Shelby Donovan

I was never new to diabetes. My whole family grew up with type 2 diabetes so all my life I watched my grandma, great grandma, aunt, etc., giving themselves shots and talking about insulin and how much of a pain diabetes could be if not taken care of properly, so when I came home from a trip with my friend (we went to the country to visit her grandma for the summer.) and I wasn’t feeling too great (very tired, thirsty and just all over sick) my grandma immediately brought out her glucose monitor and pricked my finger. My sugar was almost 300. My grandma knew what was happening a little but she wasn’t prepared for me having type 1 diabetes. That’s when she called my doctor and we met them at the hospital, and that was when I started my week long journey to living with type 1 diabetes. (My doctor said my diabetes was caused by an unknown illness that my body tried to fight but instead ended up attacking and killing my pancreas in the process.)