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Living with
Diabetes
By Kayla Seman
Edison State Community College student
“I’m thankful for my struggle because without it I wouldn’t have
stumbled across my strength.” ~Unknown
When people hear the word diabetes the first things they think are: you
ate way too much sugar as a child, you must have been fat when you were
younger, I know you can’t have sugar, and the one that frustrates me
the most, “I heard you can cure that with cinnamon.”
There are many more sayings people come up with, but what they don’t
realize or understand is the struggles I live with everyday to just
stay alive. I was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of one. I
had the flu a week prior and doctors believe the flu had killed off my
pancreas, instead of attacking my other main organs. I’m lucky to be
alive today after being in a diabetic coma for four days. Here I stand
24 years later healthy as can be with only being 25 years old.
People just DO NOT understand anything about diabetes.
I must check my blood sugar levels by poking my finger 4-7 times a day,
sometimes more than that if I’m having a difficult day with my sugars.
Sometimes when I go to sleep, I wonder if I’m going to wake up the next
morning or if I’m going to have a bad low blood sugar, that won’t let
me wake up. If paramedics have to be called or my husband has to handle
me having a low, most of the time I get a glucagon shot in the thigh.
This shot is straight sugar and water and immediately helps bring up my
low blood sugar. After that shot has kicked in, my system usually takes
2-3 minutes and then my sugar goes straight over 300 and makes me
sicker than a dog.
When I have a low or high blood sugar level, it changes my judgment, my
attitude and the way I think. Having a low blood sugar level is not fun
at all; I get very sleepy, my body shakes, I’m miserable, I can’t think
the right way, and most times I even will argue with the person trying
to help get my sugar levels up. My husband is a God-send and a life
saver to me. I have said so many mean things to him when I’m low that
it’s unbelievable, but he quickly forgives me! A major thing with my
lows is when I have one and it’s a super low- like below 50. My body
and my mind get so worn out from it, that you better not expect me to
do anything for the rest of the day.
If I’m dealing with high blood sugar levels, I have major headaches and
stomach aches, so I just sit in the bathroom. Yes, I can take insulin
to bring me down when I’m having a high blood sugar level.
However, where people get confused is I’m not okay right away; my
insulin takes about 2-2.5 hours to get in my system. When my blood
sugar level does start coming down my stomach and body calm down, which
helps me feel a little better, but the thing I hate the most is how my
heart races so bad due to the lack of insulin.
Lots of things can make me go high. For instance, if I calculate my
carbs for my food wrong, or something goes wrong with my sites (tube
bent, or site came off), or even being sick with a sinus infection.
Infections can be a major part of my diabetes, and I can usually figure
out if I have an infection because my body won’t absorb the insulin
like it should. When I have a high, I like to sleep, which is
fine since it calms my stomach down faster, and I don’t sit there and
think about how high I am.
With my diabetes it can affect the Edison Core Values (Communication,
Ethics, Respect for Learning, Critical Thinking, Diversity and
Teamwork), but if I have a teacher who is willing to work with me it
won’t.
My ability to communicate is majorly affected by my diabetes. My mind
is worse when I am low, and you can either expect this sweet, loving
person or you can get the mean, hateful person. I am not in my right
mind during a low, so I can’t tell you which one you’re going to get. I
do get very frustrated with people when they hound me that I am not
taking care of myself. That to me is a big no-no; they don’t understand
what it’s like to live everyday with this autoimmune disease.
Critical thinking is also greatly affected, just like communication. If
I’m not running a good blood sugar level, then most of the time I can’t
focus on any subject. You can tell when I get really frustrated with
myself when I’m trying to work on something or talk to someone about
something and none of it comes out right. I get easily embarrassed by
my lows more so than my highs, since when I’m low I’m not thinking
straight, I don’t want people to see me like that since no one knows
what I might say or do. Highs on the other hand, aren’t as bad except
when I start getting sick, and no one wants to be around someone when
they are puking. Teamwork is another thing affected by my diabetes. I
try not to let my diabetes get the best of me when I am working with
others, since once again I don’t want others to see me with a high or
low.
Human diversity and respect for learning kind of go hand in hand for
me, I have strong opinions on the good and bad of each. With the
respect for learning, I am all for it. I have my struggles when it
comes to learning, more so than what a lot of other people have, so I
have to adjust myself to it. If I don’t have a teacher that understands
my diabetes (which I had two in high school), I get easily frustrated
with the whole learning part. And since my brain is easily affected by
my blood sugar levels, it will affect the way I think during a test,
which is a problem with me.
Some of my teachers would completely understand my situation and would
let me continue my test the next day, if I went high or low. Sometimes
I had teachers that would make me sit there and fail the test and ruin
my grade, because they didn’t understand how diabetes affected my
test-taking abilities. Some kids in my classes would even say that they
wished they had diabetes too, so they could get special treatment, like
me. During my academic career, I’ve pretty much been through it
all.
Human diversity can go either way. I know I struggled with the school
when they wanted me to go to the disabilities place to fill paperwork
out, so that teachers would help me when it came to my diabetes. I did
not like that, even though I understood why they wanted me to. If I did
go to the disabilities place, I feel like this is telling me I’m using
my diabetes as an excuse and I don’t want that. I want to know I’m
going to graduate with the grades I got, because I know my diabetes
didn’t stop me from doing it. Now for the other part of the
diversity, I struggle everyday with insurance and being able to afford
my supplies. Diabetes supplies are very expensive, which they shouldn’t
be. Its uncalled for, that something I didn’t choose to have, costs me
so much to be able to walk this Earth.
With all that said about diabetes, that is not all of it. My future is
bright as I continue the path of taking care of myself, but there are
struggles that I hope I won’t have to face. Diabetes could affect my
eyesight, heart, kidneys, nerve system, feet/legs. I’ve watched people
not take care of their diabetes to the point they end up losing a foot;
that has opened my eyes of taking care of myself. Yes, I have good and
bad days but honestly who doesn’t?
I’ve always been told, “God gives his hardest battles to his strongest
soldiers.” I have diabetes, diabetes doesn’t have me. It doesn’t define
who I am as a person, but it has made me who I am today.
Editor’s Note:
Kayla Seman, an Edison State student, was in the Summer 2018
Fundamentals of Communication class. This essay was part of a class
assignment, and is being printed with permission.
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