I was born on September eighteenth, nineteen eighty-five in the west end of Edmonton, Alberta.  Seven and a half years later while seated in a doctor’s office somewhere in that same city it was announced that I was a type one diabetic.  At the time I had no idea what diabetes was or how it was about to change my life.

Up to that point in my life I was what you could describe as a pretty ordinary girl.  I had an overactive imagination, loved to play around all day, and had a tendency for getting myself hurt in ridiculous accidents.  Sitting in the doctor’s office that February morning I thought that diabetes was just another of those ridiculous accidents.  Looking back it is hard for me to believe I was ever that naïve.

For those who are unaware of what diabetes is I will attempt to enlighten you.  Diabetes comes in three forms; the most common being type two, or adult onset diabetes.  In the case of type two the pancreas, one of those weird organs that you learn about in biology but are never really clear as to what it actually does, is functioning but for some reason the body isn’t using the hormone it creates, known as insulin, properly.  Insulin allows glucose, otherwise known as sugar, to enter into the body’s cells from the blood stream.  No insulin and the sugars stay in the blood.  When you have too much sugar in the blood stream you get sick.

Type two diabetes is usually reversible if caught early enough.  Type one is a different story.  Basically my pancreas was attacked by my immune system and the insulin producing cells where destroyed.  As a result I inject myself with synthetic insulin at least twice daily.  I also have to monitor my blood sugar levels via a small blood test at least four times a day.  I’ve been doing this for almost thirteen years now.

In the end I can’t complain too much, before the discovery of synthetically produced insulin diabetes killed more people than cancer. If you look at pictures of diabetics from way back when and victims of the holocaust you may be hard pressed to tell which is which.  The treatment for the disease back then was either to ignore it and allow the complications, such as blindness, kidney failure and heart problems, kill you slowly, or attempt to control the disease by starving yourself to keep your blood sugars somewhat normal.

But back to my story and that doctor’s office in West Edmonton some thirteen years ago.  My parents had brought me in for blood tests to determine what was wrong with me.  The months prior to my diagnosis featured me loosing vast amounts of weight, drinking excess amounts of water, running to bathroom every two minutes and undergoing huge mood swings.  I was acting like a pregnant woman who suffers from really weird cravings and I was only seven.

To this day I don’t know what possessed my father to go buy me breakfast while we were waiting on test results but I do know that the food he bought me that morning has become a symbol for me.  He returned from his mission bearing two items: a bottle of Sunripe orange juice and a homemade Nanaimo bar from the bakery next door.  Consider for a second the sugar content of both these items.  Neither are good choices for a diabetic’s blood sugar levels.

Completely unaware of the consequences of my meal I dove right in, only to have the horrified physician promptly remove my breakfast two bites later.  At this point the first of two questions formed in me that would mark my world turning completely upside down: Why did you take my food?

After a very clinical explanation that I have a condition (I hate that word) known as diabetes the second question came into being: What in the world is diabetes?

Sometimes I wish I’d never asked that question. I wish even harder that no one had answered it.