Dominic Young

On September 23rd, 2014, I was diagnosed with T1D. I was nine years old, and about a month into the school year of being a fourth grader. A month may feel like a lot of time, but in retrospect it goes by quickly. I knew my classmates and peers’ names, and some interests here and there, but I didn’t know them yet as people.

When I came back to school after an absence, with a new trait part of myself that I didn’t want to broadcast to an unfamiliar group of peers, I felt isolated. My routine was interrupted by new obstacles, of learning how to count carbs and give myself injections, and poke and poke and poke several times a day to make sure that my blood sugar fell within the right ranges. At first, I dreaded going to the nurse’s office everyday at lunchtime ahead of the class, fearing that what felt like a spotlight on the fact I was slightly deviating from the routine would outcast me.

That was far from the truth.

The nurse’s office was just the beginning of learning that I wasn’t alone. There were three other kids that year that were also diabetic. While none were in my class, one was around my age, and the others were close enough to it. We didn’t become friends, but it was a show of how I wasn’t the only person with diabetes.

In the ten years since that diagnosis, I have never felt more truly connected to a community. I’ve made friends through years of attending the ADA camps close to me, and had some of the best summers of my life all thanks to being in a welcoming, enthusiastic place designated just for kids like me.

When I received my first tattoo, it was a medical alert on my arm, proclaiming to the world that I have T1D. It has yet to become useful in an emergency (which thankfully I have had none since getting it), but it has started conversations with the few that see it closely. I’ve had some of the best conversations at theme parks, and concerts, and fan conventions, and all events in between from seeing a pump or a CGM among a crowd.

Diabetes has changed my life, there is no doubt about that, but it’s given me some of the greatest sense of belonging above all of the trials and tribulations.