with full of concern in my eyes, thinking I wouldn’t be a normal girl anymore. I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my cold, bare cheeks, “no sweetie, don’t cry, you’ll be a okay,” said one of the nurses. I couldn’t stop thinking of how this disease can affect my life tremendously at any given moment. Tick-tock-tick-tock, listening to the clock tick, another sleepless night of nurses walking in and out of the room, pricking my bruised fingers every hour throughout the night to check my blood sugar.
The clock reads six in the morning, the sun beginning to rise filling the room with light. I stare at the beige colored ceiling hoping to get to go home. Hours pass by, I hear a knock at the door, “good morning Rida, my name is Dr. Thomas” as the kind man shook my hand. “My nurses and I will be starting you on a Medtronic insulin pump”, said the doctor. “A Medtronic insulin pump replaces the need for frequent injections by delivering doses of insulin daily” said the doctor; the doctor and his nurses then walked me through the process of the Medtronic insulin pump. After the long talk I had with Dr. Thomas and his nurses, I was finally able to go
home.