DIAGNOSED WITH TYPE 1 DIABETES IN 1989

On Being Diagnosed

“I was diagnosed June 9, 1989. I’ll never forget it. It was the end of my freshman year of high school. I didn’t know what was going on. I just knew I was losing weight, thirsty all the time, wasn’t hungry. I think I lost about 20 pounds. But it was when I stopped sleeping through the night, where I was literally getting up every hour to go to the bathroom, that it was like ‘Okay, something’s not right here.'”

“The first thing they did was check my blood sugar. ‘You’re 326, you’re a type 1 diabetic.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know what that means.’ But I got my first shot of insulin there, and that was the first time I slept through the night in a long time.”