Michelle Hefty

I spent my 12th birthday in the hospital when I was diagnosed. I was told I was very near being in a diabetic coma and extremely dehydrated. I was a walking skeleton that couldn’t make it through a day ay school. I slept all day, and peed 7 times one night. We learned how important the signs and symptoms of T1D were. I had a very progressive pediatrician and I was started on multiple injections a day. Myself and immediate family all learned how to do injections using an orange, and all had to practice giving injections to each other using saline solution. I was taught good nutrition as well as the old diabetic exchanges, no counting carbs yet. We peed on a stick to get our blood glucose range, no finger sticks, only a full blood draw from the arm to get an actual glucose reading. Oh, and I was also told that I may only live to my 40s, and absolutely no pancreatic transplants. As a teenager I would rebel, I wanted to be just like my friends.

College was better, then I got pregnant and my world changed. I now had someone growing inside my body and my focus turned toward taking better care of myself to be able to see him grow, mature and provide me with grandkids. When I was pregnant I had to fight the insurance company to get a blood glucose monitor, and it was not the easy monitors we have today. I had to calibrate with a known bg liquid before I could do the fingerstick. Life progressed, research advanced, and so did our predicted life span. I threw a big 40th birthday party. I’ve had laser treatments for retinopathy, I experience some neuropathy in my legs, but all have actually improved thanks to the research allowing me to become healthier and tighter in control.

Here we are, I say ‘we’ because it took a team of family, friends, doctors, nurses, and researchers to get me to where I am today. I’ve been pumping and using an integrated system and it’s the closest to feeling ‘normal’ again.

I’m currently 64 years young, and yes I have bad days, but I’m enjoying life chasing around my grandkids and spending all the time I can with family. I’m thankful.