A couple months ago a man who works with JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) called me and talked to me about opportunities I had through JDRF to get more involved. I check the JDRF website probably once a month to see if anything new has come up, but it was nice to really talk it out and understand what all the links online meant. After I talked with him, I went on the website to make sure I could navigate it a little better and get to the places that I was interested in and the hashtag, #T1DLOOKSLIKEME was all over the site.
Some of you may not know, but November is National Diabetes Awareness Month. JDRF uses the hashtag, #T1DLOOKSLIKEME, as a statement that Diabetes doesn’t look the same. Not all diabetics look the same, and not all Type 1 diabetics look the same.
When I was in the hospital just 4 1/2 years ago getting diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, it seemed like because I all of a sudden found out I had this auto immune disease that I wasn’t who I thought I was that I somehow was someone else. And I think a lot of people, especially people who are diagnosed later in life, go through that same feeling.
Type 1 Diabetes takes a lot of work, a lot more work than I ever would have imagined that’s for sure. It takes so much work that I think when some people are going through those feelings of not knowing who they are anymore and they now have to really know their body and introduce themselves to themselves, they get overshadowed and they let their type 1 diabetes control them. They are no longer Hannah or Ben or Sarah or Jake or whatever their name is. They are Type 1 Diabetics. They are the finger pricks and they are the high blood sugars and they are the low blood sugars and that’s just who they are, they are Type 1 Diabetes instead of being Sarah and Sarah just happens to have Type 1 Diabetes.
At first, it’s so overwhelming and it’s so easy to let Diabetes control your life. But I feel really lucky that I realized that I’m more than just a Type 1 Diabetic. I’m a student at a great school, Berry College, where I’m also a collegiate athlete on the soccer team and I’m a personal trainer and I’m a nutrition specialist and I’m a Cage Center Supervisor and a Youth Intern at a wonderful and loving church. I’m a girl that loves to love and loves to laugh and a girl that has struggled with her faith but knows that God loves her and most of all, I’m a girl that’s still figuring out who she is.
This November, I hope all of you take some time to learn about diabetes, to accept people with diabetes and that they all don’t look the same, and to see what all Type 1 Diabetes can do in this world. Because when #T1DLOOKSLIKEME and Type 1 Diabetes looks like you and your friend and the stranger on the street, we can find not only a cure, but beauty in it all.