Jennifer Otto

It was the summer between 8th grade and freshman year of high school. I had been sleeping a lot (I missed SO MUCH family time!) and having excessive thirst and urination. I love to read, and I had been reading my grandmother’s Physicians’ Desk Reference. I became particularly interested in all the algorithms that were like symptom checkers. One day I came upon one where I answered yes to a bunch of questions including the polydipsia and polyuria, and the end result said, in bold red letters, something like “you may have diabetes! Go to the doctor as soon as possible!” Soon after, I had a doctor appointment, and I told her that what I had found in the PDR. She checked my blood sugar, and it was 455. She made an emergency appointment for me with endocrinology, and the next morning I had my first appointment. He asked, “No one ever told you you have diabetes?” He was not very compassionate. I practiced injecting insulin on an orange and was sent home. Over the next 20 years or so, I had a lot of depression and family problems, so I shudder to think what my A1c might have been. I had never been told anything about life expectancy or becoming a mother, but when I was 23 years old I became pregnant for the first time. When my daughter was born, my A1c was unfortunately 9.3. Naturally, perinatology had been worried. My daughter on sonograms had “fat pads” on her heart; alas, she was born perfectly healthy. I then had two more children over the next 12 years, with the third one passing away at 27 days old in the NICU due to a cardiac birth defect that they said was completely unrelated to my diabetes. With my second child, my A1c was 8.3, and with my third child, my A1c was 7.2, which I had worked hard for and been proud of. For the last four years, I have been on a pump and CGM, and it has really changed my life. Four years ago my A1c was 10.3, and today it is 7.2. I have gotten it down to 6.8 before, but as we all know, stress and complicate life lol. Thus far, I have not lost any digits/body parts, I have no retinopathy or organ dysfunction (other than the obvious lol), my GFR is > 90, and I’m grateful to have access to the technology that has extended the lives of so many like me.