Genny Lofton

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes on Labor Day weekend 1975 when I was seven years old. My mom was a nurse and taught at the local Nursing school. She typically taught the pediatrics rotation classes and the endocrinology rotation classes. That particular weekend my mom had gone with some fellow nurses to a convention out of town. I stayed with a family friend. Saturday of that weekend I started vomiting and felt really bad. The lady keeping me kept giving me an orange carbonated drink (full of sugar) to keep me from getting dehydrated. I remember her telling my mom she thought it was just a bug and I didn’t seem dehydrated because I was going to the restroom a lot. My mom got home Sunday evening. As soon as she saw me, she scooped me up and rushed me to the ER. She was friends with the ER doctor. As soon as she carried me in he said, “Pat, she’s diabetic, can’t you smell her!” My sweet momma was in complete denial. She was supposed to know all about T1D — she taught people going to nursing school all about it. It was her favorite rotation. They checked me and my glucose was 685! I stayed in the hospital a week. It took me that long to get brave enough to give myself a shot. I was originally on Lily Pork Regular and NPH. I checked my urine in a little test tube with little tablets that turned the urine colors based on the amount of glucose in the urine. I can remember being in high school when Humalog came out. It was so exciting and “life changing!” I began pumping in 1998. I currently wear the Tandem tSlimx2 with the Dexcom G7. When I started wearing the Tandem pump in 2019, I called my mom to tell her that “cure” she’d always promised me was here! I am so incredibly blessed to have no complications and able to maintain an A1c below 6!