Ten years ago I was a sixteen-year-old junior in high school and I was having a really fantastic school year. My choir was planning a trip to New York City as part of the “Lincoln at Lincoln Center” concert. I had just finished performing a major role in our school’s fall play. I was taking AP classes that were both fun and challenging. Life was good.
Yet there were little signs that something was wrong within my body—signs that went unnoticed for some time. For one, I was really tired. REALLY tired. I remember looking at an alcove by a classroom door and thinking the cold, hard linoleum floor actually looked like a nice place to sleep. My quadriceps began to ache dismally and I’d be completely out of breath by the time I climbed the flight of stairs to my locker. Also, in the middle of the night I would get incredible charley-horse cramps in my calves. In the morning I would wonder if the cramp was real or if I had dreamed it: Had I really hopped around my room in pain at 4:30am this morning? I also began drinking like a camel; just couldn’t get enough fluid in my body. I’d drive through Amigos (local fast-food restaurant) on the way to play rehearsals, get a refill on an enormous pitcher of Coke or Mountain Dew, and have the whole thing consumed by the time I had arrived at school, some three miles away. I remember being shocked by how terribly thirsty I was all the time. Sarah (Howard Baker) and I went to Omaha to see Les Miserable one weekend and all I could think about was how to find a drink during intermission. And you know how they serve drinks at intermission? In teensy little plastic cups. Not nearly enough to quench my thirst! And the result of drinking so much was, as you can imagine, I had to go to the bathroom quite frequently. At some point Charity and I were filming a video for some old camp friends out in Pioneers Park and I had to use the restroom SO BADLY. Now for you out-of-towners, Pioneers Park is a bit outside of Lincoln and has nasty rustic bathrooms. We either couldn’t locate a toilet or they were locked, so we drove back into town (me praying I wouldn’t wet my pants) and I hot-footed it into McDonalds. And, oh yes, Charity caught that lovely footage on camera. I remember watching that video later that day and thinking how UGLY I looked in a shot taken in an elevator of the capitol building. My jaw, forehead and cheekbones were so angular—the skin was stretched tight over my facial bones. Little did I know I had lost quite a bit of weight. My dad later noted that he began to wonder if I had developed an eating disorder. He and I had a daddy-daughter date night at TGI Fridays where I just picked at my huge salad (wasn’t hungry at all), drank a ton of soda and went to the bathroom several times. Hmmm…
All these symptoms came to a head one Monday in November. I nearly passed out in choir, went to the nurse, then lied and told her and my mother that I wasn’t at all dizzy and could certainly drive home. When I got home I ate a HUGE piece of fudge and went to bed. Later that day my mom took me to the doctor where a simple urine test revealed diabetes. She immediately began to sob and say “I’m so sorry” and I knew the diagnosis was not good. Not good at all.
There is so much more about my life with diabetes. More to tell in upcoming blog posts and more to teach others in everyday life. For now I’ll end this little story with a few final points… Being diagnosed with diabetes at age 16 was not a happy point in my life. But I went on to have a really wonderful junior year despite it all. I sang in New York City. I was an assistant director for our one-act play. A friend and I won first place at district competition of National History Day, and then second place at state. And so on… Diabetes is a condition to be borne, a challenge to care for, and so far, an incurable disease. My parents, my brothers, my church family, my best friends and my husband have all carried me through these past ten years. With such support as this, there is nothing to do but to rise to the challenge and take good care of myself.
P.S. If it sounds like I’m abruptly ending my story it’s because, well, I am! I have precious few minutes to write while Livia takes her morning naps and I’ve got more to accomplish in this time period today. More to come, more to come…
I am spurred on to write this letter by the happy squeals and laughter I hear from you right now. You are laying on the floor in the study, kicking one of Daddy’s card boxes and delighting in the cardboard echo it produces. Such pure joy lifts my heart and more than makes up for all the crankiness of the past week.
Your sixth month of life was a whammy. Filled with all sorts of “firsts,” it was a lot of fun for all of us. You attended your first Fallfest with church out on the Kerns’ farm and promptly lost your first tennis shoe (returned later fortunately). You ate your first food ever—rice cereal—and immediately caught on to the process of eating, smacking your lips between each tasty bite. The rice cereal compounded the, uh, gastrointestinal issues you had already been prone to with your iron-fortified cereal, so your second food ever was apple/prune juice! Tonight we’ll move on to sweet potatoes—mmm, mmm good. Your first attempts at using a sippy cup happened this month, too. (Until you came along, I had no clue that the introduction of the sippy was even an issue. But apparently it is. So hopefully you’ll get used to it now, making life easier on all of us later!) Just a few weeks ago your first tooth popped out and I think the second one will come along any day now. 
It’s the first teething experience for all of us and so far, we’re all experiencing some measure of discomfort. You experienced your first